Josephus

(ca. 37 a.d.-100 a.d.)

   A noted Jewish historian whose works provide important supplemental material for the history of ancient Palestine, including its invasion by various Mesopotamian monarchs. Josephus was among the leaders of the great Jewish rebellion against Rome between a.d. 66 and 70. He was captured and brought to Rome, where he gained the respect and patronage of the emperor Vespasian. Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, completed circa 93, ambitiously covers the history of his people from the creation of the world to the time of the Roman vassal Herod the Great. It includes a retelling of the great flood and accounts of how the prophet Abraham originated in Mesopotamia, how Saul and David organized the first state of Israel, how the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem and took away many Hebrews into captivity, how the Hebrews returned to Palestine, how Alexander the Great invaded the region, and how Herod rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a serious and skilled historian. But he was only as good as his sources, and most of the book up to the Babylonian captivity is based on myths and hearsay, mainly from the Old Testament. The rest, however, is of some value to modern historians. For instance, the following is part of Josephus's account of how the first Persian king, Cyrus II, allowed the Hebrews living in captivity in Mesopotamia to return to Palestine:

   In the first year of the reign of Cyrus, which was the seventieth from the day that our people were removed out of their own land into Babylon ... Cyrus called for the most eminent Jews that were in Babylon and said to them that he gave them leave to go back to their own country, and to rebuild their city Jerusalem and the Temple of God. For [these endeavors] he would be their assistant, and he would write to the rulers and governors that were in [Palestine] that they should contribute to them [the returning Hebrews] gold and silver for the building of the Temple. . . . Cyrus also sent back to them the [sacrificial] vessels of God which [the Babylonian] king Nebuchadnezzar II had pillaged out of the Temple and carried to Babylon. (Antiquities of the Jews 6.1.1-2)

   See also: historical accounts; Israel; Jerusalem