lethargic_man | Antiquities of the Jews, fit the nineteenth

A large chunk of chapter 4 of Book XII concerns the Tobiad Romance, concerning another branch of the same family whose story we learn in the apocryphal book of Tobit. Aha, I think; I know this story from somewhere else. It's in that book, Ancient Jewish Novels, that I happened to stumble across in the bookshop outside Old Street station, and couldn't go past without buying.

So I go back to that book to see where it originally comes from, and it turns out that book had taken it from Antiquities of the Jews... (Though undoubtedly it originally had another source, now lost, from which Josephus excerpted it.)

I mentioned beforehand that Josephus was justified in his catty attitude towards the Samaritans. This (XII.5.257) is why:

When the Samaritans saw the Jews under these sufferings, they no longer confessed that they were of their kindred, nor that the temple on Mount Gerizzim belonged to Almighty God. This was according to their nature, as we have already shown. And they now said that they were a colony of Medes and Persians; and indeed they were a colony of theirs. So they sent ambassadors to Antiochus, and an epistle, whose contents are these: "To king Antiochus the god, Epiphanes, a memorial from the Sidonians, who live at Shechem. Our forefathers, upon certain frequent plagues, and as following a certain ancient superstition, had a custom of observing that day which by the Jews is called the Sabbath. And when they had erected a temple at the mountain called Gerrizzim, though without a name, they offered upon it the proper sacrifices. Now, upon the just treatment of these wicked Jews, those that manage their affairs, supposing that we were of kin to them, and practiced as they do, make us liable to the same accusations, although we be originally Sidonians, as is evident from the public records. We therefore beseech thee, our benefactor and Savior, to give order to Apollonius, the governor of this part of the country, and to Nicanor, the procurator of thy affairs, to give us no disturbance, nor to lay to our charge what the Jews are accused for, since we are aliens from their nation, and from their customs; but let our temple, which at present hath no name at all be named the Temple of Jupiter Hellenius. If this were once done, we should be no longer disturbed, but should be more intent on our own occupation with quietness, and so bring in a greater revenue to thee." When the Samaritans had petitioned for this, the king sent them back the following answer, in an epistle: "King Antiochus to Nicanor. The Sidonians, who live at Shechem, have sent me the memorial enclosed. When therefore we were advising with our friends about it, the messengers sent by them represented to us that they are no way concerned with accusations which belong to the Jews, but choose to live after the customs of the Greeks. Accordingly, we declare them free from such accusations, and order that, agreeable to their petition, their temple be named the Temple of Jupiter Hellenius." He also sent the like epistle to Apollonius, the governor of that part of the country, in the forty-sixth year, and the eighteenth day of the month Hecatombeon.

XII.6.265:

Now at this time there was one whose name was Mattathias, who dwelt at Modin, the son of John, the son of Simeon, the son of Asamoneus, a priest of the order of Joarib, and a citizen of Jerusalem.

What's a priest of the order of Joarib? A little googling revealed this was the first of the twenty-four divisions (משמרות כהונה) of the Kohanim, which took turns ministering in the Temple.

You know, sometimes I look at old blog posts or emails, and I'm appalled by my ignorance of that period. I'm finally here putting together the pieces and discovering what was meant by the משמרת ידייע referred to in this talk I attended at Limmud 2005 and this post I made in 2007, and I'm surprised I hadn't put them together before. I knew of the משמרות כהונה, but not very well.

In a few years time I'll look at these Josephus notes, and be appalled at things I'll know then, and don't know now. Eventually, after the course of many years, I'll be well educated and no longer have to be ashamed of my ignorance. And then I'll die. What a waste. And all for nothing—none of this stuff I'm learning is anything that other people haven't learned and thrashed out in a lot more detail than me. All I can do of any originality is sometimes to put things together from having learned subjects at a relatively shallow level that people who know each individual one in depth might not have the breadth to do so themselves.

[Please comment at my collected Book XII notes post, on Dreamwidth for preference, or on LiveJournal.]

Josephus notes