Understand The Work Of Josephus

If we understand the work of Josephus and get the most out of our reading, first we must ask, in what situation, from which point of view and for what purpose Josephus wrote. Secondly, we should try to find out more about their sources of information, and how they were used. Only then, we can ask ourselves what we can learn from Josephus and how far is reliable as a historian (Wellesley). Josephus is writing in Rome, in the year 70 AD. He completed at least one Greek version of the Jewish War, between 75 and 81, only a few years after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. He wrote this after an Aramaic version is preserved. Therefore, Josephus wrote his books in a fairly comfortable, but under Roman dependency, situation.
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Just thirty-three years after Jesus’ prophecy concerning Jerusalem and its temple was beginning to be fulfilled, the Jewish radical factions of Jerusalem were fully determined to shake off the Roman yoke. In 66 CE, the reports in this regard led to the mobilization and sending of acaudilladas Roman legions under Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria. They were on a mission to quell the rebellion and punish the guilty. After wreaking havoc on the outskirts of Jerusalem, soldiers of Cestius camped around the walled city. To protect themselves from the enemy, they used the method of testudo or tortoise: joining shields forming something along the lines of a turtle shell. Josephus attests to its effectiveness: “They glided arrows without damage, and [...] the soldiers were without risk undermining the wall and prepare to set fire to the door of the Temple.” Cestius continues, “Josephus suddenly withdrew its troops [...] without valid reasons left the city.” Josephus certainly did not intend to glorify the Son of God regarding the same event that the Christians of Jerusalem had been waiting for: the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus Christ. Years before, the Son of God had given this warning: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by encamped armies, then know that the desolation thereof is at hand. Then those in Judea begin fleeing to the mountains, and those who are in the midst of Jerusalem her
The writings of Josephus, thus, give an important political, financial, cultural, intellectual, and religious addition to biblical knowledge; a crucial platform for evaluating, analyzing, and above all, broadening our knowledge of the time and setting of his life. Josephus also gives more information on important figures of the Bible like James, the half-brother of Jesus, which is not in the Bible. The Jewish War was the first of his articles. This article is more than the war because it gives information from the Maccabean era and goes on through the fall of Jerusalem to the Masada in A.D. 73. This work must have taken place later in Vespasian’s reign. In the preface, Josephus states that he first wrote The Jewish War in his own tongue, which probably was Aramaic, and then assisted to translate it to Greek. The initial version in Aramaic was intended to warn the leadership in Babylonia and Parthia to avoid revolt with the Roman Empire, but the work had a greater purpose in Greek: to revile earlier versions of the war and show that that Josephus’ laws, chronology and beliefs were flawed, and to record for posterity what actually took