Josephus by Norman Bentwich

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[Footnote 1: Comp. Mekilta, ed. Weiss, p. 52. This and the following
Rabbinic parallels are collected by Bloch, _op. cit._]

[Footnote 2: Comp. Tanhuma, xii. 4.]

[Footnote 3: Comp. Eusebius, Praep. vii. 2.]

[Footnote 4: Comp. Book of Jubilees, xlviii. 18, and Sanhedrin, 91a.]

[Footnote 5: He probably had in mind the Greek version of the Song of
Moses made by the Jewish-Alexandrian dramatic poet Ezekiel, which was
written in hexameter verse.]

Josephus deals summarily with the Mosaic Code in the _Antiquities_, but
announces his intention to compose "another work concerning our laws."
This work is, perhaps, represented by the second book _Against Apion_;
or possibly the intention was never fulfilled. He does not set out the
ten commandments at length, explaining that it was against tradition to
translate them directly.[1] He refers probably to the rule that they
were not to be recited in any language but Hebrew, though, of course,
the Septuagint contained a full version. On the other hand, he describes
the construction of the Tabernacle with some fulness, and dwells
particularly on the robes of the priests and the pomp of the high
priest. Ritual and ceremonial appealed to his public; and his account,
which was based on the practice of his own day, supplements in some
particulars the account in the Talmud. But unfortunately he does not
describe the Temple service. He attaches marked importance to the Urim
and Thummim, which formed a sort of oracle parallel with pagan
institutions, and says that the breastplate and sardonyx, with which he
identifies them, ceased to shine two hundred years before he wrote his
book[2] (i.e. at the time of John Hyrcanus). The Talmud understands the
mystic names of the Bible in a similar way,[3] but represents that the
oracle ceased with the destruction of the first Temple, and was not
known in the second Temple. Josephus enlarges, in a way common to the
Hellenistic-Jewish apologists,[4] on the symbolism of the Temple service
and furniture.

"One may wonder at the contempt men bear us, or which they profess to
bear, on the ground that we despise the Deity, whom they pretend to
honor: for if anyone do but consider the construction of the Temple, the
Tabernacle, and the garments of the high priest, and the vessels we use
in our service, he will find our lawgiver was inspired by God.... For if
he regard these things without prejudice, he will find that everyone is
made by way of imitation and representation of the Universe."[5]

[Footnote 1: Ant. III. vi. 4.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. III. vii. 7.]

[Footnote 3: Yer. Sotah, ix. 13.]

[Footnote 4: Comp. Philo, De V. Mos. iii. 6.]

[Footnote 5: Ant. III. vii. 7.]

The ritual, in brief, typifies the universal character of Judaism, which
Josephus was anxious to emphasize in reply to the charge of Jewish
aloofness and particularism. The three divisions of the Tabernacle
symbolize heaven, earth, and sea; the twelve loaves stand for the twelve
months of the year; the seventy parts of the candlestick for the seventy
planets; the veils, which were composed of four materials, for the four
elements; the linen of the high priest's vestment signified the earth,
the blue betokened the sky; the breastplate resembled the shape of the
earth, and so forth. We find similar reflections in Philo, but in his
work they are part of a continuous allegorical exegesis, and in the
other they are a sudden incursion of the symbolical into the long
narrative of facts.

Following the account of the Tabernacle and the priestly vestments,
Josephus describes the manner of offering sacrifices, the observance of
the festivals, and the Levitical laws of cleanliness. In his account of
these laws Josephus makes no attempt either to derive a universal value
from the Biblical commands or to read a philosophical meaning into them
by allegorical interpretation. He normally states the law as it stands
in the text, and in the selection he makes he gives the preference, not
to general ethical precepts, but to regulations about the priests. He
had a pride of caste and a love of the pomp and circumstance of the
Temple service; and the national ceremony could be more easily conveyed
to the Gentile than an understanding of the spiritual value of Judaism.
The Hellenistic apologists enlarged on the humanitarian character of the
Mosaic social legislation; Josephus mentions without comment the laws of
the seventh year release and the Jubilee, though in his later apology,
which was addressed to the Greeks, in the books _Against Apion_,[1] he
dwelt more carefully on them. His interpretation of the laws, so far as
it goes, in places agrees with the Rabbinic Halakah, but he admits some
modification of the accepted tradition. Thus he states that the high
priest was forbidden to marry a slave, or a captive, or a woman who kept
an inn. He translates the Hebrew [Hebrew: zonah], which probably here
means a prostitute, by innkeeper, a meaning the word has in other
passages;[2] but the Aramaic version of the Bible supports him. He
gives, too, a rationalizing reason for the observance of Tabernacles,
saying, "The Law enjoins us to pitch tabernacles so that we may preserve
ourselves from the cold of the season of the year."[3] The Feast of
Weeks he calls Asartha, perhaps a Grecized form of the Hebrew [Hebrew:
Atzereth], which was its old name, and he does not regard it as the
anniversary of the giving of the Law. He promises to explain afterwards
why some animals are forbidden for food and some permitted, but he fails
to fulfil his promise. Since, however, the interpretation of the dietary
laws as a discipline of temperance was a commonplace of Hellenistic
Judaism, which is very fully set forth in the so-called Fourth Book of
the Maccabees,[4] the absence of his comments is not a great loss.

