Josephus by Norman Bentwich

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[Footnote 1: Ant. IX. x. 1.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. IX. xi. 3.]

[Footnote 3: Ant. IX. xiii.]

[Footnote 4: Ant. X. ii. 2. Comp. Is. 30:8_f_.]

While he thus cursorily disposes of the prophetical writers, he seizes
on any scrap of Hellenistic authors which he could find to confirm the
Bible story, or rather to confirm the existence of the personages
mentioned in the Bible. Thus he quotes the Phoenician historian
Menander, who confirms the existence and exploits of the Assyrian king
Shalmaneser. So, too, he brings forward Herodotus and Berosus to confirm
the existence and doings of Sennacherib.[1] He refutes Herodotus again,
doubtless on the authority of a predecessor, for saying that Sennacherib
was king of the Arabs instead of king of the Assyrians.

[Footnote 1: Ant. X. ii. 4.]

As with Ahab, so with Josiah, Josephus sees the power of fate impelling
him to his death, and substitutes the Hellenistic conception of a blind
and jealous power for the Hebrew idea of a just Providence. He ascribes
to Jeremiah "an elegy on the death of the king, which is still
extant,"[1] apparently following a statement in the Book of Chronicles,
which does not refer to our Book of Lamentations. Jeremiah is treated
rather more fully than Isaiah. Besides a notice of his writings we have
an account of his imprisonment. He ascribes to Ezekiel two books
foretelling the Babylonian captivity. Possibly the difference between
the last nine and the first forty chapters of the exile prophet
suggested the idea of the two books, unless these words apply rather to
Jeremiah,

"The two prophets agreed [he remarks] on all other things as to the
capture of the city and King Zedekiah, but Ezekiel declared that
Zedekiah should not see Babylon, while Jeremiah said the king of Babylon
should carry him thither in bonds. Because of this discrepancy, the
Jewish prince disbelieved them both, and condemned them for false
tidings.[2] Both prophets, however, were justified, because Zedekiah
came to Babylon, but he came blind, so that, as Ezekiel had predicted,
he did not see the city."

[Footnote 1: Ant. X. v. 2. Comp. II Chron. 35:25.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. X. vii. 2.]

The episode is possibly based on some apocryphal book that has
disappeared, and the historian extracts from it the lesson, which he is
never weary of repeating, that God's nature is various and acts in
diverse ways, and men are blind and cannot see the future, so that they
are exposed to calamities and cannot avoid their incidence.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ant. X. viii. 3.]

Following on the account of the fall of the last of the Davidic line and
the destruction of the Temple, Josephus gives a chronological summary of
the history of Israel from the Creation, together with an incomplete
list of all the high priests who held office. The latter may be compared
with the list of high priests with which he closes the _Antiquities_.[1]
These chronological calculations were dear to him, but perhaps he
borrowed them from one of the earlier Hellenistic Jewish chroniclers. He
takes an especial pride throughout the _Antiquities_ as well as in the
_Wars_ in recording the priestly succession, which served to emphasize
the antiquity not only of his people, but of his own personal lineage,
and was moreover congenial to the ideas of the Romans, who paid great
heed to the records of their priests.

[Footnote 1: See below, p. 202.]

As might be expected, he dwells at some length on Daniel,[1] whose book
was full of the miraculous legends and exact prophecies loved by his
audience, and he recommends his book to those who are anxious about the
future. He elaborates the interpretation of the vision of the image (ch.
3:7), but finds himself in a difficulty when he comes to the explanation
of the stone broken off from the mountain that fell on the image and
shattered it. According to the traditional interpretation, it portended
the downfall of Rome, or maybe the coming of the Messiah, an idea
equally hateful to the Roman conquerors. He excuses himself by saying
that he has only undertaken to describe things past and present, and not
things that are future. Later he disclaims responsibility for the story
of Nebuchadnezzar's madness, on the plea that he has translated what was
in the Hebrew book, and has neither added nor taken away. The story
probably looked too much like an implied reproach on a mad Caesar. He
adds a new chapter to the Biblical account of the prophet: Daniel is
carried by Darius to Persia, and is there signally honored by the king.
He builds a tower at Ecbatana,[2] which is still extant, says the
historian, "and seems to be but lately built. Here the kings of Persia
and Media are buried, and a Jewish priest is the custodian." Josephus
borrowed this addition from some apocalyptic book recounting Daniel's
deeds, and he speaks of "several books the prophet wrote and left behind
him, which are still read by us." The short story in the Apocrypha of
_Bel and the Dragon_, with its apologue about Susannah, affords an
example of the post-Biblical additions to Daniel, and in the first
century, when Messianic hopes were rife among the people, such
apocryphal books had a great vogue. Daniel is in fact elevated to the
rank of one of the greatest of the prophets, because he not only
prophesied generally of future events like the others, but fixed the
actual time of their accomplishment. It is claimed for him that he
foretold explicitly the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Roman
conquest of Judea. Anticipating the theological controversialists of
later times, Josephus sets special store on the Bible book that is most
miraculous, because miracle and exact prognostication of the future are
for his audience the clearest testimony of God. Hence the predictions of
Daniel are the best refutation of the Epicureans, who cast Providence
out of life, and do not believe that God has care of human affairs, but
say that things move of their own accord, without a ruler and guide.

