Laqueur’s cynical view (1970) of Bellum judaicumas a piece of Roman prop-
aganda must posit either that Josephus repented between the two works
or that he found a new way of serving his political interests (e.g., M. Smith
1956, 74–79; Cohen 1979, 148–51, 237–38; Schwartz 1990, 170–208).
I would like to suggest, however, that the apologetic motive, which is
obviously present, does not satisfactorily explain Antiquitates judaicae.Hav-
ing completed the urgent task of exonerating Judeans from complicity in
the revolt (in Bellum judaicum), why expend so much energy—and Josephus
admits his weariness (A.J.1.7)—writing another twenty volumes? Simple
refutation of slanders about Judean origins could have been done more
compactly. Moreover, nearly half of Antiquitates judaicae(from Book 13
onward), including four volumes on Herod and a detailed account of the
emperor Gaius’s death, has nothing to do with ancient Judean history.
What then? Did Josephus extend Antiquitates judaicaeto twenty vol-
umes in order to match Dionysius’s famous Roman Antiquities,as Henry St. J.
Thackeray suggested (1967, 69)? Did Josephus haplessly wander through
the post-biblical period, cutting and pasting large chunks of undigested
source material? Such views were popular during the heyday of extreme
source criticism, but they have long since been proven untenable (e.g.,
Laqueur 1970; Attridge 1976; Franxman 1979; Feldman and Hata 1988;
Krieger 1994). Was the apologetic of Antiquitates judaicae,then, meant to serve
some urgent political goal, perhaps to ingratiate Josephus with the emerg-
ing rabbinic coalition at Yavneh? Such an interpretation runs afoul of the
text itself and its implied audience at every turn: Josephus writes for Gen-
tiles a rambling narrative that is mostly hostile toward the Pharisees and
evinces no obvious rabbinic connections (see, e.g., Mason 1988, 1991, 1992).
Thus, the identification of an apologetic motive with respect to Judean ori-
gins, though accurate as far as it goes, does not explain Josephus’s gargan-
tuan effort in composing the 60,000 lines of Antiquitates judaicae(20.267).
It seems to me that the lengthy preface to Antiquitates judaicaepromises
much more than an apologetic. Indeed, a defensive posture is remarkably
absent. The whole body of the work sustains a positive appeal to Gentile
readers, to which the defensive elements are entirely subordinate.
The Preface (A.J.1.1–26)
After recalling his account in Bellum judaicum(1.1–4), Josephus claims that
he is now writing Antiquitates judaicaein the belief that the “whole Greek-
speaking world” will find this translation of the Judeans’ political history
and constitution “worthy of serious pursuit” (1.5). That Josephus’s global
ambition is highly exaggerated should not blind us to its tone; he does not
suggest that he is out primarily to combat false presentations, as he had