Josephus,tbe Bible, and history
Edited by Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRES S • DETROIT • 198 9 Copyright © 198 8 by Yamamot o Shote n Publishing House, Tokyo . Publishe d b y Wayne Stat e University Press , Detroit, Michiga n 48202. Al l rights ar e reserved. N o part of thi s book ma y be reproduced withou t forma l permission .
Distributed i n the United State s an d Canada by Wayne Stat e University Press , Detroit, Michigan . Distribute d i n other countries of th e world by E.J. Brill , Leiden .
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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Dat a Josephus, th e Bible, an d history / edite d by Loui s Feldma n an d Gohei Hata . p. cm . Bibliography: p . Includes index . ISBN 0814319823 (alk . paper) . ISBN 0814319831 (pb k : alk. paper) 1. Josephus , Flavius . 2 . Jews—History—16 8 B.C.—13 5 A.D. — Historiography. 3 . Bible . O.T.—Criticism , interpretation , etc. , Jewish. I . Feldman , Loui s H. II . Hata , Gohei, 1942 DS115.9.J6J68 198 9 881083 2 933'.0072024—dc 19 CI P To the memory of the parents of my wife, Miriam, Moshe Yaakov and Rivkah Blum, Z"L, martyrs in the Holocaust, whose devotion to the Jewish tradition is their greatest legacy. Louis H. Feldman
Contents
CONTRIBUTORS | 9 ABBREVIATIONS | 11 INTRODUCTION, by Louis H. Feldman | 17 1. Josephus and the Canon of the Bible, by Sid Z. Leiman | 50 2. Josephus' Jewish Antiquities and Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities, by Louis H. Feldman | 59 3. Josephus' Biblical Text for the Books of Samuel, by Eugene Ulrich | 81 4. Josephus, the Letter of Aristeas, and the Septuagint, by Andre Pelletier | 97 5. Josephus and I Maccabees, by Isaiah M. Gafni | 116 6. The Role of Women in the Hasmonean Dynasty, by Joseph Sievers | 132 7. Josephus and Nicolaus of Damascus, by Ben Zion Wacholder | 147 8. The Sadducees in Josephus, by Giinther Baumbach | 173 9. The High Priesthood in the Judgment of Josephus, by Clemens Thoma | 196 10. Josephus and the Revolutionary Parties, by Valentin Nikiprowetzky | 216 11. Josephus and the Economic Causes of the Jewish War, by Shimon Applebaum | 237 12. A Marxist View of Josephus' Account of the Jewish War, by Heinz Kreissig | 265 13. The Forms and Historical Value of Josephus' Suicide Accounts, by Raymond R. Newell | 278 14. The Description of the Land of Israel in Josephus' Works, by Zeev Safrai | 295 15. Josephus Flavius and the Archaeological Excavations in Jerusalem, by Benjamin Mazar \ 325 A SELECTIVE CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPHUS, by Louis H. Feldman | 330 INDEX OF REFERENCES TO JOSEPHUS | 449 INDEX | 459
Contributors
Shimon Applebaum, who received his doctorate from Oxford in 1952, is professor emeritus of classical archaeology and Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, Israel. He is the author of Agrarian History of England and Wales—Roman Brit• ain (1972) and Jews and Greeks in Ancient Cyrene (1979). Gunther Baumbach, professor of New Testament in the Department of Theology of the Humboldt University in East Berlin, has written Das Verstandnis des Bosen in den synoptischen Evangelien (1963), Jesus von Nazareth im Lichte der jiidischen Gruppenbildung (1971), and (with K. M. Fischer) Das Neue Testament mit Erklarungen (1986). Louis H. Feldman, professor of classics at Yeshiva University, New York, is the editor of Books XVIII to XX of Josephus' Antiquities in the Loeb Classical Library (1965) and is the author of an extensive Prolegomenon to the reissue of M. R. James' version of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities (1971), of Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1984), and of Josephus: A Supplementary Bibliography (1986). He is the coeditor (with Gohei Hata) of Josephus, Judaism, and Chris• tianity (1987). Isaiah M. Gafni is senior lecturer in Jewish history at the Hebrew University, Jerusa• lem. He is the author of Babylonian Jewry and Its Institutions in the Period of the Talmud [Hebrew] (1975). His doctoral dissertation at the Hebrew University (1978) was on The Babylonian Yeshiva: Internal Structure, Spiritual and Social Functions within the Jewish Community in the Amoraic Period. Heinz Kreissig, late professor of ancient history and archaeology at the Akademie der Wissenschaften in East Berlin, is the author of Die sozialen Zusammenhdnge des Judaischen Krieges: Klassen und Klassenkampf in Palastina des I. Jahrhunderts v. u.Z. 1970) and Die sozialokonomische Situation in Juda zur Achdmenidenzeit (1973). He died in 1984. Sid Z. Leiman received his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. After teach• ing at Yale University and after serving as dean of the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Yeshiva University and chairman of the Department of Judaic Studies at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, he is now professor of Jewish history and literature at Brooklyn College. He is the author of The Can• onization of Hebrew Scripture (1976) and the editor of The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible (1974). Benjamin Mazar received his doctorate from the University of Giessen, Germany, in 1928. He has directed'archaeological excavations at Beth Shearim, Tel Qasile, Ein Gedi, and the Old City of Jerusalem. Professor emeritus in archaeology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, he has also served the university as rector and
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