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Josephus' Works are a corpus of works authored at the end of the first century CE by the Jewish historian Josephus.

Overview

In his writings, Josephus provides very detailed autobiographical information, about his childhood, his role of leadership in the Jewish War, and his reconversion as a supporter of the Roman rule and a personal friend of the Flavian emperors.

Josephus wrote in Greek. Greek was the main language of the Jewish communities scattered in Rome and in Italy, as well as the language of the Jews living in the Hellenistic East. However Greek was also the language of a multitude of Greek intellectuals, who settled in Rome, and used Greek to write on the rise and might of Rome. Therefore Josephus’s choice of Greek has a double purpose, to reach the Diaspora Jews, who with him, try to cope with the recent calamity, and a Roman audience, prone to listen to Greek intellectuals. Josephus is well known also in Roman sources (Suetonius).

Josephus is first of all known for the account of the Jewish War, published between 75 and 79 CE. The Jewish War, which is divided in seven books, main theme is the War between the Jews and the Romans, which ended in the conquest of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the Temple. Thus, Josephus describes Vespasian and Titus campaign in Galilee and Judaea, the siege and conquest of Jerusalem, the dramatic siege of Masada, and the triumphal procession of Vespasian and Titus at Rome.

Josephus published [Jewish Antiquities]] twenty years after the publication of the Jewish War, between 93 and 94 CE. Jewish Antiquities is divided in twenty books. It is possible to divide Antiquities in roughly two parts. The first part starts with the Creation of the World and ends with the return of the Exiles from Babylonia. The second part, which covers the Second Temple period, roughly start with the reconstruction of the Temple by Zerubabel and Joshua, the high priest, and it ends with the outbreak of the war against Rome in 66 C.E.

Against Apion is the last work published by Josephus. The book was written after 96 C.E., in the last years of Domitian’s rule. The book is an apology of Judaism.

Life, was maybe written in the last years of the first century CE., although its exact date vary. The Life focuses on the main on Josephus’s years as Governor of Galilee.

Editions and translations

Josephus were known in the Middle Ages through the Latin versions of his works and mostly, through the Latin and Hebrew paraphrases of the Bellum Iudaicum (Hegesippus and Josippon, respectively).

No surprisingly, the editio princeps (1470 Schüssler) published the Latin version, on which the first translations also were based.

With the publication of the editio princeps of the Greek text in 1544, began the critical work to recover the "original" Josephus and also came the first translations based on the Greek.

List of Josephus' Works

• Bellum Iudaicum / Jewish War
• Antiquitates Iudaicae / Jewish Antiquities
• Contra Apionem / Against Apion
• Vita / Life

External links

• [ Wikipedia]