Who
Was Josephus?
The Jewish priestly aristocrat, Josephus
ben Matthias (37-95 A.D.), who in his latter years adopted the name
Flavius while living in Rome under the patronage of the Flavian
imperial family, is "without doubt the most important witness to
ancient Judaism from the close of the biblical period to the aftermath
of the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E." (Louis Feldman, 2004).
His life needs little introduction, since he has thoughtfully provided
his own autobiography, a carefully crafted apologia to defend himself
against the expected criticisms of his fellow Jews, for defecting to
the Romans during the disastrous Jewish war. Not long after his arrival
in Rome as guest of the emperor, he began work on his detailed and moving
account of the Jewish War, in seven volumes, having himself been
a significant participant in its early stages. He can affirm that the
truth of his account of the war was attested by emperors Vespasian and
Titus, as well as by Herod Agrippa, all of whom had themselves taken
part in it.
In his greatest work, the massive, 20-volume
Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus re-tells much that is in the
Old Testament, adding many moral and philosophical reflections of his
own by way of commentary, and carries the Jewish story up to the 12th
year of the reign of Nero (65 A.D.), that is to say, to the very threshold
of the ill-fated Jewish uprising against Roman rule. To it he appended
a short Autobiography, to further justify his own behaviour as
leader of Galilee in the critical years leading up to the destruction
of Jerusalem. He consistently presents himself as a lover of Jewish
religion and culture, whose efforts to prevent his nation's chaotic
slide towards the disaster of 70 A.D. met with failure, through a combination
of malice and miscalculation on the part of others.
These important writing achievements are complacently listed in the
final paragraphs of the Antiquities (Ant. 20.11.2-4 = Book
20, chapter 11. paragraphs 2-4) where he makes the less-than-humble
but probably true claim, that no one else was as qualified as he, to
write the full story of his people. Josephus came from a distinguished
priestly family in Jerusalem, and was a morally serious young man, drawn
early to the Pharisees' ideal of strict adherence to the Law of Moses.
He tells how in later years he married a Jewess from Crete, by whom
he had two sons; how he received Roman citizenship from Vespasian, the
Roman general who spared his life early in the Jewish war. At the time
of writing the Antiquities (completed in the 90's of the first
century,) he was living in comfortable retirement in Rome, by grace
and favour of the Flavian ruling family, whose imperial competence and
generosity he duly praises in his commentary [Bk 12, ch.3] . He admits
that while as a Pharisee he should live in frugal simplicity, his ownership
of large estates in Judea made him the object of envy to many. Many
details about his part in the turbulent years A.D. 66-70 are in his
earlier account (the Jewish War,) written during the 70's, also in Rome,
already as a pensioned retainer in Vespasian's household. The defensive
tone of Josephus' Autobiography is explained by his need to justify
himself both to the Romans and the Jews. The Romans must be told how
he had, in the first place, tried to prevent the Jewish revolt and once
it was under way, how moderate and fair his conduct of the war in Galilee
had been, once he found himself, almost against his will, in charge
of the Jewish resistance there. His fellow Jews must be shown why Josephus
did not die in battle like so many other rebels, and especially why
he became the companion and confidant of the Roman general Titus, Vespasian's
victorious son, who did such devastation in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., when
the very temple itself was burned to the ground.
In his defence, Josephus appeals to the
divine guidance that ruled and shaped his life. He presents himself
as a man of wisdom and foresight, able to meet the changing needs of
tricky situations, and uniquely placed to plead the cause of his endangered
nation, after their inevitable defeat by the Roman armies. Despite appearances,
he remains a loyal Jew and spends his retirement in Rome, studiously
writing his histories and commentaries to commend his people's ancient
culture and religion to the respect of fair-minded, educated Roman citizens.
The value of Josephus' histories is great. He is our main, indeed almost
our only source, for the events of Jewish history in the first century
B.C., and our main source (outside the New Testament) for those of the
apostolic age (up to the 70's A.D.) It is to him we owe many supplementary
details about Old Testament personalities and events, and almost our
entire knowledge about Herod the Great (his statecraft, his building
achievements and his violent family hatreds,) and the explanation of
how Judea came to be under a Roman procurator, as it was in the days
of Jesus. His account of the Jewish war is given in colourful, sometimes
confusing, detail, and his account of the heroic and hopeless defence
of Masada (War, 7:8.1-6) shows his great skill as a narrator.
He describes the magnificent Herodian Temple in Jerusalem as it appeared
in its heyday, before the Jewish War (War, 5:5.1-7). By his several
accounts of the Four Philosophies (in Autob. 2., and Ant. Jud.
Bks. 13.5.9 and 18.1.2-4), Josephus provides a useful sketch of Pharisees,
Sadducees, Essenes and Zealots that throws light on various biblical
passages. This makes absorbing reading for Christians as well as for
Jews. Of particular interest to Christians is Josephus's reference to
Jesus, in the "Flavian Testimony" which says:
Jesus,
a wise man-if it be lawful to call him a man-for he was a doer of
wonderful works, a teacher of such people as receive the truth with
pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the
Gentiles. He was (the) Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion
of the leading men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those
who loved him at first did not forsake him; for he appeared to
them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold
these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.
