Flavius Josephus

Flavius Josephus (ad 37?-101?), Jewish historian, born in Jerusalem of both royal and priestly lineage. His original name was Joseph Ben Matthias. A man both learned and worldly, he was a member of the Pharisees, and also a public figure who, before the Jewish revolt against Rome (66), had made friends at the court of Emperor Nero.

The parts played in the revolt by the Zealots, and their opponents the Pharisees, who considered it futile, led to ambiguity in the historical record of the role of Josephus, a Pharisee, in the conflict. His own writings present two conflicting accounts of his mission in the province of Galilee (in what is now Israel). According to one account, he took command of the Jewish forces there to lead the Galilean phase of the revolt, but the other, later, account contends that he sought to subdue the revolt rather than lead it. Whichever story may be true, apparently he prepared Galilee for the coming onslaught and in 67 valorously repulsed the advance of Vespasian, the Roman general who was soon to become emperor, defending the fortress of Jotapata for 47 days before surrendering. Josephus would have been sent as a prisoner to Nero had he not had the wit to prophesy that his captor, Vespasian, would himself one day be emperor. This prophecy accorded with Vespasian's ambitions, and the general kept Josephus with him, thus probably saving his life. While Vespasian's prisoner, Josephus saw the subjugation of Galilee and Judea. Subsequently freed, he adopted Vespasian's family name, Flavius. Accompanying another future emperor, Vespasian's son Titus, he witnessed Titus's siege of Jerusalem in 70. Thereafter, enjoying imperial patronage under Titus and his brother's successor, Domitian, Josephus lived until his death in Rome and devoted himself to his writing.

His works include The Jewish War (in seven books), which he wrote to dissuade his people and other nations from courting annihilation by further revolt against an all-powerful Rome; Jewish Antiquities (in 20 books), a history of the Jews from the creation to ad66 that eloquently demonstrates how his people had flourished under the law of God; an autobiography, Life; and Against Apion, a refutation of charges against the Jews made by the anti-Semitic Greek grammarian Apion (flourished 1st century) and other likeminded writers. The last named is invaluable, because Josephus recapitulates writings on Jewish history that are no longer extant.