uncongenial source or, better, on the ground that the story “concerns the
propagation of Judaism outside the Roman empire in a kingdom which
resisted the Parthian kings, the enemies of Rome” (Cohen 1987b, 425).
But I do not understand this suggestion, and Cohen does not clarify it.
Having concluded that Antiquitates judaicae(minus the Adiabene
episode) is opposed to conversion, Cohen must also isolate Contra Apionem,
which warmly welcomes converts, as atypical of Josephus’s perspective.
On the basis of some well-known parallels with Philo’s writings, Cohen pro-
poses that Josephus took over the latter tract more or less bodily from
another author and that its perspective is that of “an Alexandrian Jew of
the first half of the first century” (1987b, 425). Cohen is apparently will-
ing, in this case, to override his usual axiom that “Josephus was not a
mindless transcriber of sources” (1987b, 425).
Seth Schwartz deals with Contra Apionemin a similar way, though for
different reasons. Schwartz’s recent attempt to read all of Josephus’s other
writings as efforts to carve out for himself a place in the postwar Judean
political world leads him to dismiss Contra Apionemas basically non-
Josephan (1990, 23, 56n. 127), since it cannot easily be reconciled with a
picture of Josephus as a self-serving opportunist.
I cannot debate Cohen’s argument point by point here, but it seems to
me that he makes dubious assumptions about Josephus’s “negative over-
tones” and ignores important clues in the preface and structure of the
whole work of Antiquitates judaicae.Cohen’s excision—on the ground that
it is unrepresentative of Josephus’s views—of the Adiabene episode, which
is by far the most extensive conversion account in the whole narrative, is
unpersuasive. Cohen’s cavalier assignment of Contra Apionemto another
hand is an improbable stratagem. The language and major themes of that
tractate—e.g., the contrast between Greek and oriental historiography, the
strong priestly bias, and the itemization of anti-Judean slanders—are fully
anticipated in Josephus’s earlier works.
Of the seven references to conversion in Antiquitates judaicae,only the
first and last are described in any length; the other five are incidental to the
narrative. First, Josephus retells at length the story of Haman’s failed plot
to annihilate the “entire Judean nation” (A.J. 11.184, 211–212). Like his
earlier account of Daniel, this story allows Josephus to show how God has
preserved, in spite of all human designs, those who follow the laws. Jose-
phus joyfully reports that Haman and his co-conspirators ultimately suf-
fered the violent death that they had planned for the Judean people
(11.266–267, 281–293; cf. 11.212). Further, once Mordecai had been shown
favour by the king, many Persians converted to Judaism in order to avoid
TheContra Apionemin Social and Literary Context 153