''Antiquities of the Jews'' ( la, Antiquitates Iudaicae; el, Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία, ''Ioudaikē archaiologia'') is a 20-volume historiographical work, written in Greek, by historian Flavius Josephus in the 13th year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius

Domitian Domitian (; la, Domitianus; 24 October 51 – 18 September 96) was a Roman emperor who reigned from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Fl ...

which was around AD 93 or 94.Freedman, David Noel, ed., ''The Anchor Bible Dictionary'', (New York: Doubleday, 1997, 1992). ''Antiquities of the Jews'' contains an account of the history of the Jewish people for Josephus' gentile patrons. In the first ten volumes, Josephus follows the events of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Adam and Eve. The second ten volumes continues the history of the Jewish people beyond the biblical text and up to the Jewish War, or the First Jewish–Roman War, 66 to 73 CE. This work, along with Josephus's other major work, '' The Jewish War'' (''De Bello Iudaico''), provides valuable background material for historians wishing to understand 1st-century AD Judaism and the early Christian period. Stephen L. Harris, ''Understanding the Bible'', (Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1985).

Content

Josephus' ''Antiquities of the Jews'' is a vital source for the history of the

Intertestamental period The intertestamental period ( Protestant) or deuterocanonical period (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) is the period of time between the events of the protocanonical books and the New Testament. Traditionally, it is considered to cover roughly fou ...

and the Jewish war against Rome. ''Antiquities of the Jews'' is separated into twenty volumes: In the preface of ''Antiquities of the Jews'', Josephus provides his motivation for composing such a large work. He writes:

Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Josephan scholar Louis Feldman highlights several of the misconceptions about the Jewish people that were being circulated in Josephus' time. In particular, the Jews were thought to lack great historical figures and a credible history of their people. They were also accused of harboring hostility toward non-Jews, and were thought to be generally lacking in loyalty, respect for authority, and charity. With these harsh accusations against the Jews fluttering about the Roman empire, Josephus, set out to provide a

Hellenized Hellenization (other British spelling Hellenisation) or Hellenism is the adoption of Greek culture, religion, language and identity by non-Greeks. In the ancient period, colonization often led to the Hellenization of indigenous peoples; in th ...

version of the Jewish history. Such a work is often called an " apologia," as it pleads the case of a group of people or set of beliefs to a larger audience. In order to accomplish this goal, Josephus omitted certain accounts in the Jewish narrative and even added a Hellenistic "glaze" to his work. For example, the "

Song of the Sea The Song of the Sea ( he, שירת הים, ''Shirat HaYam'', also known as ''Az Yashir Moshe'' and Song of Moses, or ''Mi Chamocha'') is a poem that appears in the Book of Exodus of the Hebrew Bible, at . It is followed in verses 20 and 21 b ...

" sung by Moses and the people of Israel after their deliverance at the Red Sea is completely omitted in Josephus' text. He does mention, however, that Moses composed a song to God in hexameter—a rather unusual (and Greek) metrical scheme for an ancient Hebrew. Josephus also writes that

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

taught

science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...

to the Egyptians, who in turn taught the

Greeks The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, ot ...

, and that Moses set up a senatorial priestly aristocracy, which like Rome resisted monarchy. Thus, in an attempt to make the Jewish history more palatable to his Greco-Roman audience, the great figures of the biblical stories are presented as ideal philosopher-leaders. In another example, apparently due to his concern with pagan antisemitism, Josephus omitted the entire episode of the golden calf from his account of the Israelites at Mount Sinai. It has been suggested that he was afraid that the biblical account might be employed by Alexandrian antisemites to lend credence to their allegation that the Jews worshiped an ass's head in the Temple (cf. Apion 2:80, 114, 120; Tacitus, Histories 5:4). He also made discredited allegations that the Ancient Egyptians forced the Jewish slaves to build the pyramids, writing “They he Egyptian taskmastersset them also to build pyramids.”. Josephus also adds a short account of his personal life, ''

Vita Vita or VITA (plural vitae) is Latin for "life", and may refer to: * ''Vita'', the usual start to the title of a biography in Latin, by which (in a known context) the work is often referred to; frequently of a saint, then called hagiography * Vita ...

'', as an appendix to the ''Judean Antiquities''. Antiquities of the Jews contains a good deal of valuable, sometimes unique, historical material. This applies, for example, to the history of the Hellenistic states,

Parthia Parthia ( peo, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 ''Parθava''; xpr, 𐭐𐭓𐭕𐭅 ''Parθaw''; pal, 𐭯𐭫𐭮𐭥𐭡𐭥 ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Med ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''O ...

