“Ambiguous Oracle” in Josephus, Bellum 6.312–313 (Part One)

The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 21 (2018) 151–175 brill.com/rrj Isaiah 10:34 and the “Ambiguous Oracle” in Josephus, Bellum 6.312–313 (Part One) Roger David Aus Sperberstr. 18, 13505, Berlin, Germany [email protected] Abstract One of the most disputed passages in Josephus is found only late in his account of the Jewish war against Rome, 66–70 CE. After relating numerous phenomena he considered portents of the destruction of Jerusalem with the Temple, he notes two oracles. The first, in Bell. 6.311, has never been traced back to a specific scriptural passage or Judaic tradition. The second, in 6.312–13, is the object of this study, in which I argue that Isa. 10:34 is the biblical verse behind the “ambiguous oracle.” Keywords Josephus – Jewish War 6.312–313 – ambiguous oracle – Vespasian – Hezekiah – Isaiah One of the most puzzling and disputed passages in Josephus is now found only late in his account of the Jewish war against Rome, 66–70 CE. After relating numerous phenomena he considered portents of the destruction of Jerusalem with the Temple, he notes two oracles. The first, in Bell. 6.311, has never been traced back to a specific scriptural passage or Judaic tradition.1 The second, in 6.312–13, is the object of this study. 1 Cf., the statement, however, that the ideal future Temple of Ezek. 42:15–20 is a square with 500 cubit long sides. Steve Mason maintains that Bell. 6.311 may be due to Josephus himself. See his “Josephus, Daniel, and the Flavian House,” in Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers, eds., Josephus and the History of the Graeco-Roman Period. Essays in Memory of Morton Smith (SP-B 41; Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 186. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15700704-12341341Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 01:36:08AM via free access 152 Aus A native of Jerusalem, a priest and of noble descent (Vita 1–6), Josephus boasted that when he was about fourteen “the chief priests and the leading men of the city constantly used to come to me for precise information on some particular in our ordinances” (Vita 9).2 He maintained that he was not only an interpreter of dreams but also “skilled in divining the meaning of ambiguous [ἀμϕιβόλως] utterances of the Deity,” and “not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books” (Bell. 3.352). This implies that he most probably knew of the scriptural background of the “ambiguous” oracle he relates in 6.312–13. He claims regarding the Jews: “what more than all else incited them to the war was an ambiguous [ἀμϕίβολος] oracle, likewise found in their sacred Scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. 313) This they understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation of it. The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed emperor on Jewish soil.” It is clear from Josephus’ description that this “oracle” (χρησμός) was defi- nitely considered to be found in the Hebrew Bible.3 It is also called λόγιον in 2 Cf., the haggadic narrative of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple in Luke 2:41–52 and my study of this pericope in Samuel, Saul and Jesus. Three Early Palestinian Jewish Christian Gospel Haggadoth (SFSHJ 105; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 1–64. I usually employ the English translation by H. St. J. Thackeray in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Josephus. The Jewish War, Books I–III and IV–VII (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927–28/1967–68). He, Ralph Marcus, Allen Wikgren, and Louis Feldman translated the Jewish Antiquities in the same series. 3 The term χρησμός basically means oracle (LSJ 2006). Josephus employs it seven times, of which four refer to pagan oracles (Ant. 2.241; 9.289; Ap. 1.307, 312). In Bell. 4.386 he reports that the Zealots “scoffed at the oracles [pl.] of the prophets as imposters’ tales.” In 6.109 he also asks: “Who does not know the writings of the ancient prophets and that oracle which threatens this poor city and is even now coming true?” As in 4.386, this oracle appears to be found in Scripture. It may refer to the fratricide of Isa. 9:18 (Eng. 19), “a man against his brother.” It is very probable that Josephus knew of the writings of Philo, whom he labels “no novice in philosophy” (Ant. 18.259). Again and again the Alexandrian employs the term χρησμός in connection with specific passages in Scripture, e.g. in Leg. 3.129, 142, 212 and 245. In Det. 74 it alludes to Gen. 4:10 without quoting it. Most instructive for Bell. 6.312, however, is Praem. 