Has Anyone Actually Read Josephus?

Joseph ben Mattitiyahu (AKA Flavius Josephus, AKA Josephus, 37 CE-circa 100 CE) wrote a massively detailed history of the Jewish revolt against Rome, The Wars of the Jews. The work was penned some twenty years after that revolt was quashed in 70 CE. In the book he provides enormous amounts of background and contextual material. The work was completed one thousand four hundred years before the movable type printing press was invented. It is easy to lose sight of the achievement. The fact that we can read this text today in print is a testimony to its importance in its own day. For those early editions, every letter and bound volume was fashioned by hand.

My current project, The Leper’s Testament, is playing with fire. The historical-fiction passages in the book are set in the lands of the Bible, in the First Century, CE, a time and place that usually has religious faith and author credibility riding on the details. If these works challenge conventional wisdom, writers can be burned by the intensity of critical heat. Countless graduate seminars, PHD theses, and career making books have already staked out the boundaries of a myriad of worthy topics. What is it that draws me to the flames?

The best part of writing fiction is that you get to make things up. In the centuries before artificial intelligence, authors of historical-fiction wanted to ply their craft without fear of constant contradiction by facts. Bothersome uninvited facts would show up in contemporary documents, eye-witness accounts, and historical chronicles. When facts were scarce, a writer of fiction could make a living filling in the empty spaces left behind.

The reliability of Josephus’ history had been questioned from the start. The most problematic issue raised by The Wars Against The Jews was whether there was any mention at all of Jesus of Nazareth in the earliest editions. For non-Christians, if there was no mention of Jesus, then was he even real? Jews of the First Century CE were troubled by Josephus’ turning away from his people and serving Imperial Rome. These details and more resulted in Josephus being kept at arms length from both communities seeking to move on from the destruction of the Temple. The writing of historical accounts of both religious traditions grew comfortable paying only lip service to the value of Josephus’ histories..

For me, the importance of Josephus is in his details. He describes a world lost to all of us. The culture of First Century Jerusalem has a great deal going on within its walls, more than is shared by Rabbinic Judaism or the New Testament.