Occasion and Date
Although theAntiquitiesturned out to be Josephus’smagnum opus,he
may not have initially intended it as a separate work. He claims that he had
planned to include ancient history already in theJudean War(Ant.1.6-7),
which he wrote in the 70sc.e.and completed before Titus died in Septem-
ber81(Life363). In the course of preparing such a comprehensive history,
however, he realized that the older material was too copious and so crafted
theWa ras a balanced monograph in its own right, with a matching begin-
ning and end (Ant.1.6-7). Presumably, this means that the first volume of
prewar history, covering the Hasmoneans and Herod (J.W.1), corre-
sponded to the final volume on postwar events (J.W.7). Reserving detailed
treatment of the more distant past for a later study, alas, put him in the fa-
miliar writer’s bind: the prospect of finishing the job was overwhelming.
He credits a wealthier friend named Epaphroditus—acommonname,
not yet convincingly identified — with constant encouragement to com-
plete the task (Ant.1.8-9), something he achieved late in Domitian’s reign
(93/94c.e.) at the age of 55 (Ant.20.267).Purpose
What exactly was Josephus’s task in launching this separate major work? In
speaking of his abandoned plan for a super-Wa r,he relates that he had in-
tended to discuss there “who the Judeans werefrom the beginning, what
fortunes they had experienced, under what sort of lawgiver they were
trained for piety and the exercise of the other virtues, and the number of
the wars they had fought in the long ages past” before the recent conflict
(Ant.1.6; note the martial emphasis). This, then, is what he will narrate in
theAntiquities.In casting about for a model of presenting Judean culture
to foreigners, he seizes upon the high priest Eleazar, who had reportedly
authorized the Greek translation of Scripture at the request of King Ptol-
emy II (cf.Letter of Aristeas33). What Eleazar had given the king, in keep-
ing with the Judean tradition of “not jealously hoarding beautiful things,”
was a Greek version of “our law and the framework of our constitution”
(Ant.1.10-11). Josephus brings all this together by declaring that his object
now is to imitate Eleazar’s magnanimity but also to go further: to render
not only the laws but all the Judean sacred writings into Greek, thus pre-
senting a history of “many strange undoings, fortunes of war, manly300steve mason, james s. mclaren, and john m. g. barclayEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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