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The Composition of Josephus' Antiquities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. C. Richards
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Extract

After the Jewish War Josephus was taken to Rome by Titus and then enjoyed the favour of Vespasian (Vit. 422–3). The first task set him was to write a history of it in Aramaic for the ‘upper barbarians’, by which he means Parthians, Babylonians, Jews beyond Euphrates and Adiabenians (B.J. I 3, 6). For his work he doubtless had access to the ‘commentarii’ of the emperor. This task may not have taken him long, but the translation into Greek (B.J. I 3) which we possess took longer, and was finished before the emperor's death, but after the dedication of the Forum Pacis (B.J. VII 158). In its leisurely composition he tells us later (c. Ap. I 50) that he had ‘certain assistants’ in the Greek language. As the work is quite uniform and smooth in style, we can only assume that J. turned his Aramaic into Greek himself to start with, and then placed the MS in the hands of assistants who systematically revised it, rewriting where necessary. No other hypothesis is possible; for no assistant could have been found sufficiently familiar with both Aramaic and literary Greek—at least it is highly improbable—and we have no reason to disbelieve J. when he says he translated his original treatise.

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1939, pp. 36 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1939

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References

page 36 note 1 XX 263 τν γραμματικἠν μπεριαν ναλαβὼν. Here, cp. 204, ναλαβών=κνλαβον, and he means ‘I learned by rote the scholarships of the lanfuage’.

page 37 note 1 Schürer says: ‘Es ist nicht gerechtfertigt die Richtigkeit dieser Nachricht zu bestreiten (as Rosenberg does in P. W.). Ant. XVII 28 only proves that Batansea was no longeruled by Agrippa II, though the past tense may only refer to Agrippa I. That Trachonitis was also annexed to the Akrata in the first year of Nerva (I.G.R.R. III 1176), and Mr. A. H. M. Jones has pointed out that the Cohors I Flavia Canathenorum, recriuted from Canatha in Auranitis was taken into the Roman army by a Flavian emperor. There can then be no doubt that Agrippa II ceased to regin over Batanaea, Trachonitis and Auranitis in 92–3 (C.A.H. XI 138). But it is quite unproved that he died He may well jhave remained in possession of Arca (B.J. VII 97) and bis strip of Galilee. The certainty of a second edition of the Antiquities makes Ant. XVII 28 no longer an indication of his death, and there is no ground for rejecting the definite statement of Photius—not a careless writer—that he died in 100.

page 37 note 2 Josephus, the Man and the Historian (New York 1929) pp. 164ffGoogle Scholar.: Introduction to his translation of I–IV p. xv (Loeb Library).