READING JOSEPHUS' "PROPHETIC" INSPIRATION IN THE CAVE OF JOTAPATA (J.W. 3.351-354) IN A ROMAN CONTEXT (original) (raw)
Related papers
Flavius Josephus remains an enigma. In his lifetime accused of treachery, duplicity, malfeasance, cupidity, cruelty, and assorted other crimes, Josephus has never lacked detractors and defenders. As a member of the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem, he was sent to Galilee in 66 C.E. to serve there as one of the generals against the Romans in the first Jewish revolt. In the summer of 67, under the most suspect circumstances, he surrendered to the Romans and predicted that Vespasian -then only a competent general and not an obvious candidate for the purple -would soon become emperor. After his prophecy was realized, Josephus joined the propaganda bureau of the new imperial family. During the remainder of the war he attempted to convince the Jews to surrender; after the war he explained why he did and why they did not. His explanations were contained in the Jewish War, which he wrote in the seventies and early eighties while living in Vespasian's Roman villa and supported by an imperial pension.' A traitor, then? A spineless opportunist? Sympathetic modern scholars have denied these accusations. Some, especially students of ancient Judaism and early Christianity, have compared him with Jeremiah, while others, especially students of Greco-Roman antiquity, have compared him with Polybius.2 In this paper I shall attempt to coordinate these two approaches and to determine what the * The Book of Jeremiah is cited with slight modifications from the recent Jewish Publication Society version (Philadelphia, 1978); all other translations are mine. The works of Josephus are cited by the following abbreviations: JW = Jewish War; JA = Jewish Antiquities; Vi = Vita; AA -Against Apion.
Thinking through Josephus and his Readers
2017
rom antiquity to the present day Yosef ben Matityahu, alias Titus Flavius Iosephus, has been undoubtedly the best source on the history of Judea in the Roman period and on the history of the Second Temple period in general. Without Josephus we would know little about the Jewish War and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE; or indeed on Judean politics and society in the Roman period, on king Herod, but also on the intellectual traditions that formed Josephus' own sources. A Jewish priest of royal descent born in Jerusalem in 37 CE, a leader of the Jewish revolt against Rome, and thereafter, a friend of the Flavians, a Roman citizen, and a writer in Rome, Josephus is a multifaceted figure that is hard to confine under a single label. Was he a Roman historian? Was he an historian at all? Serious or critical engagement with his work has emerged since the 1970s. Previously, scholars regarded him as simple and careless compiler, or a mine where information could be extracted regardless of its context, audience, aims, literary form: that was the 'classical conception of Josephus'.
Ancient Editors of Josephus Jewish War 2023 04
There were late classical and medieval scribes, translators, apologists, and authors who had no compunction about modifying the text of Flavius Josephus' works, either to use the altered text to support their own arguments, or to add drama to the story they were telling. In the autobiographical section of "War of the Jews", Josephus recounts how he commanded the Jewish forces who were besieged by the Romans at Jotapata. This episode has been altered to present Josephus as a pious man aceeding to God's will, a trickster, or a thug who used the threat of violence to get his own way, in different versions of Jewish War. This essay examines the different versions of Josephus castingg lots for his life.
Between Triumph and Tragedy: Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 7.121–157
Reading Greek and Hellenistic-Roman Spolia Objects, Appropriation and Cultural Change (ed. I.J.F. de Jong & M.J. Versluys), 2024
This paper looks at how Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in Greek in the first century AD writes about the Roman Triumph of 71 AD. This Triumph was celebrated by the new emperors Vespasian and Titus over Judaea (today's Israel), which they had restored to the Roman Empire after an uprising. The paper shows that Josephus' account is layered. On the surface he praises the conquering emperors, but if we delve deeper, he in fact displays pity with the conquered Jews. The paper focuses in particular on the objects from the now destroyed Jewish Temple which are carried along in the triumphal procession: the implied emotional evocation of the temple spoils is reinforced when readers recall two earlier descriptions of the temple treasures in Josephus' work. When looked at by uncomprehending ‘Roman eyes’, the objects are stripped of their symbolical significance, but those who have read Josephus’ work are in the know about their true meaning.