[Footnote 1: Ant. X. x.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. X. xi. 7.]

When he comes to the history of the Restoration from Babylon, Josephus
follows what is now known as the apocryphal Book of Esdras, in
preference to the Biblical Ezra and Nehemiah, probably because a
Hellenistic guide whom he had before him did likewise. It is clear that
he based his paraphrase on the Greek text. His chronicle therefore
differs considerably from that given in our Scripture, and on one point
he differs from his guide. For while Esdras represents Artaxerxes as the
king under whom the Temple was rebuilt, Josephus, relying on a fuller
knowledge of Persian history, derived probably from Nicholas of
Damascus, substitutes Cambyses.[1] Our Greek version of Esdras I is
unfortunately not complete, but the book, differing from that included
in the Bible, must have originally comprised an account of Nehemiah.
According to Josephus, Ezra dies before Nehemiah[2] arrives in Judea,
whereas in the canonical books they appear for a time together. He
states also that Nehemiah built houses for the poor in Jerusalem out of
his own means, an incident which has not the authority of the Bible, but
which may well have reposed on an ancient tradition. The account of the
marriage of Sanballat with the daughter of Manasseh the high Priest,
which is touched on in our Book of Nehemiah, is described more fully by
Josephus,[3] who based this account on some uncanonical source. And
following the Rabbis, who shortened the Persian epoch in order to eke
out the Jewish history over the whole period of the Persian kingdom till
the conquest of Alexander, he makes the marriage synchronize with the
reign of Philip of Macedon. Josephus was anxious to avoid a vacuum, and
by a little vague chronology and the aid of the fragmentary records of
Ezra and Nehemiah and a priestly chronicle, the few Jewish incidents
known in that tranquil, unruffled epoch are spread over three centuries.

[Footnote 1: Ant. XI. ii.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. XI. v.]

[Footnote 3: Ant. XI. vii. 2.]

The episode of Esther is treated elaborately, and, following the
apocryphal version, is placed in the reign of Artaxerxes. The Greek Book
of Esther, which embroidered the Hebrew story, and is generally
attributed to the second century B.C.E., is laid under contribution as
well as the Canonical book; from it Josephus extracted long decrees of
the king and elaborate anti-Semitic denunciations of a Hellenized Haman.
He omits the incident of casting lots, and contrives to explain Purim,
by means of a Greek etymology, as derived from [Greek: phroureai], which
denotes protection. Here and there the Biblical simplicity is
elaborated: Mordecai moves from Babylon to Shushan in order to be near
Esther, and soldiers with bared axes stand round the king to secure the
observance of the law that he shall not be approached. We have some
moralizing on Haman's fall and the working of Providence ([Greek: to
theion]), which teaches that "what mischief anyone prepares against
another, he unconsciously contrives against himself." Less edifying is
the addition that "God laughed to scorn the wicked expectations of
Haman, and as He knew what the event would be, He was pleased at it, and
that night He took away the king's sleep." The Book of Esther does not
mention God: Josephus calls in directly the operation of the Divine
Power, but represents it unworthily.

With the completion of the eleventh book of the _Antiquities_, we
definitely pass away from the region of sacred history and miracles, and
find ourselves in the more spacious but more misty area of the
Hellenistic kingdom, in which Jewish affairs are only a detail set in a
larger background. Though Josephus himself does not explicitly mark the
break, the character of his work materially changes. He has come to the
end of the period when the Bible was his chief guide; he has now to
depend for the main thread on Hellenistic sources, filling in the
details when he can from some Jewish record. His function becomes
henceforth more completely that of compiler, less of translator, and his
work becomes much more valuable for us, because in great part he has the
field to himself. Although, however, the Bible paraphrase, with the
embroidery of a little tradition and comparative history and its
Romanizing reflections, which constitutes the first part of the
_Antiquities_, had not a great permanent value, for a very long period
it was accepted as the standard history of the Jewish people; and in the
pagan Greco-Roman world it appealed to a public to which both the Hebrew
Bible and the Septuagint translation were sealed books. It was written
for a special purpose and served it, doing for the Jewish early history
what Livy did for the hoary past of the Romans. If it was not a worthy
record in many parts, it was yet of great value as an antidote to the
crude fictions of the anti-Semites about the origin and the institutions
of the people of Israel, which had for some two centuries been allowed
to poison the minds of the Greek-speaking world, and had fanned the
prejudices of the Roman people against a nationality of whose history
they were ignorant and of whose laws they were contemptuous.

