Flavius Josephus

Flavius Josephus was born of an aristocratic priestly Jewish family in Jerusalem. According to his own account, he was a precocious youth who by the age of 14 was being consulted by high priests in matters of Jewish law. At age 16 he undertook a three-year sojourn in the wilderness with the Jewish hermit Bannus.

Flavius Josephus’s greatest work, The Antiquities of the Jews, completed in 93 CE, traced the history of the Jews from creation to just before the revolt of 66–70. Appended to the Antiquities was a Vita (Life) defending his conduct during the revolt. He also wrote History of the Jewish War and Against Apion.

Flavius Josephus was appointed military commander of Galilee by Judaeans revolting against Rome. He fortified the towns of the north but eventually surrendered to Roman forces and joined them at the siege of Jerusalem in 70. After the fall of Jerusalem, he moved to Rome and became a writer under imperial patronage.

Flavius Josephus’s works contain faulty chronology and exaggerated facts. Yet he united the traditions of Judaism and Hellenism, provided a link between the secular world of Rome and the religious heritage of the Bible, and offered insights into the mentality of subject peoples in the Roman Empire.