95. There he alludes to LXX Num. 24:7 as an oracle regarding (the Messiah) who will “lead his host to war and subdue great and populous nations.” The term χρησμός can thus be employed in both Josephus and Philo of an oracle/prophecy found in Scripture. The Review of Rabbinic JudaismDownloaded from21 (2018)Brill.com09/24/2021 151–175 01:36:08AM via free access Isaiah 10:34 and the “Ambiguous Oracle” in Josephus 153 6.313.4 It was “ambiguous” (ἀμϕίβολος)5 because the terms in it could be interpreted in different ways. It applied to someone from their (the Jews’) “country” (χώρα), who was “of their own race” (οἰκεῖος).6 This figure “at that time”7 should “rule the inhabited world” (ἄρξει τῆς οἰκουμένης). Although he does not admit it, Josephus reinterpreted the biblical oracle to mean a non-Jew or Gentile (Vespasian), since he was proclaimed emperor “on Jewish soil” (ἐπὶ Ἰουδαίας). The Jewish historian concedes, however, that “many of the Sages” (πολλοί τῶν σοϕῶν) interpreted the oracle differently.8 That is, the figure (the Messiah) who for them would then rule the entire world would be a Jew from Judea. 4 The term is elsewhere found only five times in Josephus, three times of the breastplate of the high priest (Ant. 3.163, 217, and 8.93), and once also in Bell. 6.311, where Scripture is most probably meant: The Jews “had it recorded in their oracles [pl.] that the city and the sanctuary would be taken when the Temple should become four-square.” See, however, n. 1. Philo also employs the term extensively of a passage in Scripture. 5 Cf., LSJ 90, III. 6 Cf., LSJ 1202, II. 7 This is the Greek κατὰ τὸν καιρὸν ἐκεῖνον. In regard to Isa. 10:34, proposed below as the background of Bell. 6.312–13, it should be noted that just before this, “on that day” both in vv. 20 –at that ‘time’“ (Stenning, pp. 38“ ,בעידנא ההוא and 27 is translated in Targum Jonathan by 39). If early, this may have influenced Josephus’ Greek phrase here. See Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, p. 1067 on Josephus’ native tongue was Aramaic, in which he claims he wrote the original of . עִ י דָ ָ נ א Bellum (1.3 and 6). 8 There is no reason to consider these σοϕοί to be scribes and not Sages, that is, early “Rabbis.” Against Abraham Schalit, “Die Erhebung Vespasians nach Flavius Josephus, Talmud und Midrasch. Zur Geschichte einer messianischen Prophetie,” in Hildegard Temporini and Wolfgang Haase, eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (Berlin: de Gruyter, 19752), pp. 236 and 255. He thinks they were also apocalypticists. I am grateful to him for the de- tailed discussion of many issues, as well as now to the opus magnum of Steve Mason for some recent bibliography: A History of the Jewish War, A.D. 66–74 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). Like Josephus, Mason greatly downplays the messianic elements of the Jewish revolt. The Jewish historian’s almost complete avoidance of noting messianic passages (e.g. Ant. 10.210 and Dan 2:34–35 and 44–45), also in his Antiquities, was in part due to the Messiah’s not recently appearing to defend besieged and later destroyed Jerusalem, and to the primarily Roman audience for whom he wrote. They would hardly have been in- terested in understanding more about such Jewish “superstitions.” Tacitus, The Histories 2.4, speaks, for example, of the “obstinate superstitions of the Jews” (trans. Clifford Moore in the Loeb Classical Library, henceforth LCL). Louis Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley: University of California, 1998), p. 652, n. 46, aptly states in regard to Bell. 6.313: “it would have been foolhardy or outright dangerous for Josephus to have implied that the refer- ence was to a Jewish messiah; consequently, Josephus suppresses the messianic ideals of the revolutionaries in the war against Rome, so much did he apparently fear Roman wrath.” He says about the content of 6.312 that this was “a strongly and widely held belief” (p. 151). The Review of Rabbinic Judaism 21 (2018) 151–175 Downloaded from Brill.com09/24/2021 01:36:08AM via free access 154 Aus Several scriptural passages have been suggested to be at the base of the ambiguous oracle in Bell. 6.312–13. One is Gen. 49:10, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes.”9 Another is Dan. 7:13–14 regarding the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, whose kingship is eternal.10 Others think of different passages in Daniel.11 The scriptural passage most favored as standing behind Bell.

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