Der jüdische Historiker Flavius Josephus setzt sich mit dem antijüdischen Alexandriner Apion (1. Jhdt. v.u.Z. – 1. Hälfte des 1. Jhdts. u.Z.) auseinander. Das umfangreiche Werk Apions ist weitgehend verloren; erhalten ist aber die Kampfschrift des Flavius Josephus gegen ihn mit zahlreichen Zitaten. Auch mit der Flucht der Juden aus Ägypten hat Apion sich befaßt:

[...] After stating that the fugitives numbered 110,000 [...] he [sc. Apion] gives an astonishing and plausible explanation of the etymology of the word “sabbath”!

“After a six days’ march,” he says, “they developed tumours in the groin [βουβῶνας], and that was why, after safely reaching the country now called Judaea, they rested on the seventh day, and called that day sabaton, preserving the Egyptian terminology; for disease of the groin in Egypt is called sabbo [σαββώ].”

One knows not whether to laugh at the nonsense, or rather to be indignant at the impudence, of such language. Clearly all these 110,000 persons were attacked by tumours. But if they were blind and lame and suffering from all kinds of disease, as represented by Apion, they could not have accomplished a single day’s march. If, on the contrary, they were capable not only traversing a vast desert, but of defeating their adversaries in battles in which they all took part, they would not have succumbed in a body to the tumours after six days. [...]

(Gegen Apion II 20-23; Josephus, The Life – Against Apion. Edited by H. St. J. Thackeray. Cambridge (Mass.)/London 2004, pp. 300 sq.)

Gut gekontert!