The Jewish War

He was a general.

He was captured by Rome, and he's written such things as Antiquities and War of the Jews.

But in Antiquities of the Jews, in Book 3, he writes several paragraphs here that I kind of want to bring out because he carries this idea of heaven and earth and sea within his writings.

And this is first century.

It's hard, though, getting precise dates out of that because even though you can get relative dates, there's then the controversy of where you pin any one of those texts in absolute terms.

I personally believe, and I've, I've argued for this, that, um, all four Gospels postdate the Jewish War and the fall of Jerusalem in 70.

And, uh, th- there's a, there's a bunch of reasons for that.

I think the way that even Mark's Gospel talks about the war, it's prophesying it, but the way it talks about the temple is more likely to be something that you see after the events that are being prophesied than before them.

I, I mean, the way that I would, would kind of go to it is that the reason for including prophecies in your work is because the author thinks they were fulfilled.

Mm-hmm.

So the Jewish historian, Josephus, he writes the book Jewish War and the book Antiquities, and includes in those prophecies of the temple's destruction.

And the reason why they're poignant is because the temple was destroyed.

What were these dinosaurs? What were these dragons, these serpentine monsters that were from before? And this brings us to Josephus, and I want to look at some writings of Josephus here.

And for people that are new here, he was a Roman Jewish historian and military leader, and he's Best known for writing The Jewish War, and he was born in Jerusalem, and he initially went against the Romans and during this first Jewish-Roman war, and he was a general, but he surrenders in AD sixty-seven and he becomes a slave to Vespasian.

But then in AD sixty-nine, he is granted his freedom, and he assumes the emperor's family name of Flavius.

That's why you'll see Flavius Josephus.

That's the shape of it.

Mary Smallwood, who did the Penguin translation of the Jewish War, says he was guilty of shocking duplicity at Jodapata, saving himself by the sacrifice of his companions.

That's not a modern revisionist talking.

That's his own translator.

And that's why he's useful.

It's also why he's suspect, both at once, and you can't separate them.

all right so what did he actually write give me the shelf four works survive the jewish war seven volumes around seventy five the jewish antiquities twenty volumes around ninety three or ninety four the life which is his autobiography around ninety four to ninety nine and against apion two volumes around ninety seven which is a defense of Judaism against Greek and Roman critics.

Start with the war, because that one has a strange publication history.

context? I mean, there's...

I mean, the most famous is Josephus' account in Wars of the Jews because he was an eyewitness to the destruction of the temple.

And I mean, most of the books that have been written that comment on 70 AD, whether it's Lightheart's or Peter Lightheart's commentary on Revelation or...

David Chilton's books on Revelation in 70 AD.

I mean, there's a ton of those.

Or Ken Gentry's Before Jerusalem Fell.

They're going to discuss some of the political stuff, but I don't know any single book just on the political situation at the time, other than Josephus' Wars of the Jews.

Thank you very much.

In 70 AD, the Levitical priesthood that was controlled by the Sadducees thought they were going to be immune.

If you read Josephus' Wars of the Jews, they thought they were going to be immune.

But they weren't.

The author goes on about his personal distress and lamentation and his troubled spirit, his heart being overturned within him in verse 20.

He's the son of this great man, Vespasian, but it would have been a rather unremarkable life.

But that changed with the outbreak of the Jewish war.

66... to 73 AD.

It's a series of conflicts, but it's called the Jewish War.

He was appointed a commander of the 15th Legion and served with great success under his father.

His father, so we're talking about Titus Vespasian, so named because of his father Vespasian, he becomes the emperor in AD 69.

You may remember that she makes an appearance in the Bible.

She's the daughter of Herod Agrippa, and Paul comes before Agrippa and Bernice in Acts 25.