Eupolemus

This article is about Jewish historian. For other uses, see Eupolemus (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Eupolemius.
"Accos" redirects here. For the singular, see ACCO (disambiguation).

Eupolemus (Greek: ʾΕυπόλεμος[1]) is the earliest[2] Hellenistic Jewish historian whose writing survives from Antiquity. Five (or possibly six) fragments of his work have been preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea's Praeparatio Evangelica (hereafter abbreviated as Praep.), embedded in quotations from the historian Alexander Polyhistor, and in the Stromata (hereafter abbreviated as Strom.) of Clement of Alexandria.

A sixth passage which Polyhistor attributes to Eupolemus in Eusebius' quotations of Polyhistor is usually considered spurious as being dissimilar to the other passages quoted and has come to be called Pseudo-Eupolemus.

Style and vocabulary indicate the writing as also originally in Greek and the date of composition of the seemingly genuine passages is about 158/7 BC. That the author dates his work by the Seleucids rather than the Ptolemies suggests Palestinian rather than Egyptian origin. It has been speculated that the author might be the Eupolemus who was ambassador of Judas Maccabeus to Rome as found in 1 Maccabees 8.17f and 2 Maccabees 4.11.[3]

  1. ^ "Eupolemus". Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 7 August 2018.
  2. ^ Mercer dictionary of the Bible By Watson E. Mills, Roger Aubrey Bullard Page 272 ISBN 978-0-86554-299-0 (1990)
  3. ^ Martin McNamara writes: "The writer is probably to be identified with Eupolemus, the son of John, the son of Accos, who according to 1 Macc 8:17 and 2 Macc 4:11 was sent together with Jason son of Eleazar on an embassy to Rome in 161 B.C. to negotiate a treaty between the resurgent Hasmoneans and the Roman Republic. Evidently Eupolemus was a friend of the Jewish ruler Judas Maccabee and a gifted diplomat as well, since he succeeded in his mission. He may have been a priest since he speaks at length in his writing of Solomon's temple. He composed his work in the year 158/157 B.C." (page 222 of Intertestamental Literature, Martin McNamara, Glazier (Michael) Inc., U.S.; New Ed edition, Feb 1991, ISBN 0-89453-256-1).