The Work
Antiquities of the Jews (Ioudaike Archaiologia) is a history of the Jewish people in twenty volumes, written in Greek and completed around 93/94 CE. It was composed by Flavius Josephus (born Joseph bar Mattityahu, c. 37 CE) in Rome under imperial patronage and addresses a Greco-Roman audience curious about the history, religion, and customs of the Jewish people. The work covers Jewish history from the creation of the world (Genesis 1) through the beginning of the Jewish War against Rome (66 CE), approximately covering the same period as the Hebrew Bible and extending it to the first century CE.
The work survived antiquity primarily through Christian transmission: Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome all cited it extensively, and the entire Greek text was preserved in Christian manuscripts. The editio princeps (first printed edition) was published in Basel in 1533. The standard modern edition is that of Benedikt Niese (1887-1895). The most widely used English translation remains that of William Whiston (1737), although the modern Loeb Classical Library translation by Louis Feldman and Ralph Marcus (1965-1981) is the scholarly standard.
Biblical Engagement and Historical Significance
The Antiquities is not a biblical commentary but a historical retelling. Books 1-11 paraphrase and expand the biblical narrative from Genesis through the return from Exile (roughly corresponding to Genesis through Nehemiah/Ezra). Books 12-20 cover the inter-testamental and first-century period, providing the essential historical context for the New Testament.
Books 1-5 retell the Pentateuch, with significant expansions drawn from Jewish midrash and oral tradition. Josephus's retelling of Genesis - the creation (Genesis 1-2), the flood (Genesis 6-9), the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11), the patriarchs - provides the earliest extended extrabiblical witness to Jewish interpretation of these texts. His account of the Exodus, Joshua's conquest, and the wilderness wanderings provides comparative evidence for how these narratives were understood in first-century Judaism.
Books 6-11 cover the period of the Judges, the Monarchy, the Exile, and the return - roughly corresponding to Judges through Ezra-Nehemiah. Josephus's treatment of David (Books 6-7) and Solomon (Books 8-9) supplements the biblical accounts with details apparently drawn from non-canonical Jewish sources, while his treatment of the Exile period (Books 10-11) is particularly valuable for understanding how first-century Jews conceptualized this foundational historical trauma.
Books 12-20 are the work's most historically significant section for New Testament students. They cover:
- The Maccabean period (Books 12-13): the Seleucid domination, the Maccabean revolt (1-2 Maccabees), and the Hasmonean dynasty. - The Herodian period (Books 14-17): the rise of Antipater and Herod the Great, providing indispensable background to Matthew 2 (Herod's slaughter of the innocents) and Luke 1-2 (the birth narratives under Herod's reign). - The Roman prefects and procurators (Books 18-20): the period of Jesus, John the Baptist, and the early church.
Book 18 contains the celebrated Testimonium Flavianum - Josephus's direct reference to Jesus: 'Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day...' (Antiquities 18.3.3).
Book 18 also contains a reference to the execution of John the Baptist: 'Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist... Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion... thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause... he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus... and was there put to death' (Antiquities 18.5.2). This account differs in detail from the Synoptic Gospel account (Mark 6:14-29) but corroborates the basic fact of John's execution by Herod.
Book 20 contains a reference to 'James the brother of Jesus who was called Christ' - his stoning at the instigation of the high priest Ananus in 62 CE. Unlike the Testimonium Flavianum, this reference is almost universally accepted as authentic by scholars, as it is incidental rather than encomiastic and fits naturally into Josephus's narrative.
Author & Context
Flavius Josephus (37-c. 100 CE) was born Joseph bar Mattityahu in Jerusalem to an aristocratic priestly family. He received an excellent education in Jewish law and tradition and was appointed general of Galilee at the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 CE. After the fall of Jotapata in 67 CE, he survived the mass suicide of his garrison, surrendered to the Roman general Vespasian, and correctly predicted Vespasian's elevation to emperor. He was subsequently granted freedom and patronage, adopting the Roman name Flavius Josephus, and accompanied Vespasian's son Titus during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
After the war, Josephus settled in Rome under imperial patronage and devoted the remainder of his life to writing. His earlier work The Jewish War (Bellum Judaicum, c. 75 CE) described the recent conflict from a perspective sympathetic to Roman rule. The Antiquities, completed around 93/94 CE, was a more ambitious project: a complete history of the Jewish people from creation to the present, designed to explain and defend Jewish religion and civilization to a Greco-Roman readership.