VII

JOSEPHUS AND POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH HISTORY

(THE ANTIQUITIES, BOOKS XII-XX)

Josephus is the sole writer of the ancient world who has left a
connected account of the Jewish people during the post-Biblical period,
and the meagerness of his historical information is not due so much to
his own deficiencies as to the difficulty of the material. From the
period when the Scriptures closed, the affairs of the Jews had to be
extracted, for the most part, out of works dealing with the annals of
the whole of civilized humanity. With the conquest of Alexander the
Great, the Jewish people enter into the Hellenistic world, and begin to
command the attention of Hellenistic historians. They are an element in
the cosmopolis which was the ideal of the world-conqueror. At the same
time the nature of the history of their affairs vitally changes. The
continuous chronicle of their doings, which had been kept from the
Exodus out of Egypt to the Restoration from Babylon, and which was
designed to impress a religious lesson and illustrate God's working,
comes to an end; and their scribes are concerned to draw fresh lessons
from that chronicle. The religious philosophy of history is not extended
to the present. The Jews, on the other hand, chiefly engage the interest
of the Gentiles when they come into violent collision with the governing
power, or when they are involved in some war between rival Hellenistic
sovereigns. Hence their history during the two centuries following
Alexander's conquests, i.e. until the time when we again have adequate
Jewish sources, is singularly shadowy and incoherent.

Josephus was not the man to pierce the obscurity by his intuition or by
his research. Yet we must not be too critical of the want of proportion
in his writing when we remember that he was a pioneer; for it was an
original idea to piece together the stray fragments of history that
referred to his people. It has been shown that in his attempt to stretch
out the Biblical history till it can join on to the Hellenistic sources,
Josephus interposes between the account of Esther and the fall of the
Persian Empire a story of intrigue among the high priests. He there
describes the crime of the high priest John in killing his brother in
the Temple as more cruel and impious than anything done by the Greeks or
Barbarians--an expression which must have originated in a Jewish,
probably a Palestinian, authority, to whom Greek connoted cruelty. And
in the next chapter Josephus inserts the story of the Samaritan
Sanballat and the building of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim,[1]
as though these events happened at the time of Alexander's invasion of
Persia. Rabbinical chronology interposes only one generation between
Cyrus and Alexander. The Sanballat who appears in the Book of Nehemiah
is represented as anticipating the part played by the Hellenists of a
later century, and calling in the foreign invader against Judea and
Jerusalem in order to set up his own son-in-law Manasseh as high priest.
Probably, in the fashion of Jewish history, the events of a later time
were placed in the popular Midrash a few generations back and repeated.
Jewish legendary tradition is more certainly the basis of the account of
Alexander's treatment of the Jews. The Talmud has preserved similar
stories.[2] According to both records, the Macedonian conqueror did
obeisance before the high priest, who came out to ask for mercy, because
he recognized in the Jewish dignitary a figure that had appeared to him
in a dream. And when Alexander is made to revere the prophecies of
Daniel and to prefer the Jews to the Samaritans and bestow on them equal
rights with the Macedonians, the historian is simply crystallizing the
floating stories of his nation, which are parallel with those invented
by every other nation of antiquity about the Greek hero.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Neh. 13: 23.]

[Footnote 2: Comp. Megillat Taanit, 3, and Yoma, 69a.]

