- Person
- Flavius Josephus
- Lived
- 37–c. 100 CE
- Field
- History
- From
- Judean (Roman citizen)
The story
Flavius Josephus was born Yosef ben Matityahu in Jerusalem around the year 36, into a priestly Jewish family; his mother was said to descend from the Hasmonean royal line. When the Jewish revolt against Rome broke out, he was made military governor of Galilee. After the siege of Yodfat (Jotapata) in 67 he surrendered to the Roman general Vespasian, later served as a translator and negotiator during the siege of Jerusalem, and afterwards settled in Rome, where he became a citizen and took his patrons' family name, Flavius.
In Rome he turned to writing history. The Jewish War, completed around 75, is the only surviving contemporary, eyewitness account of the revolt. It describes the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, and even gives a detailed picture of a Roman legionary camp. Around 94 he finished Antiquities of the Jews, a twenty-book history of the Jewish people from creation to the eve of the war, which includes accounts of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes and much detail about Herod the Great.
These books are, after the Bible, the chief written source for ancient Judea in the Second Temple period. They mention figures such as Pontius Pilate, Herod, John the Baptist and James, which is why they have also been treasured by historians of early Christianity. One modern encyclopedia concludes that without his writings we would have very little access to the people and events of his time.
His work has also guided archaeology. Almost all historical information about the desert fortress of Masada, where the last rebels held out against Rome, comes from Josephus. The site, which includes two palaces built by Herod the Great, was extensively excavated by Yigael Yadin's expedition between 1963 and 1965, and in 2001 Masada became a UNESCO World Heritage Site, largely for its preserved Roman siege works. Archaeologists continue to test his account against what they find in the ground.
Josephus wrote with political motives, and scholars read him critically. But because he wrote it all down, a whole world that would otherwise be lost remains open to readers, students and researchers everywhere.
Why it matters
Historians, archaeologists, students and visitors to sites such as Masada and Jerusalem still depend on Josephus's histories to understand the people and events of first-century Judea.
About Flavius Josephus
Jerusalem priest and rebel commander turned Roman historian, whose Jewish War and Antiquities are our main record of Second Temple Judea and the fall of Jerusalem.
More about Flavius Josephus
Sources
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.