Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

193 страница из 236

Scholars have long considered Josephus a mere copyist, who passed on materials transmitted to him without changing much. Recent studies including literary analysis have revealed that Josephus was a historian with a complex agenda of his own. He was a Jewish author who had contemporary interests, both personal and collective. The local elite in Flavian Rome interested in Jewish culture must have been prominent among his targeted readers, including the wealthy freedman Epaphroditus, who was his literary patron (AJ 1.8; Vita 430; Apion 1.1; 2.1, 296; Mason 1998, 2003b, 2005, 2011; den Hollander 2014). Some of his Roman readers may have been Jews, especially those connected with the Herodian family (Goodman 1994; den Hollander 2014: 263–279). Because Josephus was a participant (BJ 1.3), he claims special knowledge of the war between the Jews and the Romans in 66–70 CE, which ultimately led to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple. He also claims to know that the course of events had God’s approval and that the Jews, therefore, had to accept Roman rule. The dramatic story of the defense and capture of the city of Iotapata (reported in book 3 of The Jewish War), during which Josephus surrendered to the Romans, proves this point. Josephus as a character in this story attests that the Romans had to win the war because God supported them. His surrender proved that he was a servant of God and not a traitor (BJ 3.354).