Sure ...Mister_T said:Really? Can you back that up with something?
The works of Josephus provide crucial information about the First Jewish-Roman War. They are also important literary source for understanding the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls and post-Second Temple Judaism. Josephan scholarship in the 19th and early 20th century became focused on Josephus' relationship to the sect of the Pharisees. He was consistently portrayed as a member of the sect and viewed as a villanous traitor to his own nation - a view which became known in Josephan studies as the classical conception. In the mid 20th century, this view was challenged by a new generation of scholars who fomulated the modern conception of Josephus, still considering him a Pharisee but restoring his reputation in part as patriot and a historian of some standing. Recent scholarship since 1990 has sought to move scholarly perceptions forward by demonstrating that Josephus was not a Pharisee but an orthodox Aristocrat-Priest who became part of the Temple establishment as a matter of deference and not willing association (Cf. Steve Mason, Todd Beall, and Ernst Gerlach).
- Wikipedia
In sum, then, the Pharisees are not of great interest to Josephus in his thirty volumes of writing. Certainly they do not have the central place of the priestly aristocracy, which is inextricably linked with the admirable Judean constitution throughout all his works. There is no evidence that he identified with the Pharisees in any way. On the contrary, in his world of values they appear on the wrong side entirely. They are for him popular teachers who have the confidence of the masses. But this is no recommendation. He is an unabashed elitist, who thinks that the hereditary priestly aristocracy are the ones properly charged with teaching and caring for the masses. As for many ancient writers, for Josephus the masses are a rudderless, impetuous mob that can be easily led by whoever makes the most convincing appeal to them. Josephus wishes that the aristocrats were always successful in managing their populace, but he willingly concedes that both in the context of war and otherwise, this has not always been the case.
Although he is quite willing to acknowledge the Pharisees place within Judean culture as a philosophical school, the only preference Josephus exhibits among these groups is for the Essenes: their philosophy, disciplined way of life, and actual behavior in Judean history all earn his complimentsconsistently. His glowing description of them in War 2.119-61 closely matches his portrait of general Judean values in Apion 2.146-96. Whenever the Pharisees, by contrast, appear as actors in the narrative, it is almost invariably to wield their influence for self-serving and socially disruptive ends. Josephus expresses a nearly consistent antipathy for all popular leaders or demagogues. John the Baptist [Ant. 18.111-14] is a curious exception, possibly because of his early death and Josephuss desire to expose the sordid Herodian marriages involved. Whereas other such leaders come and go in the narrative, however, the Pharisees receive more of his venom because they have persevered as a group of popular leaders from Hasmonean times to his own.
Once we abandon any connection between Josephus and the Pharisees, a number of benefits follow. Most importantly, we can read him with a new curiosity and openness, without the blinkers provided by a presumed religious or philosophical affiliation. We no longer need to say, when we read his accounts of afterlife and judgment, for example, that he must really mean something else (bodily resurrection), which he has Hellenized. When he talks about the ancestral traditions of the Judeans, we can now see that these are quite parallel to the ancestral traditions of other cultures and have nothing to do with the special traditions of the fathers recognized by the Pharisees only. In general, we find in Josephus a statesman very much like other statesmen of the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, wrestling with the same sorts of questions in the same sort of language, trying to find a place for his people in a perilous world subject to Roman domination.
It is perhaps natural to ask: If Josephus was not (and did not claim to be) a Pharisee, then what was he? To which group did he belong? To answer such a question we need first, however, to reject the old and invalid assumption that all ancient Judeans belonged to one of the three schools mentioned by Josephus. This assumption was the basis for much scholarly nonsense in the pastfor example, identifying texts as Pharisaic or anti-Pharisaic, Sadducean, or even Essene (in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls) because of certain statements in them viewed more less in isolation. This assumption presumably lay behind Thackerays rendering of Life 9, cited above: whereas Josephus speaks of the three schools among us (par hemin) Thackeray wrote of the sects into which our nation is divided. Since the work of Morton Smith and especially Jacob Neusner from the 1950s onward, we have come to realize that ancient Judean culture offered many sorts of school affiliation, whether with the dominant parties or with individual teachers (e.g., Bannus, John the Baptist, Jesus, Theudas), and also non-affiliation. There is no reason to assume that all or most Judeans, especially those of the aristocratic élite, had a particular school affiliation.
