Antiquities of the Jews
LC Class DS116.J7418 | | |
Original text | Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία at Greek Wikisource | |
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Translation | Antiquities of the Jews at Wikisource |
Antiquities of the Jews (
The second ten volumes continues the history of the Jewish people beyond the biblical text and up to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 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 CE Judaism and the early Christian period.[2]
Content
Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews is a vital source for the history of the intertestamental period and the Jewish war against Rome.[3] Antiquities of the Jews is separated into twenty volumes:
Volume | From | To | Years covered |
---|---|---|---|
I | Biblical creation | Death of Abraham's son Isaac | 3,833 |
II | History of Isaac's sons | The Exodus of Jews from Biblical Egypt | 250 |
III | Exodus from Egypt | First 2 years of the 40 years in the wilderness | 2 |
IV | The remaining 38 years in the wilderness | Death of Moses upon reaching Canaan | 38 |
V | Joshua's replacement of Moses as leader | Death of the priest Eli | 476 |
VI | The capture of the Ark by the Philistines | Death of King Saul | 32 |
VII | David's ascension to the throne of the Kingdom of Israel | Death of King David | 40 |
VIII | Solomon's ascension as King of Israel | The death of King Ahab in battle with the Syrian army, and the saving of the army by Jehoshaphat | 163 |
IX | Reign of King Jehoshaphat | Fall of Samaria | 157 |
X | Babylonian captivity of the Jews | Daniel and the destruction of the Neo-Assyrian Empire | 182 |
XI | Start of the Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great
|
Death of Alexander the Great | 253 |
XII | Death of Alexander the Great | Maccabean Revolt and the death of Judas Maccabeus | 170 |
XIII | Origins of the Hasmonean dynasty | Death of Queen Alexandra | 82 |
XIV | The death of Queen Alexandra | Death of Antigonus II Mattathias | 32 |
XV | Herod the Great's taking of Jerusalem | Completion of King Herod's temple in Jerusalem | 18 |
XVI | Completion of King Herod's temple | Death of Herod's sons | 12 |
XVII | Death of Herod's sons | Banishment of King Archelaus | 14 |
XVIII | The banishment of King Herod Archelaus | Banishment of the Jews living in Babylon | 32 |
XIX | The banishment of the Jews living in Babylon | Roman procurators of Judea
|
3 |
XX | The time of Emperor Claudius | Jewish Wars
|
22 |
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.[4]
Josephan scholar Louis Feldman highlights several of the misconceptions about the Jewish people that were being circulated in Josephus's 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.
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" sung by Moses and the people of Israel after their deliverance at the Red Sea is completely omitted in Josephus's text.[6] He does mention, however, that Moses composed a song to God in hexameter—a rather unusual (and Greek) metrical scheme for an ancient Hebrew.[7] Josephus also writes that Abraham taught science to the Egyptians, who in turn taught the Greeks, 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).[8] He also stated that the Ancient Egyptians forced the Jewish slaves to build the pyramids, writing "They [the Egyptian taskmasters] set them also to build pyramids."[9]
Josephus also adds a short account of his personal life, 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,
The extant copies of this work contain two passages about Jesus 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,[11] the Ambrosianus 370 (F 128); preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. However, the manuscript tradition is complex and many manuscripts are incomplete.[12]
The works of Josephus Flavius were popular in late antiquity. Then appeared the translation of "Antiquities of the Jews" into Latin. 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
In the 9th–10th centuries, the so-called "
Translations
In 1602, Thomas Lodge published an English translation of both the Antiquities and the Wars. This volume amounted to over 800 pages.[13]
The first printed edition of Antiquities of the Jews in Greek appeared in 1544. Other publications followed—1553 (Antwerp), 1611 and 1634 (Cologne), 1687 (Oxford), 1691 (Leipzig), 1700 (Oxford), 1726 (Leiden), and so on. Already in the 15th–16th centuries, Jewish Antiquities was translated into Dutch, 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.[14] First Italian translation dates to 1549 in Venice.[citation needed]
One of the best known translations of this work was provided by William Whiston in 1737, which has been in print continuously since then.[15] The Loeb Classical Library published a 1926 translation by Henry St. John Thackeray and Ralph Marcus, normally preferred academically. A cross-reference apparatus for the Works of Josephus and the Biblical canon also exists.[16][17]
See also
References
- ^ Antiquities, Book XX, chapter 11; "I shall put an end to these Antiquities, which are contained in twenty books, and sixty thousand verses. And if God permit me, I will briefly run over this war again, with what befell us therein to this very day, which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Caesar Domitian [i.e. September 93 – September 94], and the fifty-sixth year of my own life."
- Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible, (Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1985).
- ^ Freedman, David Noel, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (New York: Doubleday, 1997, 1992).
- ^ Ant. 1.5. Trans. by William Whiston, A.M., 1895
- ^ Louis Feldman, Josephus' Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley: University of California, 1998), pp. 132–162.
- ^ Exodus 15
- ^ Ant. 2:346
- ^ "Encyclopedia Judaica: The Golden Calf". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
- ^ Down, David (September 1, 2004). "The Pyramids of Ancient Egypt". Answers in Genesis. Retrieved November 30, 2020.
- ^ a b Gottheil, Richard; Krauss, Samuel. Nicholas of Damascus (Nicolaus Damascenus). The Jewish Encyclopedia. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
- ISBN 978-3-11-024751-0
- ^ Pearse, Roger. "Josephus: the Main Manuscripts of "Antiquities"". Tertullian.
- ISBN 978-0-230-60181-9.
- ^ "Иосиф Флавий. Иудейские древности. Предисловие к русскому изданию". www.vehi.net.
- ^ A new updated version of Whiston's translation was published by Hendrickson Publishers in 1987.
- ISBN 978-0-9778737-1-5
- ^ Bennett, Rick (30 November 2011). "New Release: Comprehensive Bible Cross Reference". Accordance Bible Software. Retrieved 27 November 2017.|
External links
- Whiston translation of Antiquities of the Jews
- Loeb Classical Library Josephus Volume 4 Antiquities of the Jews Books 1-4
- Loeb Classical Library Josephus Volume 5 Antiquities of the Jews Books 5-8
- Loeb Classical Library Josephus Volume 6 Antiquities of the Jews Books 9-11
- Loeb Classical Library Josephus Volume 7 Antiquities of the Jews Books 12-14
- The Judean Antiquities at PACE
- Antiquities of the Jews at Project Gutenberg
- The Antiquities of the Jews public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- Complete works of Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews, Volume One, Books I-VIII
- Complete works of Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews, Volume Two, Books IX-XVI
- Complete works of Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews, Volume Three, Books XVII-XX
- Perseus Digital Library: Greek text alongside Whiston English translation