[Footnote 1: See below, p. 234.]

[Footnote 2: Judges, 4:1; Josh. 2; and Ezek. 23:44.]

[Footnote 3: Ant. IV. viii. 4.]

[Footnote 4: See above, p. 105.]

In the next book of the _Antiquities_, Josephus deals with other parts
of the Mosaic Law, especially such as might appear striking to Roman
readers. Thus he gives in detail the law as to the Nazarites, the Korban
offering, and the red heifer, and he completes his account of the Mosaic
Code by a summary description of the Jewish polity, in which he
abstracts a large part of the laws of Deuteronomy together with some of
the traditional amplifications.[1] Moses prefaces his farewell address
with a number of moral platitudes. "Virtue is its own principal reward,
and, besides, it bestows abundance of others."--"The practice of virtue
towards other men will make your own lives happy," and so forth.
Josephus again proclaims that he sets out the laws in the words of
Moses, his only innovation being to arrange them in a regular system,
"for they were left by him in writing as they were accidentally
scattered." The influence of Roman law may have suggested the arranging
and digesting of the Mosaic Code, as well as several of his variations
from the letter of the Bible.

[Footnote 1: Ant. IV. viii.]

A few of his interpretations are noteworthy as comprising either
Palestinian or Hellenistic tradition. He understands the command not to
curse those in authority ([Hebrew: Elohim], Exod. 22:28) as referring to
the gods worshiped in other cities, following Philo and a Hellenistic
tradition based on a mistranslation of the Septuagint. A late passage in
the Talmud, on the other hand, says that all abuse is forbidden save of
idolatry.[1] With Philo again, he inserts into the code a law
prohibiting the possession of poison on pain of death,[2] which is based
on an erroneous interpretation of the law against witchcraft. Josephus
follows the Hellenistic school also when he deduces from the prohibition
against removing boundary stones the lesson that no infraction of the
law and tradition[3] is to be permitted. Nothing is to be allowed the
imitation of which might lead to the subversion of the constitution. He
introduces a law about evidence, to the effect that the testimony of
women should not be admitted "on account of the levity and boldness of
their sex."[4] The rule has no place in the Code of the Pentateuch, but
is supported in the oral law. He adopts another traditional
interpretation when he limits the commands against women wearing men's
habits to the donning of armor in times of war.[5] He misrepresents, on
the other hand, the law of [Hebrew: shemitah] (seventh year release),
stating that if a servant have a child by a bondwoman in his master's
house, and if, on account of his good-will to his master, he prefers to
remain a slave, he shall be set free only in the year of jubilee. The
Bible says he shall be branded if he refuse the proffered liberty in the
seventh year, and Philo in his interpretation has drawn a fine homily
about the regard set on liberty. But Josephus may have thought that the
institution would appear ridiculous to the legal minds of Romans. To
accommodate the Jewish law again to the Roman standard, he moderates the
_lex talionis_ (the rule of an eye for an eye), by adding that it is
applied only if he that is maimed will not accept money in compensation
for his injury, a half-way position between the Sadducean doctrine,
which understood the Biblical law literally, and the Pharisaic rule,
which abrogated it. But in several instances he makes offenses
punishable with death, which were not so according to the tradition,
_e.g._ the insulting of parents by their children and the taking of
bribes by judges.[6] Summing up the version of Deuteronomy, it may be
said that Josephus, by omitting a law here, adding one there, now
softening, now modifying, in some places broadening, in others narrowing
the scope of the command, presents a code which lacks both the
ruggedness of the Torah and the maturer humaneness of the Rabbinical
Halakah, but was designed to show the reasonableness of the Jewish
system according to Roman notions.

[Footnote 1: Sanhedrin, 63b.]

[Footnote 2: Comp. Philo, De Spec. Leg. ii. 815.]