Indeed, in the larger Greco-Roman world with which Josephus so consistently compares his own culture, it would have been remarkable to find a public leader expressing devotion to one single philosophical school. As we have seen, it was considered praiseworthy for a man to learn something of all the major philosophies, to have a philosophical perspective that would serve him well in handling the vicissitudes of life. He should know a basic philosophical vocabulary and try to live as philosophers recommended, which is to say simply, with dignity, fearlessly, and without need of luxury or favor. Josephus illustrates this model when he parades his youthful philosophical preparation. But ongoing devotion to one school smacked of fanaticism and would therefore be deeply suspect in a mature man who was active in public life. True to form, Josephus presents himself as just such a man, the embodiment of his people, free from any zealous devotion to one school.
- Flavius Josephus and the Pharisees
- Wikipedia
In sum, then, the Pharisees are not of great interest to Josephus in his thirty volumes of writing. Certainly they do not have the central place of the priestly aristocracy, which is inextricably linked with the admirable Judean constitution throughout all his works. There is no evidence that he identified with the Pharisees in any way. On the contrary, in his world of values they appear on the wrong side entirely. They are for him popular teachers who have the confidence of the masses. But this is no recommendation. He is an unabashed elitist, who thinks that the hereditary priestly aristocracy are the ones properly charged with teaching and caring for the masses. As for many ancient writers, for Josephus the masses are a rudderless, impetuous mob that can be easily led by whoever makes the most convincing appeal to them. Josephus wishes that the aristocrats were always successful in managing their populace, but he willingly concedes that both in the context of war and otherwise, this has not always been the case.
Although he is quite willing to acknowledge the Pharisees place within Judean culture as a philosophical school, the only preference Josephus exhibits among these groups is for the Essenes: their philosophy, disciplined way of life, and actual behavior in Judean history all earn his complimentsconsistently. His glowing description of them in War 2.119-61 closely matches his portrait of general Judean values in Apion 2.146-96. Whenever the Pharisees, by contrast, appear as actors in the narrative, it is almost invariably to wield their influence for self-serving and socially disruptive ends. Josephus expresses a nearly consistent antipathy for all popular leaders or demagogues. John the Baptist [Ant. 18.111-14] is a curious exception, possibly because of his early death and Josephuss desire to expose the sordid Herodian marriages involved. Whereas other such leaders come and go in the narrative, however, the Pharisees receive more of his venom because they have persevered as a group of popular leaders from Hasmonean times to his own.
Once we abandon any connection between Josephus and the Pharisees, a number of benefits follow. Most importantly, we can read him with a new curiosity and openness, without the blinkers provided by a presumed religious or philosophical affiliation. We no longer need to say, when we read his accounts of afterlife and judgment, for example, that he must really mean something else (bodily resurrection), which he has Hellenized. When he talks about the ancestral traditions of the Judeans, we can now see that these are quite parallel to the ancestral traditions of other cultures and have nothing to do with the special traditions of the fathers recognized by the Pharisees only. In general, we find in Josephus a statesman very much like other statesmen of the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, wrestling with the same sorts of questions in the same sort of language, trying to find a place for his people in a perilous world subject to Roman domination.
It is perhaps natural to ask: If Josephus was not (and did not claim to be) a Pharisee, then what was he? To which group did he belong? To answer such a question we need first, however, to reject the old and invalid assumption that all ancient Judeans belonged to one of the three schools mentioned by Josephus. This assumption was the basis for much scholarly nonsense in the pastfor example, identifying texts as Pharisaic or anti-Pharisaic, Sadducean, or even Essene (in the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls) because of certain statements in them viewed more less in isolation. This assumption presumably lay behind Thackerays rendering of Life 9, cited above: whereas Josephus speaks of the three schools among us (par hemin) Thackeray wrote of the sects into which our nation is divided. Since the work of Morton Smith and especially Jacob Neusner from the 1950s onward, we have come to realize that ancient Judean culture offered many sorts of school affiliation, whether with the dominant parties or with individual teachers (e.g., Bannus, John the Baptist, Jesus, Theudas), and also non-affiliation. There is no reason to assume that all or most Judeans, especially those of the aristocratic élite, had a particular school affiliation.
Indeed, in the larger Greco-Roman world with which Josephus so consistently compares his own culture, it would have been remarkable to find a public leader expressing devotion to one single philosophical school. As we have seen, it was considered praiseworthy for a man to learn something of all the major philosophies, to have a philosophical perspective that would serve him well in handling the vicissitudes of life. He should know a basic philosophical vocabulary and try to live as philosophers recommended, which is to say simply, with dignity, fearlessly, and without need of luxury or favor. Josephus illustrates this model when he parades his youthful philosophical preparation. But ongoing devotion to one school smacked of fanaticism and would therefore be deeply suspect in a mature man who was active in public life. True to form, Josephus presents himself as just such a man, the embodiment of his people, free from any zealous devotion to one school.
- Flavius Josephus and the Pharisees
He's wrong.Mister_T said:I think it's safe to say that the man knows his stuff.