Passing on to Alexander's successors, he has scarcely fuller or more
reliable sources. For Ptolemy's capture of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day,
when the Jews would not resist, he calls in the confirmation of a Greek
authority, Agatharchides of Cnidus. But he has to gloss over a period of
nearly a hundred years, till he can introduce the story of the
translation of the Scriptures into Greek,[1] for which he found a
copious source in the romantic history, or rather the historical
romance, now known as the Letter of Aristeas. This Hellenistic
production has come down to us intact, and therefore we can gather how
closely Josephus paraphrases his authorities. Not that he refrained
altogether from embellishment and improvement. The Aristeas of his
version, as of the original, professes that he is not a Jew, but he adds
that nevertheless he desires favor to be done to the Jews, because all
men are the work of God, and "I am sensible that He is well pleased with
all those that do good." Josephus states a large part of the story as if
it were his own narrative, but in fact it is a paraphrase throughout. He
reproduces less than half of the Letter, omitting the account of the
visit of the royal envoy to Jerusalem and the discourse of Eleazar the
high priest. For the seventy-two questions and answers, which form the
last part, he refers curious readers to his source. But he sets out at
length the description of the presents which Ptolemy sent to Jerusalem,
rejoicing in the opportunity of showing at once the splendor of the
Temple vessels and the honor paid by a Hellenistic monarch to his
people.

[Footnote 1: Ant. XII. ii.]

From his own knowledge also, he adds a glowing eulogy, which Menedemus,
the Greek philosopher, passed on the Jewish faith. The Letter of
Aristeas says that the authors of the Septuagint translation uttered an
imprecation on any one who should alter a word of their work; Josephus
makes them invite correction,[1] adding inconsequently--if our text is
correct--that this was a wise action, "so that, when the thing was
judged to have been well done, it might continue forever."

[Footnote 1: Josephus may have used a different text of Aristeas from
that which has come down to us. Or the passage in our Aristeas may be a
later insertion introduced as a protest against Christian interpolations
in the LXX.]

Having disposed of the Aristeas incident, Josephus has to fill in the
blank between the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus (250 B.C.E.) and the
Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes, nearly one hundred years
later, which was the next period for which he had Jewish authority. He
returns then to his Hellenistic guides and extracts the few scattered
incidents which he could find there referring to the Jewish people. But
until he comes to the reign of Antiochus, he can only snatch up some
"unconsidered trifles" of doubtful validity. Seleucus Nicator, he says,
made the Jews citizens of the cities which he built in Asia, and gave
them equal rights with the Macedonians and Greeks in Antioch. This
information he would seem to have derived from the petition which the
Jews of Antioch presented to Titus when, after the fall of Jerusalem,
the victor made his progress through Syria. The people of Antioch then
sought to obtain the curtailment of Jewish rights in the town, but Titus
refused their suit.[1] Josephus takes this opportunity of extolling the
magnanimity of the Roman conqueror, and likewise of inserting a
reference to the friendliness of Marcus Agrippa, who, on his progress
through Asia a hundred years before, had upheld the Jewish
privileges.[2] He derived this incident from Nicholas' history, and thus
contrived to eke out the obscurity of the third century B.C.E. with a
few irrelevancies.

[Footnote 1: Comp. B.J. VII. v. 3.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. XIII. iii. 2.]

His material becomes a little ampler from the reign of Antiochus the
Great, because from this point the Greek historians serve him better.
Several of the modern commentators of Josephus have thought that his
authorities were Polybius and Posidonius, who wrote in Greek on the
events of the period. He cites Polybius explicitly as the author of the
statement about Ptolemy's conquest of Judea, and then reproduces two
letters of Antiochus to his generals, directing them to grant certain
privileges to his Jewish subjects as a reward for their loyal service.
We know that Polybius gave in his history an account of Jerusalem and
its Temple, and his character-sketch of Antiochus Epiphanes has been
preserved in an epitome. Josephus, however, be it noted, has only these
scanty extracts from his work. The letters are clearly derived, not from
him, but from some Hellenistic-Jewish apologist, and the passages from
Polybius, it is very probable, are extracted from some larger work.[1]
Here, as elsewhere, both facts and authorities were found in Nicholas of
Damascus.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Buechler (J.Q.R. iv. and R.E.J. xxxii. 179) has argued
convincingly that Josephus had not gone far afield. For the genuineness
of the Letter, comp. Willrich, Judaica, p. 51, and Buechler, Oniaden und
Tobiaden, p. 143.]

We know from Josephus himself that Nicholas had included a history of
the Seleucid Empire in his _magnum opus_. He is quoted in reference to
the sacking of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and the victory of
Ptolemy Lathyrus over Alexander Jannaeus.[1] Josephus, indeed, several
times appends to his paragraphs about the general history a note, "as we
have elsewhere described." Some have inferred from this that he had
himself written a general history of the Seleucid epoch, but a more
critical study has shown that the tag belongs to the note of his
authority, which he embodied carelessly in his paraphrase.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ant. XIII. xii. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Comp. Ant. XIV. I. 2-3; xi. I.]

