Anyone who speaks more than one modern language knows that many expressions do not translate “literally,” but can only be conveyed by idiomatic equivalents. “Accuracy” is not necessarily a criterion in such choices, for one might gain precision in one respect (e.g., by imitating a the original word order or phrasing) only at the cost of accuracy elsewhere (e.g., in the sentence as a whole). There is much to be said for both of these options, and for each interim stop in the spectrum. For example, he or she may set out to follow the contours of the original language more visibly, or to place greater emphasis on idiomatic phrasing in the target language. Granted that every translation is an interpretation, the translator must still choose from a range of criteria. A few words about the translation, then, are in order. Given that we needed to prepare our own translations in any case, it seemed wisest to include them with the commentary as anchor and reference-point. And since our commentary is on the Greek text, we would have been implicitly challenging the other translation. Although we began with the mandate to prepare a commentary alone, we soon realized that a new translation geared to the commentary would be helpful for most readers, for whom it would have been cumbersome to keep another translation at hand. We accept that reality, hoping only to have facilitated the research of others.
A necessary hazard of such a project is the certain knowledge that further scholarship will take issue with our readings at many points. To the contrary, since no commentary yet exists in English, we hope simply to provide hereby an opening and invitation to the further exploration that will certainly come. Perhaps the most important observation is that we do not aim to provide the last word on reading Josephus. In order to assist the reader of this series, the Brill Project team would like to explain our general aims and principles. Philo’s goals were not those of the author of Qumran’s Commentary on Nahum or of the Church Father Origen.
The commentary format is ancient, and even in antiquity commentators differed in their aims and methods. The time is right, therefore, for the first comprehensive English commentary to Josephus. Rengstorf’s Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus (completed in 1983) and Louis Feldman’s annotated bibliography (1984) joined with fundamental studies of the 1970s and 1980s to prepare the ground for a proliferation of Josephus-related graduate seminars, dissertations, and regular international meetings. Signs of the new environment include all of the research tools and scholarly venues that were absent before: K. The past three decades, however, have witnessed the birth and rapid growth of “Josephus studies” in the proper sense. Concentrated study in the standard academic forms-journals, scholarly seminars, or indeed commentaries devoted to Josephus-was lacking.
Readers have tended to look beyond them to the underlying historical facts or to Josephus’ sources, imagining that they could by-pass his own artistic contribution. Although Josephus’ name has been known for nearly two millennia, ever since he lived, and he has been cited extensively in support of any number of agendas, his writings have not always been valued as literary compositions. Our analysis of other texts and of the physical remains unearthed by archaeology must occur in dialogue with Josephus’ story, for it is the only comprehensive and connected account of the period. By the accidents of history, his narratives have become the indispensable source for all scholarly study of Judea from about 200 BCE to 75 CE. 1.1-4) in the fashion of ancient historians, few of his modern readers could disagree with him. If Josephus boasts about the unique importance of his work ( War 1.1-3 Ant. He composed three or four works, depending on how one counts them, in thirty volumes. Taken to Rome by the Flavian conquerors, he spent the balance of his life writing about the war, Judean history and culture, and his own career. But by the spring of 67, his territory overrun, he had surrendered under circumstances that would furnish grounds for endless accusation. During the early stages of the war against Rome (66-73 CE) he found himself leading a part of the defense in Galilee. 100 CE) was born Joseph son of Mattityahu, a priestly aristocrat in Judea. The Brill Josephus Project Titus (?) Flavius Josephus (37–ca.
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