Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian

Josephus, a Palestinian Jew, authored Bellum Judaicum, which chronicled the Jewish revolt against Rome begun in 66 C.E. in Jerusalem, and roughly twenty years later wrote Antiquitates Judaicae, a study of Jewish history from the creation to 66 C.E. In both Bellum Judaicum and the Vita, an appendix to Antiquitates Judaicae, Josephus deals with his own role in the war. Although both works have apologetic aims, Josephus changes his story from one work to the next. By viewing these two works in the greater context of Josephus's life and not in isolation from each other, Cohen traces Josephus's development as a historian, as an apologist, and as a Jew. Cohen bases his historical reconstruction of Josephus's participation in the war on a delineation of specific contradictions between the two works, a survey of the scholarship on the subject, a discussion of the literary relationship between the two documents, an investigation of how Josephus treated his sources, and a detailed analysis of both the Bellum Judaicum and the Vita. Comprehensive and contextual, this work will be of general interest to students and scholars of ancient Judaism and classical antiquity.

Please note that Josephus in Galilee and Rome was previously published by Brill in hardback (ISBN 90 04 05922 9, no longer available).

Shaye J. D. Cohen is Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Harvard University.