Studying Early Judaism: The Writings of Josephus
A Guide to Resources for New Testament Studies
Studying Early Judaism
This is a Substack series studying early Judaism, check out the first post.
In this post, we are recommending resources for studying The Writing of Josephus.
Who was Josephus?
Flavius Josephus was an ancient Jewish historian who grew up in Jerusalem. He came from a prominent family and served as an army general in a Jewish war against Rome (66-73 AD). Josephus was taken as a prisoner of Rome and volunteered to write a history of the Great War favoring Rome. Josephus wrote several lengthy works, including a broad history of the Jewish people.
NT scholars benefit from Josephus’ works for several reasons including historical, cultural, religious, and sociological information, genres such as Jewish biographies, the complex relationship between Jewish accommodation to and resistance against Rome, and a large vocabulary to provide insight into NT word studies.
Logos Bible Software has a nice overview essay on studying Josephus.
Reading Josephus’s Works
William Whiston’s old translation is serviceable and affordable. While you can pay ~$20 to get a printed version, there are many places online where you can read it for free, because it is in the public domain (published 1737). I have Josephus’ works on Accordance and Logos.
READ ONLINE FREE: HERE and HERE; access GREEK (with English) HERE.
The Loeb collection of Josephus’ works is more widely preferred by scholars.
Studying Josephus
The go-to resource for learning about Josephus for biblical studies is Mason’s work.
Blackwell has a companion to Josephus, produced by leading scholars like Mason, Barclay, Spilsbury, Gruen and more.
Online: Oxford University hosts a website on the reception of Josephus in Jewish Culture.
Here is a nice video discussion of Josephus from expert Steve Mason.
Some additional points that might be useful..
The Brill translation (except for the latest volume by Danny Schwartz on AJ18-20) is available, including the commentary, for free and open access through the Pontifical Biblical Institute (https://pace.biblico.it/). There is also the newly-published Cambridge New Surveys in Classics (vol 50) which surveys Josephus and his works concisely. In the next few years or so there will be a new translation of the whole corpus with modest interpretive notes from Koren in their Library of the Jewish People. Hopefully in the next few years there will be an orientation to Josephus for Biblical Studies out with Oxford (I've written it, but I'm not sure when it will go to press) as well as a book-by-book guide to the corpus (I'm editing it, but it will be years before it's ready).
--David Edwards