The identity of the Onias who founded a Jewish temple in Egypt during the Hellenistic age has been debated vigorously in the scholarly literature. Scholars assume that the founder was either Onias III in 175 BCE or his son Onias IV in c. 163 BCE. This study will suggest that there were Jewish temples in Egypt, including one founded by Onias, son of Simon the Just, at the much earlier date of c. 270 BCE, which, interestingly, would correspond to Josephus’s calculation that the Oniad temple existed for 343 years. A second proposed temple might have been founded c. 200 BCE. If we combine Josephus’s quotations of Polybius about the Fifth Syrian War and Porphyry’s commentary on Daniel 11:14 as found in Jerome’s On Daniel, we learn about a high priest Onias who went to Egypt with the Ptolemaic general Scopas and built a temple there.
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