PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

[The story] escaped the notice of Nachmanides Moses ben Nachman (1194–1270), a leading medieval Jewish scholar and Bahya Bahya ben Asher (1255–1340), author of a popular commentary on the Torah until after the death of Joseph, that is, in the 54th year after the death of Jacob. Yet they all cite the Son of Gorion original: "Gorionidem," referring to the author of Josippon, a medieval history of the Jews, whom perhaps none of them actually saw when they were writing these things. Furthermore, the timeline itself contradicts the possibility that Zepho could be Janus (whom Abarbanel clumsily confuses with Saturn), a case where Hulsius Antonius Hulsius (1615–1685), a Dutch theologian and Hebraist has exposed Abarbanel’s notable deception in the work cited, page 135.

4. Abarbanel himself, in the cited place, admits that the Italians were founded by Kittim, the grandson of Japheth; how then can they be derived from Zepho, the grandson of Esau, who comes from the descendants of Shem? He responds that Zepho and his people changed the Italians into Idumeans Edomites. A strange metamorphosis! original Greek: μεταμόρφωσις (metamorphōsis) And what if the Italians had instead changed those few Idumeans in their midst into Italians? Away with such a thought! original Greek: ἄπεγε (apege)

5. Finally, the whole fable is cut down by Abarbanel’s own fellow countrymen. For in the Yalkut The Yalkut Shimoni, a major collection of midrash (Jewish legal and homiletic stories), Part 1, page 50, column 1, middle; in the Beth Israel from the tractate Sotah, chapter 1, commentary 46; and in the Tsenah u-Renah original: "Zennorenna", Section Vayechi original Hebrew: ויחי, folio 65, column 3, it is narrated that the sons of Ishmael, Esau, and Keturah came to fight against Joseph. However, when they saw the crown of Joseph placed upon the bier of Jacob, each of them took the crowns from their own heads and placed them on that same bier. Therefore, no one fought, no one was captured, and no one escaped by flight to Italy. These brothers are like the sons of Cadmus, fighting amongst themselves! A reference to a Greek myth where brothers born from dragon's teeth killed one another; here it suggests Jewish sources are mutually destructive or contradictory.

II. Abarbanel proposes a similar fabrication from the Son of Gorion: namely, that Magdiel, one of the descendants of Esau, was the first founder of the Roman region. Therefore (he argues), the Romans are Idumeans.

Response 1. This, whatever it is, is asserted without proof. We want reasons given to us, not mere words. Indeed, one wonders with what audacity this thoughtless Rabbi can contradict the Jerusalem Talmud, in which (in the Tractate Avodah Zarah original Hebrew: ע"ז; "Foreign Worship" or "Idolatry", chapter 1) Remus and Romulus are quite clearly said to have laid the first foundations of the city of Rome. The words are these: On the day when Jeroboam set up the two calves, Remus and Romulus came and built two huts at Rome, etc. Referencing the biblical King Jeroboam's idolatry in 1 Kings 12:28. But perhaps Magdiel is Romulus? Perhaps, however, he is not; certainly, for Abarbanel, Magdiel later becomes Rome itself. For a long time now, the Jews have ruined their own credibility with these most trifling fables about the origin of Rome (which you may see, if you wish, in Buxtorf’s Talmudic Lexicon, column 2230).

2. But even if the fable being told were true for a time: suppose Magdiel were both Rome itself and the first founder and inhabitant of Rome—does it follow that all Romans and Italians will be Idumeans? Would not the Israelites occupying Canaan have been Canaanites by that logic, since they were the first founders of their own settlements? But the Idumeans could have led colonies into Italy afterward—but they also could not have. Even if they had: how many times, I ask, has Italy changed its inhabitants and been subdued by other peoples, with the old ones driven out and the settlers ordered to migrate? We could cite the Greeks,

B 2