Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

garding Jewish customs and important historical figures, including Judas

Maccabee, suggest an intended audience that was not familiar with the

Jewish heritage. The submission of extracts to Agrippa II and to Vespasian

and Titus suggests that Josephus wanted his work to be part of the public

domain.

There has been a long-standing but misguided view that Josephus

wrote his account as an instrument of Flavian propaganda. Crucial to this

view are the exoneration of Titus for responsibility regarding the destruc-

tion of the Temple (J.W.1.28; 6.236-66) and the numerous speeches of Ti-

tus pleading with the Jews to avoid allowing the Temple to become a bat-

tleground. It is important that these passages, along with the entire work,

are read within the context of the contemporary literary and political en-

vironment. Criticism had to be veiled and expressed with due care since

there was no freedom to voice opposition in an explicit manner. It is im-

portant to be open to reading Josephus’s account of the war, and the role

played by the Flavians, as one with nuance, in which irony was at play.

Hence, although the inscription on the original Arch of Titus declared he

was the first to capture Jerusalem (CIL6.944), immediately after describ-

ing the destruction of the Temple in book 6, Josephus’s reader was in-

formed that the city had been captured on a number of previous occa-

sions (J.W.6.435-42). The work is a complex combination of a defense of

the way Josephus and his associates behaved in the war and of the Jewish

community at large as it sought to live under Roman rule in the postwar

years.

Reception and Significance

Irrespective of who Josephus hoped would read and preserve his work, it

was within a Christian setting that his account of the war received its most

significant positive reception. Eusebius of Caesarea quoted large sections

of the siege of Jerusalem as part of his claim that the destruction of city

and its Temple were divine punishment (Hist. Eccl.3.5.7; 3.7.1-9). Conse-

quently, Josephus came to be regarded as an important source of the war.

Assessment of what value should be placed on the text has been tradition-

ally connected with discussion of the character of Josephus and the ques-

tion of the way he used sources. The fact that Josephus, by his own admis-

sion, was a leader in the rebel forces (J.W.2.569-71) who surrendered to the

Romans (J.W.3.383-408), and then offered advice and counsel to the rebels

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steve mason, james s. mclaren, and john m. g. barclay

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:04:10 PM