Josephus supplements the Jewish references in the Seleucid history of
Nicholas by an account of the intrigues of the Tobiades and Oniades,
which reveals a Hellenistic-Jewish origin.[1] Possibly he found it in a
special chronicle of the high-priestly family, which was written by one
friendly to it, for Joseph ben Tobias is praised as "a good man and of
great magnanimity, who brought the Jews out of poverty and low condition
to one that was more splendid." The chronology here is at fault, since
at the time at which the incidents are placed both Syria and Palestine
were included in the dominion of the Seleucids; yet Tobias is
represented at the court of the Ptolemies. Josephus follows the story of
these exploits with the letters which passed between Areas, king of the
Lacedemonians, and the high priest Onias, as recorded in the First Book
of the Maccabees (ch. 12). The letters are taken out of their true
place, in order to bridge the gap between the fall of the Tobiad house
and the Maccabean rising. Areas reigned from 307-265, so that he must
have corresponded to Onias I, but Josephus places him in the time of
Onias III.

[Footnote 1: Ant. XII. iv.]

For his account of the Maccabean struggle he depends here primarily upon
the First Book of the Maccabees, which in many parts he does little more
than paraphrase. Neither the Second Book of the Maccabees nor the larger
work of Jason of Cyrene, of which it is an epitome, appears to have been
known to him. It is well-nigh certain that in writing the _Wars_ he had
no acquaintance with the Jewish historical book, but was dependent on
the less accurate and complete statement of a Hellenistic chronicle; and
in the later work, though he bases his narrative on the Greek version of
the Maccabees, and says he will give a fresh account with great
accuracy, he yet incorporates pieces of non-Jewish history from the
Greek guide without much art or skill or consistency. Thus, in the
_Wars_ he says that Antiochus Epiphanes captured Jerusalem by assault,
while in the _Antiquities_ he speaks of two captures: the first time the
city fell without fighting, the second by treachery. And while in the
Book of the Maccabees the year given for the fall of the city is 143 of
the Seleucid era, in the _Antiquities_ the final capture is dated 145[1]
of the era. He no doubt found this date in the Greek authority he was
following for the general history of Antiochus--he gives the
corresponding Greek Olympiad--and applied it to the pillage of
Jerusalem. For the story of Mattathias at Modin, which is much more
detailed than in the _Wars_, he closely follows the Book of the
Maccabees, though in the speeches he takes certain liberties, inserting,
for example, an appeal to the hope of immortality in Mattathias' address
to his sons.[2] He turns to his Greek authority for the death of
Antiochus, and controverts Polybius, who ascribes the king's distemper
to his sacrilegious desire to plunder a temple of Diana in Persia.
Josephus, with a touch of patriotism and an unusual disregard of the
feelings of his patrons, who can hardly have liked the implied parallel,
says it is surely more probable that he lost his life because of his
pillage of the Jewish Temple. In confirmation of his theory he appeals
to the materialistic morality of his audience, arguing that the king
surely would not be punished for a wicked intention that was not
successful. He states also that Judas was high priest for three years,
which is not supported by the Jewish record;[3] and he passes over the
miracle of the oil at the dedication of the Temple, and ascribes the
name of the feast to the fact that light appeared to the Jews. The
celebration of Hanukkah as the feast of lights is of Babylonian-Jewish
origin, and was only instituted shortly before the destruction of the
Temple.[4]

[Footnote 1: Ant. XII. v. 3.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. XIII. vi. 3.]

[Footnote 3: In his own list of high priests at the end of the work, the
name of Judas does not appear.]

[Footnote 4: Comp. Krauss, R.E.J. xxx. 32.]

His use of the Book of the Maccabees stops short at the end of chapter
xii. He presumably did not know of the last two chapters of our text,
which contain the history of Simon, and probably were translated later.
Otherwise we cannot explain his dismissal, in one line, of the league
that Simon made with the Romans.[1] The incident is dwelt on in the
extant version of the First Book of the Maccabees, and Josephus would
surely not have omitted a syllable of so propitious an event, had he
possessed knowledge of it. On the other hand, he inserts into the
history of the Maccabean brothers an account of the foundation of a
Temple by Onias V in Leontopolis,[2] in the Delta of Egypt, and
describes at length the negotiations that led up to it;[3] and in the
same connection he narrates a feud between the Jewish and Samaritan
communities at Alexandria in the days of Ptolemy Philometor. From these
indications it has been inferred that he had before him the work of a
Hellenistic-Jewish historian interested in Egypt--the collection of
Alexander Polyhistor suggests that there were several such at the
time--while for the exploits of the later Maccabees he relied on the
chronicle of John Hyrcanus the son of Simon, which is referred to in the
Book of the Maccabees,[4] but has not come down to us,

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