a chain of small, typical situations and events that led to unintended con-
sequences; in the process he tried consistently to redefine the standard
postwar image of the Judean national character. About fifteen years later,
inAntiquities–Life,he offered a detailed account of Judean history, culture,
and law from creation to his own time, masterfully distilling a single story
from the biblical narrative along the way. Again the focus is on the charac-
ter of this people with such a rich and ancient heritage of noble laws. His
final work (Apion) is a forceful and sometimes rollicking attack, appar-
ently designed for the same amenable audiences, on writers who have dis-
paraged the very aspects of the Judean character and constitution that his
Antiquitieshad celebrated.
Notwithstanding both traditional Christian and scholarly (ab)use, it is
becoming increasingly clear that we have in Josephus a major and ener-
getic spokesman for Judean culture in the Roman period.bibliography
General
Bilde, Per. 1988.Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, His Works
and Their Importance.Sheffield: JSOT Press.
Cohen, Shaye J. D. 1979Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as
a Historian.Leiden: Brill.
Edmondson, Jonathan, Steve Mason, and James Rives, eds. 2005.Flavius Josephus
and Flavian Rome.Oxford: Oxford University Press
Feldman, Louis H., and Gohei Hata, eds. 1987.Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Feldman, Louis H., and Gohei Hata, eds. 1989.Josephus, the Bible, and History.De-
troit: Wayne State University Press
Hadas-Lebel, Mireille. 1993.Flavius Josephus: Eyewitness to Rome’s First-Century
Conquest of Judea.New York: Macmillan.
Klawans, Jonathan. 2012.Josephus and the Theologies of Ancient Judaism.Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Laqueur, Richard. 1920.Der Jüdische Historiker Flavius Josephus: Ein Biographischer
Versuch auf Neuer Quellenkritischer Grundlage.Gießen: Münchow [English
trans. Caroline Disler at pace.cns.yorku.ca].
Mason, Steve, ed. 1998.Understanding Josephus: Seven Perspectives.Sheffield: Shef-
field Academic Press.
¾¾¾. 2001.Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary,vol. 9,Life of Jose-
phus.Leiden: Brill.318steve mason, james s. mclaren, and john m. g. barclayEERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
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