of Josephus’s works for historical study and our estimation of the histori-
cal man. As for history, it is no longer possible to imagine that some pieces
of his narratives are simply neutral or factual, begging to be stripped out
and presented in history books as facts. To remove elements from the story,
in which words and phrases are chosen in relation to others, merely de-
stroys their narrative meaning; it does not thereby produce facts. The logic
of recent analysis drives us toward viewing Josephus’s (and other ancient
writers’) historical narratives as artistic productions, not unlike historical
films that we may watch today. In both cases the art undoubtedly derives
from real events and lives, but we cannot simply move from the produc-
tion to some underlying reality.
As for Josephus’s life, it used to be that Josephus was understood first
of all by presumed facts of his life story, especially his “betrayal” at
Jotapata. He himself portrays his surrender at length and colorfully, with
his miraculous survival of the murder-suicide pact he first agreed to, on
the strength of his belief that he had a message from God. That story and
much of his reported behavior before Jotapata have suggested to modern
readers a distasteful duplicity and double-dealing with the people under
his care. Scholars used to feel justified, on the basis of these facts, in dis-
missing his writings as opportunistic.
The new approach emphasizes, by contrast, that we know nothing
about Josephus’s life apart from what he chose to include in his narratives.
If we seek first to understand them, we quickly realize that the matrix of
double-dealing and misleading the public, which he openly declares as his
program (Life17–22), was also part and parcel of elite political life in the
Roman Empire: these were not democratic societies with an educated
middle class and Enlightenment values. Josephus and his peers considered
it theirdutyto mislead “the masses” as the situation demanded, appearing
to support popular demands when necessary, seeking to terminate danger-
ous impulses when possible. Josephus must have portrayed his wily tricks
and deceptions in the expectation of respect, not condemnation, from his
audience. At any rate, since they are colorful literary creations, we cannot
extract them from the narrative, judge them negatively by our ethical prin-
ciples, and make them the basis for our views of the historical Josephus.
If we postpone our speculations about what may liebeneathJose-
phus’s literary legacy, and turn our attention to exploring the surviving
narratives in their literary and historical contexts, we begin to wonder at
the impact they must have made on whatever audiences he was able to as-
semble in Rome. He first, inWa r,explained the tragedy of the recent war as317JosephusEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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