to offer items of value to the historian; yet again, however, the primary concern of these Midrashim is not historical, but exegesis of Scripture and discussion of matters affecting the religious and social life of the Jewish people (Neusner 1988). Indeed, all the texts noted here serve to emphasize and underscore a view widely held amongst students of Rabbinic literature, a view succinctly articulated by Philip Alexander: “There is now a consensus that rabbinic literature requires very heavy processing before its potential as a historical source can be realised. The extent to which scholars engaged with this literature have done the preliminary work remains patchy” (Alexander 2010: 19). That said, Alexander is not unhopeful about future developments in the exploration of the Rabbinic writings in attempts to discover historical data. The way forward, he suggests, will be provided by “triangulation,” as he terms it: a rigorous cross-checking of information provided by Rabbinic texts with similar information found in Christian writings and pagan documents. Already there are those who are keen to follow his lead.
FURTHER READING
For the period before the Destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, a wealth of valuable information is now available concerning individual writings, ancient authors, prominent persons, political and religious groups, and socio-economic matters, which are treated in relevant, separate encyclopaedia articles (Stuckenbruck and Gurtner 2019). These articles offer essential bibliography. Individual, pre-70 texts have been critically discussed with careful attention to their origins and settings in life (Nickelsburg 2005); and their complex relationship to the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint has been described and illustrated in detail in a scholarly manner accessible to non-Hebraists (Kugel 1998). The apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings, since the discovery and analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls, have assumed new significance: Stone 2011 offers fresh and original insights into this literature, with an extensive bibliography. An important study of the literary genres employed in Jewish writings from the Second Temple period up to the end of the Talmudic period (Samely e.a. 2013) has cast light on the distinctive character and quality of Jewish interaction with surrounding cultures, which supplements our growing knowledge of Jewish self-understanding in the ancient world (Collins 2000). The early history of Rabbinic Judaism and the literature which it produced has come to be viewed more sensitively in relation to the general economic, social, and administrative life of the Roman world which hosted it (Lapin 2012). The Babylonian Talmud, which became the authoritative text (along with the Hebrew Bible) for Rabbinic Judaism, reveals how deeply embedded Babylonian Jewry was in its non-Jewish world, and, judiciously employed, can reveal important historical information about the ways Jews and non-Jews lived in late antiquity outside the borders of the Roman Empire (Kalmin 1994; Fonrobert and Jaffee 2007). For further reading on the Midrashim, a good and reliable guide is provided by the collection of essays edited by Teugels and Ulmer 2005.
CHAPTER 7 Josephus
Jan Willem van Henten
Flavius Josephus, born as Joseph ben Matityahu in 37 CE, was a Jewish priest who acted as commander of Galilee during the Jewish rebellion against Rome (66–73/74 CE) until his arrest at Iotapata (Iotape, Hebrew Yodfat) in 67. After his prediction that the Roman commander Vespasian would become emperor materialized, he was rewarded by the new emperor and spent the rest of his life in Rome as a historian (Rajak 2002; Chapman & Rodgers 2016). He wrote four works: a history of the armed conflict between the Jews and Rome (The Jewish War (BJ)), a history of the Jewish people starting from the creation of the world up to Josephus’s own time (The Jewish Antiquities (AJ)), an autobiographical work that demonstrates his credentials (The Life (Vita)) and, finally, an apologetic work called Against Apion (Bilde 1988: 61–122). Without Josephus we would know hardly anything about Jewish history from the mid-Hasmonean period until the destruction of Jerusalem (c. 125 BCE–70 CE) – the period that saw both the rise and fall of Jewish statehood and the emergence of Christianity. There is no unambiguous evidence of a Jewish reception of Josephus’s writings in antiquity. Passages in Greco-Roman writings imply that several pagan authors were familiar with Josephus’s writings (see esp. Suetonius, Vesp. 5.6; Cassius Dio 66.4; Tacitus, Hist. 5.13; and the Epitome of Aelius Herodian’s work), but Josephus was especially popular among the Christians, who have preserved and transmitted his works.
Scholars have long considered Josephus a mere copyist, who passed on materials transmitted to him without changing much. Recent studies including literary analysis have revealed that Josephus was a historian with a complex agenda of his own. He was a Jewish author who had contemporary interests, both personal and collective. The local elite in Flavian Rome interested in Jewish culture must have been prominent among his targeted readers, including the wealthy freedman Epaphroditus, who was his literary patron (AJ 1.8; Vita 430; Apion 1.1; 2.1, 296; Mason 1998, 2003b, 2005, 2011; den Hollander 2014). Some of his Roman readers may have been Jews, especially those connected with the Herodian family (Goodman 1994; den Hollander 2014: 263–279). Because Josephus was a participant (BJ 1.3), he claims special knowledge of the war between the Jews and the Romans in 66–70 CE, which ultimately led to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. He also claims to know that the course of events had God’s approval and that the Jews, therefore, had to accept Roman rule. The dramatic story of the defense and capture of the city of Iotapata (reported in book 3 of The Jewish War), during which Josephus surrendered to the Romans, proves this point. Josephus as a character in this story attests that the Romans had to win the war because God supported them. His surrender proved that he was a servant of God and not a traitor (BJ 3.354).
This contribution focuses on some aspects of Josephus’s significance as a source for the history of the Near East in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. I will start with briefly discussing the content of Josephus’s four works. The subsequent sections deal with the relevance of these works for the history of the Jews in Judaea and other territories controlled by a Jewish ruler, Josephus’s geographic information, the picture of so-called friendly kings that arises from his work, and finally, some of the passages about Diaspora Jews and other nations that figure prominently in Josephus.
Josephus’s Four Works
Josephus is a very important source for the history of the Jews in the Near East in the Hellenistic and Early Roman periods (surveys: Schürer 1973–87; Grabbe 2004–2020). A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period I-III. London (66–73/74 CE; references in Popovic 2011; Mason 2016a), which he introduces as the biggest war ever (BJ 1.1; cf. Thucydides 1.1; Marincola 1997: 17, 198–199; Rajak 1998: 223). The themes and key words introduced in the prologue indicate that rebellion (stasis, 1.10, 25, 27), banditry (1.11), and internal corruption are recurring issues in this history, which point to Josephus’s interpretation of the events that foremost radical Jews were to blame for the war and that the Jewish defeat was the rightful punishment by God (see, e.g., 6.110, 250, 288). Internal conflicts and the tyrannical behavior of Jewish leaders brought about the intervention of the Romans, with its devastating outcome (1.10, 11, 24, 27–28). Josephus aims at a precise report in War (1.3) and introduces himself as “a Hebrew by birth and a priest from Jerusalem.” In this way he not only claims to have expert knowledge as a participant and later as an onlooker (BJ 1.3; Marincola 1997: 134–136; Chapman 2005: 290), but he also points to his personal sufferings and announces that he will lament the calamities that befell his fatherland (1.9; also 1.11–12; Swoboda 2014: 238, 417–426; also Lindner 1972: 132–141; Mader 2000: 2–4; Price 2005: 110).
Josephus offers an extensive pre-history of the war against the Romans, which is narrated in books 1 and 2 (2.1–292) and already highlighted in the prologue (1.18), where he summarizes the events told in the main narrative (1.19–30) and also signals that his history will focus on Jerusalem with the temple as central location. The first event mentioned concerns the Seleucid King Antiochus IV’s capture of Jerusalem (168/167 BCE; BJ 1.19), which also anticipates that Jerusalem is the focal point of the conflict with the Romans.
The prologue to The Jewish Antiquities, Josephus’s most elaborate work,