Ancient Historians · Part 20 · Philo and Josephus · B2–C1
Josephus III: The Antiquities
Part 20 of Ancient Historians: in Rome, Josephus wrote a history of the Jewish people in twenty books, from the creation of the world to his own day, for Greek and Roman readers who knew almost nothing about them. He retold the scriptures, sometimes adding stories, sometimes leaving uncomfortable ones out. And he mentioned, briefly, a teacher called Jesus, in a passage that scholars have argued about for centuries. Paraphrasing and summarising (in other words, according to, retells, omits, adds, is thought to have been altered), and the language of sources and adaptation, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Philo, you write books explaining your scriptures to Greeks. Josephus will do something similar, sixty years after you: a history of your people from the beginning of the world, for Roman readers who think the Jews are strange and new.
Then he will face the same problem I do: how to explain our books to people who did not grow up with them.
Exactly. And like every translator and every retelling, he will change things: add some stories, leave out others, make Moses sound like a Greek general. Tonight we learn how to paraphrase and summarise a source, and to notice what a writer changes, adds and omits.
Twenty years after the war, living in Rome on a pension from the emperors, Josephus wrote the Jewish Antiquities, in twenty books. The first half retells the Jewish scriptures, from the creation to the return from Babylon; the second half covers the later centuries, the Maccabees, Herod and the Roman governors, up to the revolt. He wrote it in Greek, for Greek and Roman readers, to show that the Jewish people were ancient and their laws admirable.
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