The Josephus Problem

HowTheBibleWasCreated

Someone made a comment today that Josephus cannot be trusted as a historical source. They are right or half right. Obviously Josephus was a self-centered historian. Example:

1. Third person ... He talks of himself in third person. A literay tactic to fool the reader into thinking he is humble.

2. Josephus has too many close misses. Like the cave.... here is the guy the WT quotes from all the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXNFyzv2z1U

Also spears are thrown at him... he gives speeches and wins over Roamn genrals. And predicts when cities will fall to the day<<< do you believe this? I don't

However despite this he is our main source for the Jewish War. He spends huge amount of time writing of the Essenes and I have my suspicions he was not really a Pharesee.

Why do I find a Josephus quote every 3rd or 4th WT article. Don't they know this guy was a traitor and a liar? I use his history sparingly and with skepticm.

Maat13

Well, he did spend more time writing about a common thief than he did about someone who raised a man from the dead...at least according to history...ironic eh?

In common with nearly all Historians Josephus is writing a very selective story for his audience, which is pro-Roman. When reading History we are simply getting somone's opinion and what they want to tell us happened, not what in fact happened.

Using selected bits from Josephus as if he were an authority as the WT does is simply a joke, the oldest manuscript we have of his works is less than a thousand years old, and we know it has been tampered with since then, and probably before there were scribal changes and errors, so we do not know for sure exactly what he wrote.

More important is what I said above, he wrote with a skewed agenda, not with the motive of recording accurate history. Having said that, his works are still a valuable insight on to 1st century thinking and politics etc from a Jewish perpective.

kaik

Historians tends to have own agenda. This is nothign new and was a part of the propaganda of the state. For example historian Livy became famous for his history of the Roman Empire during his lifetime. Others attempted to justify reign of specific ruler and were a part of the administration like Dio Cassius or Procopius. Josephus is cited as author whose presence was recorded the Roman suppression of Jewish revolt. Often, there are no other historians to verify the fact. However, the preserved manuscripts were written 1000 years after the fact and were copied from older source. This does not mean that they were incorrect. Caroligne Europe in the 750-814 preserved many Greek and Roman authors in the monasteries that would be otherwise forgotten.

snare&racket

I certainly would have trouble sleeping if the historical source for my messiah was the very poetic Josephus....

I know this because it happened.

apostatethunder

It seems Josephus was probably jewish damage control in response to the message of the Gospels.