And the tribe of Christians, so named after him, are not extinct at
this day. (Ant. 18:3.3.)
While the assertions in bold print-viz.
that Jesus was the Christ, and that he appeared alive after his death,-seem
to indicate some devotional manipulation of the text at a later stage
by Christian copyists, it remains that "shorn of of later additions,
it tells of Jesus' astonishing deeds and teaching, and that Pilate condemned
him to death" (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New
Testament, N.Y., Doubleday, 1997, p. 835). Brown comments later:
"Suspect is such fulsome praise of Jesus when we reflect that Josephus
was a Pharisee of priestly descent who courted Roman favor and who lived
in Rome after Nero's persecution of the Christians and was writing in
the time of the distrustful Domitian... [But] even if few scholars today
would argue that Josephus wrote the whole passage as quoted, most would
contend that Josephus wrote a basic text to which Christians made additions.
In vocabulary and style large parts of it are plausibly from the hand
of Josephus, and the context in which the passage appears in Ant.
is appropriate. The passage that follows it speaks of another arbitrary
or outrageous action, thus indicating Josephus' attitude toward the
treatment of Jesus by Pilate. Although some statements in the Testimonium
are fulsome and fit a Christian pen, other statements would scarcely
have originated with those who believed that Jesus was the Son of God,
e.g., "a wise man" seems an understatement. Granted how Christians
came to vituperate the Jewish authorities for their role in the death
of Jesus, "upon indictment of the first-ranking men among us"
seems bland. Moreover, we have no evidence of Christians in the 1st
cent, referring to themselves as a tribe or clan. The Testimonium...
may have been known in some form in the early 3d cent, by Origen, who
discussed the fact that Josephus mentioned Jesus without believing
that he was the Messiah." (The Death of the Messiah vol.
1, p. 374). John Meier also gives a cautious acceptance to this "Testimony",
since its location, at a distance from the story of John the Baptist,
and so contrasting with the Gospels' linking of Jesus and the Baptist,
would be "simply inconceivable as the work of a Christian of any
period" (A Marginal Jew, N.Y., Doubleday, 1991, vol.1, p.
66.) Earlier in vol. 18, Joseph writes about
John, who was called the Baptist:
for Herod killed him, who was a good man and ordered the Jews to practice
virtue, both concerning righteousness towards one another and piety
towards God and so to come to baptism. For that washing would be acceptable
to him, if they used it, not for the putting away of some sins, but
for the purification of the body; thinking that the soul was thoroughly
purified beforehand by righteousness. When others came in crowds about
him, for they were greatly moved by hearing his words..." (Ant.
18:5.2.)
.
He goes on to tell of John being killed
by Herod Antipas, in terms quite parallel to those of the Gospels. Many
other details in book 18 are vital for our historical picture of events
in Palestine at the time of Jesus, as is indicated by the multiple references
to Josephus in any work on the historical Jesus (e.g. Meier's work,
work referred to above). Josephus probably wrote in Aramaic, but supervised
the translation of his works into Greek. His own knowledge of Greek
was sufficient to allow him communicate with general Vespasian at the
time of his surrender, and express his prediction of the Vespasian's
later ascent to the imperial command. But he admits that the study of
foreign languages was not encouraged in the Palestine of his youth,
and that he had come late to the study of Greek. This also throws some
light on the probable (minimal) level of Greek known by the first followers
of Jesus. How did Josephus retain so much detailed information about
conditions in Palestine fifty and more years before the time of his
writing? Had he a phenomenal memory, or, more likely, did he keep notes
(for the Jewish War), and supplement them with visits to the best libraries
in the imperial city. We may discount the idea that Josephus had read
the Gospel of Luke, but he would have had easy access in Rome to the
archives of imperial administrators in the Provinces.
In particular, his information on the trial
of Jesus may well derive from some administrative record, since "granted
the obsessively suspicious nature of Tiberius in his later years, a
desire for detailed reports from provincial governors on any trial that
smacked of possible treason... would not be surprising" (Meier:
A Marginal Jew, I., p. 67). Of the shorter works of Josephus,
the more interesting is his apologetic work Against Apion, where
he debunks some misconceptions about Jews that were current in late
first-century Rome. His Discourse on Hades against the Greeks
is a little tract in just 8 paragraphs, insisting on the divine justice
in the afterlife, and on the Jewish belief in a personal, bodily resurrection.
For him, Hades is "where the souls of all people are confined until
a proper time which God has decided, when he will make a resurrection
of all people... which you Greeks... do not believe" (par. 5)-a
statement that helps to explain St. Paul's failure to convert those
at Athens, who shared in that same disbelief. Josephus, still an earnest
Pharisee, is calling on the "Greeks" (i.e. pagans generally)
to change their ways while there is still time, for "Whoever has
lived wickedly and luxuriously may repent; however, there will be need
of much time to conquer an evil habit." While this message is surely
a worthy one, it is as an apologist and historian of his people that
we see Josephus at his best.
These Courses 