The Antiquities was composed under the patronage of Epaphroditus, a learned freedman, and was intended for a cultivated Greco-Roman audience familiar with classical history. Josephus explicitly models it on Dionysius of Halicarnassus's Roman Antiquities, which had traced Roman history from its origins, and on the Greek historians Thucydides and Polybius. This Hellenistic framework shapes both the style and the content: Josephus emphasizes those aspects of Jewish history and religion that resonate with Greco-Roman philosophical and moral ideals, while minimizing elements that might seem alien or offensive to his audience.
The Testimonium Flavianum - Textual Issues
The Testimonium Flavianum (Antiquities 18.3.3) has been the subject of scholarly debate for centuries. In the form preserved in the Greek manuscripts, it reads as unambiguously Christian in tone - referring to Jesus as 'the Christ' and affirming the resurrection ('he appeared to them alive again the third day'). This has led many scholars to conclude that the passage has been interpolated or substantially expanded by Christian scribes.
The discovery in 1971 of an Arabic translation of the Antiquities by the tenth-century bishop Agapius of Hieropolis provides what many scholars now consider the closest surviving witness to Josephus's original text. In Agapius's version, the passage is significantly more neutral: 'His disciples...reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.' This hedged, non-committal version is now widely accepted as close to what Josephus actually wrote, with Christian scribes later enhancing its christological content.
The consensus among modern historians is that the Testimonium contains an authentic Josephan core - a reference to Jesus as a wise man, teacher, wonder-worker, and victim of crucifixion under Pilate - that has been expanded by Christian interpolation. Even in its original, non-interpolated form, it provides significant independent attestation of the historical existence of Jesus.
Critical Reception and Scholarly Use
The Antiquities has been indispensable to biblical and historical scholarship since the patristic period. Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 263-339 CE) cited it extensively in his Ecclesiastical History. Jerome, Origen, and Irenaeus all used it. During the Renaissance and Reformation, Josephus was among the most widely read ancient authors after Cicero and Virgil.
Modern scholarship has transformed our understanding of the work's reliability. Louis Feldman's extensive studies of Josephus have shown that he frequently paraphrased, expanded, and idealized his biblical sources in accordance with Hellenistic literary conventions. His accounts of the same events sometimes differ between Antiquities and Jewish War, and both sometimes conflict with the biblical accounts. This does not make Josephus unreliable but requires careful critical use: he is a primary source for first-century Jewish history, not a transparent window onto earlier biblical events.
The Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries (1947-1956) transformed the use of Josephus: the Scrolls provide independent evidence for the sect Josephus calls the Essenes, generally identified with the Qumran community, and his descriptions of Essene practices can now be checked against the Scrolls themselves.
Theological Significance
For biblical theology, the Antiquities has two distinct kinds of significance. First, its retelling of the Old Testament narrative provides evidence for first-century Jewish interpretation of Scripture - a necessary backdrop for understanding both the New Testament and early Jewish-Christian dialogue. Second, its references to John the Baptist, Jesus, and James provide independent corroboration of key historical claims of the New Testament.
The work demonstrates the historical depth of the biblical narrative: the peoples, places, institutions, and events described in the Hebrew Bible are real historical phenomena attested by multiple ancient sources, not mythological or legendary constructs. This historical grounding is theologically significant for any tradition that understands God's saving action as occurring within human history.
Legacy
The Antiquities has been continuously read and cited for over nineteen centuries. It remains the primary ancient source for the history of the Herodian period, the Roman administration of Judea, the high priesthood, and the social conditions that form the backdrop of the New Testament. Every serious commentary on the Gospels, Acts, and Paul's letters draws on Josephus extensively. The standard reference works for New Testament background - Joseph Fitzmyer's Luke, Raymond Brown's Birth of the Messiah, E.P. Sanders's Judaism: Practice and Belief - all rely heavily on the Antiquities.
The work's influence extends beyond biblical scholarship into Jewish history, Roman history, and the history of religions. It is the primary ancient source for Jewish sectarianism in the first century (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots), for the Temple's layout and ceremonies, and for the social structure of Herodian Palestine.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should consult Josephus alongside the Passion narratives (Matthew 26-27, Mark 14-15, Luke 22-23, John 18-19) for the Roman administrative context; alongside Luke 1-2 for the Herodian background; alongside Acts 5:36-37 (Josephus's references to Theudas and Judas the Galilean); and alongside 1 and 2 Maccabees (Deuterocanonical) for the inter-testamental context that Josephus's Books 12-13 illuminate.
Further Reading
- Louis H. Feldman, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937-1980) (1984) - the comprehensive bibliographical guide to Josephus scholarship. - Steve Mason, Josephus and the New Testament (2nd ed. 2003) - the best introduction to the use of Josephus for New Testament studies. - John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (4 vols., 1991-2009) - the most thorough critical assessment of the Testimonium Flavianum and Josephus's other references to Jesus.