Antiquities of the Jews, fit the thirty-seventh, covering Book XVIII

Josephus' latest definition of the Pharisees (XVIII.1.12) shows both similarities and differences to how I had perceived them: ( lifestyle and theology )

We tend to think of the Jews of the period being divided between Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes (and then in the last decade before the Destruction of the Temple, the Fourth Philosophy too, which may or may not have been that of the Zealots); however it appears this division is not at all even, as there are few Sadducees:

This doctrine [of the Sadducees] is received but by a few, yet by those still of the greatest dignity. But they are able to do almost nothing of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the Pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise bear them.

...and Essenes:

There are about four thousand men that live in this way, and neither marry wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust, and the former gives the handle to domestic quarrels; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another.

( Who was the first Roman emperor? )

curious_reader warned me that the text of Josephus we have, which has been transmitted to us by the Christians (as the Jews were largely too disgusted with him, considering him a turncoat) has been diddled with. Here's the first of the diddled-with passages (XVIII.3.81):

Now there was about this time ( Jesus—didn't expect him, did you? )

Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man ( etc, in this vein )

No way would Josephus have said some of those things. He might have said the others, though. Wikipedia concurs with me here, and points out that the Syriac and Arabic translations of Josephus read "Pilate condemned him to be crucified" in place of "at the suggestion of the principal men among us," and "he was believed to be Christ" rather than "he was [the] Christ". "Drawing on these textual variations," says Wikipedia, "scholars have suggested that these versions of the Testimonium more closely reflect what a non-Christian Jew may have written."

Contrast this with Josephus' description of John the Baptist, in XVIII.5.118, which comes across as more objective:

( Read more... )

There's also a couple of interesting, and quite different, passages about John in the Slavonic version of The Jewish War:

( Read more... )

Later on we read (this is an excerpt from the full passage):

He was a strange creature, not like a man at all. He lived like a disembodied spirit. He never touched bread; even at the Passover Feast he would not eat the unleavened bread or pronounce the words "In thankfulness to God, who delivered the nation from slavery, shall you eat this; it was given for the flight, because the journey was made in haste." Wine and other strong drink he would not allow to be brought anywhere near him, and animal good he absolutely refused—fruit was all that he needed. The whole object of his life was to show evil in its true colours.

I got very excited when I read this, because it is thought the Passover Seder we have today arose in reaction to the destruction of the Temple, preventing the fulfilment of the Toraitic command of eating the Paschal lamb sacrificed in the Temple. Beforehand there would have been a Yom Tov meal, and the consumption of the פֶּסַח and חֲגִיגָה offerings, but no formal liturgy for the meal beyond kiddush, הַמוֹצִיא and bentshing. Yet here, it seemed, was a record of what was said at the Passover meal in the first century, whilst the Temple still stood—and not only that but it is different to anything in the relevant Torah passages or Seder today.

Then, sadly, I went to Wikipedia which told me that this is passage is now not regarded as authentic, but a product of the eleventh-century ideological struggle against the Khazars (a Turkic people and kingdom whose nobility and royal family converted to Judaism). Nonetheless it's interesting to read.

Robert Graves, in I, Claudius, relates a minority, probably apocryphal, story of the death of the Emperor Tiberius died: that after he had died, Caligula took the ring off his finger and proclaimed himself emperor, only for a slave to run out after him crying, "he's still alive!" Macro says "It's probably just the wind moving him, giving that impression." The slave replies, "No, he's really still alive; he's asking for his supper." Caligula and Macro go back in, smother Tiberius with his pillow, then go back out again and announce that Tiberius is definitely dead.

Considering this, I was interested to see what Josephus had to say on the matter. He doesn't repeat this story, but you can still see from it how the other story arose.

( Read more... )

Of course the Romans, celebrating the death of Tiberius, did not realise they had merely gone from the frying pan to the fire with the accession of Caligula. Josephus implies that Caligula's eventual assassination was divine punishment for daring to call himself a god (XVIII.7.256):

Now Caius^* managed public affairs with great magnanimity during the first and second year of his reign, and behaved himself with such moderation, that he gained the good-will of the Romans themselves, and of his other subjects. But, in process of time, he went beyond the bounds of human nature in his conceit of himself, and by reason of the vastness of his dominions made himself a god, and took upon himself to act in all things to the reproach of the Deity itself.

* I.e. Gaius (= Caligula), the spelling going back to before the invention of the letter G.

King Agrippa, in the above passage, was in prison in Rome at the time of the death of Tiberius, having fallen foul of Tiberius; he remained in Rome afterwards (which seems strange for a king of Judaea!), and was there at the time of the assassination of Caligula too, in the events of which time he played a role, as described in frankly unnecessary detail, from the point of view of history of the Jews, in Book XIX.

Josephus notes

Desert Island Discs self-rep

A spirit of mischievousness just led me to see how many of the guests on Desert Island Discs chose By the Sleepy Lagoon (the programme's theme music) to be amongst the tunes they would be marooned with... and the answer is only two, one in 1942 and one in 1952.

Perhaps as the programme became better known, people would have regarded such a choice as too cheesy...