, the Nabatean kingdom, and the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

. It is no accident that in the Middle Ages and in modern times this book of Josephus was considered one of the most important sources in ancient Roman history, along with the works of Titus Livius, Tacitus, Suetonius, and one of the most erudite Christian authors of the 4th–5th centuries, Jerome called Josephus Flavius "Titus Livius of the Greeks". The '' Jewish Encyclopedia'' speculates that much of Josephus's writings on

Herod the Great Herod I (; ; grc-gre, ; c. 72 – 4 or 1 BCE), also known as Herod the Great, was a Roman Jewish client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea, including his renova ...

and his sons draw from the work of Nicolaus of Damascus, a personal friend of Herod's, whose writings remain largely missing; once Nicolaus's narrative on

Herod Archelaus Herod Archelaus (, ''Hērōidēs Archelaos''; 23 BC – ) was ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea, including the cities Caesarea and Jaffa, for a period of nine years (). He was the son of Herod the Great and Malthace the Samar ...

ends, Josephus's narrative becomes less detailed.Gottheil, Richard; Krauss, Samuel
Nicholas of Damascus (Nicolaus Damascenus)
''The Jewish Encyclopedia''. Retrieved December 3, 2021. Josephus admitted being familiar with Nicolaus's work but also rebuked Nicolaus for exaggerating Herod's royal claims and benevolence, where Josephus treated Herod as a tyrant. The extant copies of this work contain two passages about

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

and James the Just. The long one has come to be known as the '' Testimonium Flavianum''. Scholars usually agree on the authenticity of the second passage, while the first one is considered to be authentic, but to have been subjected to Christian interpolation.

Manuscripts

The earliest Greek manuscript of Books 11–20 of the ''Antiquities'' dates from the eleventh century, the Ambrosianus 370 (F 128); preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

. However, the manuscript tradition is complex and many manuscripts are incomplete. The works of Josephus Flavius were popular in late antiquity. Then appeared the translation of "Antiquities of the Jews" into

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

. It is attributed to either Jerome or his contemporary Tyrannius Rufinus. In medieval Europe, "Antiquities of the Jews" circulated widely, mainly in Latin translation. This work of Joseph Flavius was translated into Old Bulgarian at the Preslav Literary School in the beginning of the 10th century during the time of Simeon the Great. In the 9th–10th centuries, the so-called " Josippon", written in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

, appeared in Italy. It described the events of world and Jewish history from the time of the construction of the Tower of Babel to the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD. Essentially, this chronicle was an abbreviated translation of ''Jewish Antiquities'' and '' The Jewish War'', but

Joseph ben Gorion ''Josippon'' ( ''Sefer Yosipon'') is a chronicle of Jewish history from Adam to the age of Titus. It is named after its supposed author, Josephus Flavius, though it was actually composed in the 10th century in Southern Italy. The Ethiopic ve ...

was named the author. Josippon gained no less popularity than Antiquities of the Jews. With the advent of printing, it was published even before this major work of Josephus Flavius in 1476.

Translations

In 1602, Thomas Lodge published an English translation of both the ''Antiquities'' and the ''Wars''. This volume amounted to over 800 pages. The first printed edition of ''Antiquities of the Jews'' in Greek appeared in 1544. Other publications followed—1611 and 1634 ( Cologne), 1687 (

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

), 1691 (

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

), 1700 (Oxford), 1726 (

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...

), and so on. Already in the 15th–16th centuries, ''Jewish Antiquities'' was translated into French, Italian, German and Spanish. The book was published both in modern languages and in Latin. The first Russian translation of ''Jewish Antiquities'' appeared in 1781. First Italian translation dates to 1549 in Venice. One of the best known translations of this work was provided by William Whiston in 1737, which has been in print continuously since then. The Loeb Classical Library published a 1926 translation by

Henry St. John Thackeray Henry St. John Thackeray (1869–30 June 1930) was a British biblical scholar at King's College, Cambridge, an expert on Koine Greek, Josephus and the Septuagint. Henry Thackeray was a scholar of King's College, University of Cambridge, who is pe ...

and Ralph Marcus, normally preferred academically. A cross-reference apparatus for the Works of Josephus and the Biblical canon also exists.,

References

External links

Content

Manuscripts

Translations

See also

References

External links