The Problem of Josephus

Josephus’ life was full of challenges: he was hounded by constant accusations of treachery; after the failed Jewish rebellion against Rome, he tried to recreate himself, with varying success, as an historian and authority on Judaism for an ill-informed and often hostile audience; he wrote voluminous histories as an urgent God-sent mission (so he believed) to preserve Jews and Judaism from further violence, but it is uncertain whether many people read him in his day; finally, he had to navigate the perils of Flavian court politics. Two millennia later, Josephus poses serious problems for the modern reader, mainly, how to use any of his information reliably, and whether and how to read his huge corpus as literature rather than a vast repository of information. In this lecture, I shall sharpen those problems by using examples from his writings, and suggest ways through them.

Sponsored by the Department of Classics.

Co-sponsored by the Program in Religious Studies, the Department of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Department of History.