The historian known to
posterity by the Latinized name Josephus was a member of Jerusalem's
priestly aristocracy who, at age 30, was taken hostage in the great Jewish
revolt against Rome (66-70 CE)
& spent the rest of his life in Roman
circles as a protégé of three emperors [Vespasian,
Titus
& Domitian].
His constant need to explain his role in the unsuccessful Jewish uprising
that climaxed with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple led him to
publish four works [in Greek] that are our prime source for information
about events that shaped the history of Jews of the second temple period.
Joseph bar Matthew [Greek:
Matthias], as Josephus was originally known, was born soon after Caligula
became Roman emperor (37/38 CE).
He was one of two sons of a Jewish priest
who claimed descent from the
Hasmonean family of priests who had won
Jewish independence from the Greco-Syrian empire two centuries earlier. A
precocious youth with a thirst for learning, Josephus claims that by the
time he was 14 he was already consulted on legal problems by Jerusalem's
chief priests [Life
8]. At age 16 he began three years of intense religious training.
After basic introduction to the principles of the three primary Judean
factions [Pharisees, Sadducees & Essenes], Josephus attached himself
to an ascetic hermit [Bannus] who was an advocate of a natural lifestyle
in the wilderness of Judea.
When he returned to Jerusalem (57 CE),
he associated himself with the
majority party of the Pharisees. Factionalism was intensifying in Judea,
however, with an increase of demagogues & revolutionary bands. Roman
prefects, responsible for maintaining social order, reacted swiftly &
ruthlessly to suppress dissent from any quarter. When Gessius
Florus sent some priests that
Josephus knew in chains to Rome
(64 CE), he followed to
petition the emperor [Nero] to release them.
The emperor's consort,
Poppea,
introduced the 26 year old Jewish aristocrat to the imperial court &
supported his cause. This successful mission left Josephus favorably
impressed by the grandeur & power of Rome & with a first-hand
familiarity with imperial circles that few of his contemporary Jews could
match.
By the time he returned to
Jerusalem, however, the Jewish revolt had already begun (66 CE).
A radical faction [led by Menachem, a son of Judah "the
Galilean" who had led a tax revolt against
Rome 60 years earlier] had
seized the fortress of Antonia, forcing priests to seek refuge in the
temple below. As rival revolutionary factions vied for control of
Jerusalem & murdered their opponents [including Menachem],
Josephus & other priests aligned themselves with the cause of
independence. The rebels, encouraged by their decisive defeat of Roman
troops that the governor of Syria [Cestius
Gallus] dispatched to pacify the
city, sent Josephus to fortify Galilee
& persuade Galileans to join the revolt. Giscala [Gush cHalav]
& other towns in rural northwestern Galilee were already centers of
revolt. But the Romanized cities of the more populated southern tier [Sepphoris
& Tiberias]
were reluctant to join a war with Rome. The rebels in Jerusalem apparently
thought that Josephus, as an aristocrat with success as a negotiator in
Rome, could persuade hesitant Galileans to support the cause of
independence. He met little success either as a negotiator or a military
leader, however, characteristically blaming others for his failures. The
residents of the old Galilean capitol, Sepphoris---whose city had been
destroyed by Roman armies 72 years earlier, in the uprising following
Herod's death (4 BCE)---would not be part of a rebellion.
The population
of Tiberias---the lakeside metropolis built by Herod's
son, Antipas---was
divided but unwilling to accept Josephus as their leader. Josephus
succeeded in fortifying the central Galilean city of Jotapata
[Yodefat], but was fortunate to survive its capture. Upon his surrender, he
predicted the man who defeated him [Vespasian]
would become emperor of Rome, a prediction soon made possible by Nero's
suicide (68 CE).
Taken to Jerusalem as a hostage, Josephus was eye-witness
to the Roman siege. When Vespasian was called to Rome to become emperor
(69 CE), he directed his
son Titus
to continue the siege. Josephus was held in the Roman camp & witnessed
the destruction of the temple (70 CE) that
had been the center of his
family's life for generations.
Taken to Rome after the war,
Josephus was declared a freed man, granted Roman citizenship, provided a
pension & lodging on Vespasian's estates. He adopted the family name
of his imperial patrons & was thus known to Romans as Flavius
Josephus. He was near the top of Vespasian's "civil list" of
Roman citizens. He witnessed first-hand the rebuilding of Rome after Nero's fire
(65 CE) & the erection
of the Flavian monuments [Colosseum,
the temple of Peace, the forum of Vespasian & the arch of Titus,
depicting the conquest of the temple in Jerusalem]. He used his position
both to support the cause of the Flavian emperors & to defend his own
place as a fixture in their court. Though he gave his children gentile
names, he remained dedicated to his Jewish heritage, spending years
writing voluminous works to explain & glorify those who championed the
laws of Moses to Romans who, in the wake of the Jewish revolt, regarded
all Jews as lawless riff-raff & bandits. After his death a statue was
erected to him & his works placed in the Roman public library, where
they came to be a major source of information for all later historians:
Christian, Jewish & secular [Eusebius, History of the Church
3.9].
Josephus' surviving works are:
Other resources on line:
Perspective on the
World of Jesus 