[Footnote 3: Comp. Deut. 22:5, and Nazir, 59a, with Ant. IV. viii. 43.]

[Footnote 4: Shebuot, 30a.]

[Footnote 5: Comp. Philo, De Spec. Leg. ii.]

[Footnote 6: Comp. C. Ap. ii. 27. It has been suggested by Judge Mayer
Sulzberger that he falsely interpreted the Hebrew [Hebrew: 'Arur]
(cursed be!) to mean death punishment. Comp. J.Q.R., n.s., iii. 315.]

Josephus, from a different motive, is silent about the golden calf and
the breaking of the tablets of stone. Those incidents, to his mind, did
not reflect credit on his people; therefore they were not to be
disclosed to Greek and Roman readers. He omits, for other reasons, the
Messianic prophecies of Balaam, which would not be pleasing to the
Flavians. At the same time one of the blessings in the prophecies of
Balaam gives him the opportunity of asserting some universal
humanitarian doctrines, to which Philo affords a parallel. The Moabite
seer talks like a Hellenistic apologist of the second century B.C.E. or
a Sibylline oracle: "Every land and every sea will be full of the praise
of your name. Your offspring will dwell in every clime, and the whole
world will be your dwelling-place for eternity."[1] He is at pains to
extol Moses as of superhuman excellence, as is proved by the enduring
force of his laws, which is such that "there is no Jew who does not act
as if Moses were present and ready to punish him if he should offend in
any way."[2] He quotes examples of the Jewish steadfastness in the Law,
which would have impressed a Roman: the regular pilgrimage from Babylon
to the Temple, the abstention of the Jewish priests from touching a
crumb of flour during the Feast of Passover, at a time when, during a
severe famine, abundance of wheat was brought to the Temple. But he
somewhat mars the effect of his praise by adding a not very exalted
motive for the piety of his people--the dread of the Law and of the
wrath which God manifests against transgressors, even when no man can
accuse the actor. Josephus is in a way a loyal supporter of the Law, and
he had a sincere admiration for its hold on the people, but he was led
by the conditions of his appeal to materialize the idea of Jewish
religious intensity and to present it as a fear of punishment. Nor is it
the humanity, the inherent excellence of the Law which he emphasizes,
but its endurance and the widespread allegiance it commands. Looking at
Judaism through Roman spectacles, he treats it as a positive force
comparable with the sway of the Roman Emperor.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Orac. Sib. 111. 271: [Greek: pasa de gaia sethen
plaeres kai pasa thalassa] and Philo, De V. Mos. ii. 126.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. IV. vi 4.]

In the description of the death of Moses the same habit of enfeebling
the majesty of the Biblical text to suit the current taste is
manifested. Moses weeps before he ascends the mountain to die. He
exhorts the people not to lament over his departure. As he is about to
embrace Joshua and Eleazar, he is covered with a cloud and disappears in
a valley, although he piously wrote in the holy books that he died lest
the people should say that, because of his marvelous virtue, he was
taken up to God. For the last statement Josephus has the authority of
some sages, who discussed whether the last verses of Deuteronomy were
written by Moses himself.[1]

[Footnote 1: Baba Batra, 15a.]

Josephus continues the Biblical narrative in less detail in the fifth
book, which covers the period of Joshua and the Judges and the first
part of Samuel. The Book of Joshua is compressed into the limits of one
chapter, but the exploits of each of the judges of Israel, with one or
two omissions, are recounted in order, and the episode of Ruth is
inserted after the story of Samson. He substitutes for the famous
declaration of Ruth to Naomi the prosy statement: "Naomi took Ruth along
with her, as she was not to be persuaded to stay behind, but was
resolved to share her fortune with her mother-in-law, whatsoever it
should prove." And he justifies his insertion of the episode by the
reflection that he desires to demonstrate the power of God, who can
raise those that are of common parentage to dignity and splendor, even
as He advanced David, though he was born of mean parents.

With his fondness for royal history, and no doubt with an eye to his
noble audience, he devotes a whole book to the account of Saul's reign,
adhering closely to the narrative in Samuel, but occasionally adding a
passage from the Book of Chronicles, or softening what seemed an
asperity in Scripture. Samuel, for example, orders Agag to be killed,
whereas in the Bible he puts him to death with his own hand.[1] The
incident of Saul and the Witch of Endor is expanded and invested with
further pathos.[2] The Witch devotes her only possession, a calf, for
the king's meal, and the historian expatiates first on her kindness and
then on Saul's courage in fighting, though he knew his approaching doom.
We may suspect that this digression was induced by a supposed analogy in
the king of Israel's lot to the author's conduct in Galilee, when, as he
claimed, he fought on though knowing the hopelessness of resistance.

[Footnote 1: Ant. VI. viii. 5.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. VI. viii. 14.]

The next book is taken up entirely with the reign of David, and contains
little that is noteworthy. On one point Josephus cites the authority of
Nicholas of Damascus to support the Bible, and here and there he adopts
a traditional interpretation. David's son by Abigail is said to be
Daniel,[1] whereas the Book of Samuel gives the name as Kitab. Absalom's
hair was so thick that it could be cut with difficulty every eight
days.[2] David chose a pestilence as the punishment for his sin in
numbering his people, because it was an affliction common to kings and
their subjects.[3] The historian ascribes the Psalms to David, and says
they were in several (Greek) meters, some in hexameters and others in
pentameters. Lastly he enlarges on the wonderful wealth of David, which
was greater than that of any other king either of the Hebrews or of
other nations. Benjamin of Tudela relates, and the Mohammedans believe
to this day, that vast treasure is buried with the king, and lies in his
reputed sepulcher. The story must have been accepted in the days of
Josephus, for he records how Hyrcanus, the son of Simon the Maccabee,
being in straits for money to buy off the Seleucid invader, opened a
room of David's sepulcher and took out three thousand talents, and how,
many years later, King Herod opened another room, and took out great
store of money; yet neither lighted on the body of the king. Such
romantic tales pleased the readers of the Jewish historian, who lived
amid the wonderful material splendor of Rome, and prized, above all
things, material wealth.

[Footnote 1: Comp. Ant. VII. i. 4; Berakot, 4a.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. VII. viii.; comp. Nazir, 4b.]

[Footnote 3: Ant. VII. xiii.; comp. Yalkut, ii. 165.]

When he comes to the history of Solomon, he speaks of his proverbial
writings, and inserts a long account of his miraculous magical powers,
based no doubt on popular legend.[1]

"He composed books of odes and songs one thousand and five [here he
follows Chronicles] and of parables and similitudes three thousand. For
he spoke a parable on every sort of tree, from the hyssop to the cedar,
and in like manner about every sort of living creature, whether on the
earth or in the air or in the seas. He was not unacquainted with any of
their natures, nor did he omit to study them, but he described them all
in the manner of a philosopher. God also endowed him with skill in
expelling demons, which is a science useful and health-giving to
men."[2]

[Footnote 1: Comp. Yalkut, ii. 177. The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon
similarly credits the king with power over spirits (vii. 20).]

[Footnote 2: Ant. VIII. ii. 5.]

Josephus goes on to describe how, in the presence of Vespasian, a
compatriot cured soldiers who were demoniacal. We know from the New
Testament that the belief in possession by demons was widespread among
the vulgar in the first century of the common era, and the Essenes
specialized in the science of exorcism. As the belief was invested with
respectability by the patronage which the Flavian court extended to all
sorts of magic and witchcraft, Josephus enlarges on it. Solomon is
therefore represented as a thaumaturgist, and while not a single example
is given of the proverbs ascribed to him, his exploits as a
miracle-monger are extolled. Josephus sets out at length the story of
the building of the Temple, and dwells on Solomon's missions to King
Hiram, of which, he says, copies remained in his day, and may be seen in
the public records of Tyre. This he claims to be a signal testimony to
the truthfulness of his history.[1] He modernizes elaborately Solomon's
speech at the dedication of the sanctuary, and converts it into an
apology for the Jews of his own day. Again he follows an Alexandrian
model, and describes God in Platonic fashion: "Thou possessest an
eternal house, and we know how, from what Thou hast created for Thyself,
Heaven and Air and Earth and Sea have sprung, and how Thou fillest all
things and yet canst not be contained by any of them."[2] Solomon is
here a preacher of universalism; he prays that God shall help not the
Hebrews alone when they are in distress, "but when any shall come hither
from the ends of the earth and repent of their sins and implore Thy
forgiveness, do Thou pardon them and hear their prayer. For thereby all
shall know that Thou wast pleased with the building of this house, and
that we are not of an unsociable nature, nor do we behave with enmity to
such as are not of our people, but are willing that Thou shouldst bestow
Thy help on all men in common, and that all alike may enjoy Thy
benefits." Solomon's dream after the dedication service provides another
occasion for pointing to the Jewish disaster of the historian's day. For
he foresees that if Israel will transgress the Law, his miseries shall
become a proverb, and his neighbors, when they hear of them, shall be
amazed at their magnitude.

[Footnote 1: Comp. below, p. 223.]

[Footnote 2: Ant. VIII. iv. 2. Comp. Philo, De Confus. Ling. i. 425.]

The description of the Temple is followed by a glowing account of the
king's palace, of which the roof was "according to the Corinthian order,
and the decorations so vivid that the leaves seemed to be in motion." We
are told, too, of the great cities which the king built, Tadmor in the
wilderness of Syria, and Gezer, the Bible narrative being supplemented
here with passages from Nicholas. The Queen of Sheba is represented as
the Queen of Egypt and Ethiopia, and it is to her gift that Josephus
attributes "the root of balsam which our country still bears." Reveling
in the material greatness of the Jewish court during the golden age of
the old kingdom, Josephus catalogues the wealth of Solomon, the number
of his horses and chariots. He reproaches him not only for marrying
foreign wives, but for making images of brazen oxen, which supported the
brazen sea, and the images of lions about his throne. For these sins
against the second commandment he died ingloriously.

With the death of Solomon the legendary and romancing character of this
part of the _Antiquities_ comes to an end. In the summary of the
fortunes of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, Josephus adheres almost
exclusively to the Biblical text, and allows himself few digressions. He
moralizes a little about the decay of the people under Rehoboam,
reflecting that the aggrandizement of a kingdom and its sudden
attainment of prosperity often are the occasion of mischief; and he
controverts Herodotus, who confused Sesostris with Shishak when relating
the Egyptian king's conquests. It is, he claims, really Shishak's
invasion of Jerusalem which the Greek historian narrates, as is proved
by the fact that he speaks of circumcised Syrians, who can be no other
than Jews. The fate of Omri and Zimri[1] moves him to moralize again
about God's Providence in rewarding the good and punishing the wicked;
and Ahab's death evokes some platitudes concerning fate, "which creeps
on human souls and flatters them with pleasing hopes, till it brings
them to the place where it will be too hard for them."[2] Artapanus, or
one of the Jewish Hellenists masking as a pagan historian, may have
provided him with this reflection.

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

[Footnote 2: Ant. IX. xv. 6.]

He spoils the grandeur of the scene on Mount Carmel, when Elijah turned
the people from Baal-worship back to the service of God. In place of the
dramatic description in the Book of Kings he states that the Israelites
worshiped one God, and called Him the great and the only true God, while
the other deities were names. He omits altogether the account of
Elijah's ascent to Heaven, probably from a desire not to appear to
entertain any Messianic ideas with which the prophet was associated. He
says simply that Elijah disappeared from among men. But he gives in
detail the miraculous stories of Elisha, which were not subject to the
same objection. Occasionally his statements seem in direct conflict with
the Hebrew Bible, as when he says that Jehu drove slowly and in good
order, whereas the Hebrew is that "he driveth furiously."[1] Or that
Joash, king of Israel, was a good man, whereas in the Book of Kings it
is written, "he did evil in the sight of the Lord."[2] But these
discrepancies may be due, not to a different Bible text, but to
aberrations of the copyists.

[Footnote 1: Ant. IX. vi. 3; II Kings, 9:20.]

[Footnote 2: II Kings, 13:11.]

The story of dynastic struggles and foreign wars is varied with a short
summary of the life of Jonah, introduced at what, according to the
Bible, is its proper chronological place,[1] in the reign of Jeroboam
II, king of Israel. The picturesque and miraculous character of the
prophet's adventures secured him this distinction, for in general
Josephus does not pay much regard to the lives or writings of the
prophets. It is only where they foretold concrete events that their
testimony is deemed worthy of mention. Of the other minor prophets he
mentions Nahum, and paraphrases part of his prophecy of the fall of
Nineveh, cutting it short with the remark that he does not think it
necessary to repeat the rest,[2] so that he may not appear troublesome
to his readers. In the account of Hezekiah he mentions that the king
depended on Isaiah the prophet, by whom he inquired and knew of all
future events,[3] and he recounts also the miracle of putting back the
sun-dial. For the rest, he says that, by common consent, Isaiah was a
divine and wonderful man in foretelling the truth, "and in the assurance
that he had never written what was false, he wrote down his prophecies
and left them in books, that their accomplishment might be judged of by
posterity from the events.[4] Nor was he alone, but the other prophets
[i.e. the minor prophets presumably], who were twelve in number, did the
same." It is notable that this phrase of the _Antiquities_ about the
prophets bears a resemblance to the "praise of famous men" contained in
the apocryphal book of Ben Sira, which Josephus probably used in the
Greek translation.

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