This new interpretation of Josephus' relationship to Greco-Roman historiography argues that classical motifs are selectively incorporated in BJ as a means of adjusting the reader's perspective, and are demonstrably related to the work's apologetic and polemical design.
This synthetic treatment of Josephus and his times has two aims. The first is to establish Josephus' attitudes to the various Judaean aristocratic groups of the first century - priests, descendants of Herod, certain sectarians - and how these attitudes changed. The second aim is more speculative: to connect these changes with actual changes in Judaean politics and society in the c. 30 years of Josephus' literary activity, a critical period of transformation following the destruction of Jerusalem. The first chapter examines Josephus' life from his detection to Vespasian, and suggests that Josephus always retained an interest in current public affairs, particularly those of Judaea. Chapters 2-4 discuss the changes of attitude within the Josephan corpus and place them in the context of the evidence of the coins, inscriptions, Rabbinic literature and pagan historians. It is argued that these changes allow us to trace the decline of the pre-66 aristocracy groups after 70. Chapter 5 argues that there arose a new aristocracy in the 80s and 90s, a rise which left its mark in Josephus' later work.
Flavius Josephus, the priest from Jerusalem who was affiliated with the Pharisees, is our most important source for Jewish life in the first century. His notice about the death of James the brother of Jesus suggests that Josephus knew about the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and in Judaea. In Rome, where he lived for the remainder of his life after the Jewish War, a group of Christians appear to have flourished, if 1 Clement is any indication. Josephus, however, says extremely little about the Christians in Judaea and nothing about those in Rome. He also does not reference Paul the apostle, a former Pharisee, who was a contemporary of Josephus’s father in Jerusalem, even though, according to Acts, Paul and his activities were known to two successive Roman governors (procurators) of Judaea, Marcus Antonius Felix and Porcius Festus, and to King Herod Agrippa II and his sisters Berenice and Drusilla. The knowledge of the Herodians, in particular, puts Josephus’s silence about Paul in an interesting light, suggesting that it may have been deliberate. In addition, Josephus’s writings bear very little witness to other contemporaries in Rome, so much so that if we were dependent on Josephus alone we might conclude that many of those historical characters either did not exist or had little or no impact in the first century. Asiedu comments on the state of life in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Domitian and how both Josephus and the Christians who produced 1 Clement coped with the regime as other contemporaries, among whom he considers Martial, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, and others, did. He argues that most of Josephus’s contemporaries practiced different kinds of silences in bearing witness to the world around them. Consequently, the absence of references to Jews or Christians in Roman writers of the last three decades of the first century, including Josephus, should not be taken as proof of their non-existence in Flavian Rome.
After 2,000 years, the writings of Josephus remain an important and relevant source for historians and Bible scholars. "Josephus - The History of the Jews Condensed in Simple English" takes one of his most important works and presents it to modern readers in condensed simple English--the first update of his "Antiquities" in nearly 300 years.Treasures of faith and history await the reader's discovery on each page. Find out about a prophetic and friendly meeting between Alexander the Great and the high priest, Jaddua. Learn important details about the first and second temples--essential for understanding the spirituality and religious politics in those times. This book is an invaluable resource for those wanting to quickly and easily access "The History of the Jews." Miriam has condensed the massive original text of Josephus into one easily read volume. The language is clear and simple--making this a valuable tool to help young boys and girls preparing for their bar/bat mitzvah better appreciate their rich heritage and history, and to see the hand of G-d directing the events recorded by Josephus. Original illustrations, a map, a table of equivalents, and a colorful timeline further contribute to understanding the complexities of the times about which Josephus wrote.
This study reconstructs the historical Pontius Pilate and looks at the way in which he is used as a literary character in the works of six first century authors: Philo, Josephus and the four evangelists. The first chapter provides an introduction to the history and formation of the imperial Roman province of Judaea. The following two chapters examine the references to Pilate in Philo and Josephus, looking at each author's biases before going on to assess the historicity of their accounts. The next four chapters look at the portrayal of Pilate in each gospel, asking how a first century reader would have interpreted his actions. Each chapter asks what this portrayal shows about the author's attitude towards the Roman state, and what kind of community found this useful. The conclusion distinguishes between the 'historical Pilate' and the different 'Pilate of interpretation' preserved in our first century literary sources.
In third-century CE Palestine, the leading member of the rabbinic movement put together a highly popular wisdom treatise entitled Tractate Avot. Though Avot has inspired hundreds of commentaries, this book marks the first comprehensive effort to situate Avot within the context of the Graeco-Roman Near East. Following his novel interpretation of Avot, Amram Tropper relates the text to ancient Jewish literary paradigms as well as to relevant socio-political, literary, and intellectual streams of the contemporary Near East. Through comparisons to ancient wisdom literature, the Second Sophistic, Greek and Christian historiography, contemporary collections of sayings, and classical Roman jurisprudence, Tropper interprets Avot in light of the local Jewish context as well as the ambient cultural atmosphere of the contemporary Near East.
Despite Roman claims to have brought peace, unrest was widespread in the Roman empire. Revolts, protests and piracy were common occurrences. How did contemporaries relate to and make sense of such phenomena? This volume gathers eleven contributions by specialists in the various literatures and modes of thinking that flourished in the empire between the second century BCE and the fifth century CE - including Graeco-Roman historiography and philosophy, Jewish prophecy, Christian apology and the writings of the Tannaitic rabbis - to investigate these questions. Each contribution analyses the discourses by which the diverse authors of these texts understood instances of unrest. Together the contributions expand our understanding of the varied politics that pervaded the Roman empire. They highlight the intellectual labour at every level of society that went to (re)making this imperial formation throughout its long history.
For centuries scholars have recognized the apologetic character of the Hellenistic Jewish historians, Josephos, and Luke-Acts; they have not, however, adequately addressed their possible relationships to each other and to their wider cultures. In this first full systematic effort to set these authors within the framework of Greco-Roman traditions, Professor Sterling has used genre criticism as a method for locating a distinct tradition of historical writing, apologetic historiography. Apologetic historiography is the story of a subgroup of people which deliberately Hellenizes the traditions of the group in an effort to provide a self-definition within the context of the larger world. It arose as a result of a dialectic relationship with Greek ethnography. This work traces the evolution of this tradition through three major eras of eastern Mediterranean history spanning six hundred years: the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman.