Flavius Josephus was born in Jerusalem during
Roman rule.His father was a Jewish priest, and his
mother was a member of Jewish royalty. He was
well-educated, studying both Greek and Hebrew
literature, and it is said that at one point he spent
three years with a hermit in the desert.
In his early 20s, Josephus traveled to Rome to
negotiate the release of several Jewish priests held
hostage by Emperor Nero.When he returned home
after completing his mission, his nation was beginning
a revolution against the Romans (ca. 66). Josephus
immediately became a commander of the
revolutionary forces in Galilee (present-day Israel).
In one battle, Josephus successfully defended
the fortress in Jotapata for almost two months. He
eventually surrendered and was taken prisoner by
the Roman general Vespasian, who planned on
sending him and other prisoners to Emperor Nero,
who most likely would have had them executed.
Josephus avoided this fate by presenting himself as
a prophet and professing Vespasian’s rise to imperial
power. After this successful move, Josephus
served the Romans by assisting them in understanding
and negotiating with the Jewish nation.
The Jewish revolutionaries considered Josephus a
traitor and refused to follow his advice to surrender.
Thus he became a witness to the destruction of
Galilee, Judea, and the Holy Temple.When Vespasian
released him, Josephus joined Vespasian’s
family name, Flavius, with his own, and eventually
followed Vespasian’s son Titus to Jerusalem (70).
Josephus’s experience as Vespasian’s captive resulted
in his first work, Jewish War, which was
published in seven books in 78, when its author
was serving at the Flavian court in Rome. The
work did not merely state the facts of the war but
proclaimed the emperor’s military might, flattered
his wisdom, and warned other nations against opposing
his power. A significant part of the Jewish
War is devoted to poorly masked adulation of its
author’s qualities as a warrior and a writer. Josephus
first wrote the book in his native language
of Aramaic but then translated it into Greek,
which was the most widely used language of the
Roman Empire.
Josephus’s later work Jewish Antiquities was
published in 93 or 94 in 20 books. In this written
work, entirely in Greek, Josephus explains the history
of the Jews to the general non-Jewish audience
of the time and explains the title of his work by
emphasizing the age of the Jewish culture and the
Bible. Almost half of the work consists of Josephus’s
rephrasing of the Hebrew BIBLE, for which
he used the works of earlier historians as his
sources. Jewish Antiquities was zealously read by
the early Christians, and numerous translations in
later centuries revived interest in the work. One of
the best English translations was done by William
Whiston (1667–1752) in 1737.
Two shorter works by Josephus include Autobiography
(or Life), in which the historian attempts
to justify his position at the beginning of the Jewish
uprising; and Against Apion, in which he refutes
Apion’s charges against the Jews in the first century.
This, like Josephus’s other works, provide significant
details on the Roman-Jewish conflict of
the ancient world, as well as information about
written texts that no longer survive.
English Versions of Works by
Flavius Josephus
Life of Josephus: Translation and Commentary. Translated
by Steve Mason. Boston: Brill, 2003.
The Jewish War. Translated by H. St. J. Thackeray.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1997.
Works about Flavius Josephus
Colautti, Federico M. Passover in the Works of Josephus.
Boston: Brill, 2002.
Feldman, Louis H. Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten
Bible. Boston: Brill, 1998.