A Companion to Josephus by Chapman Honora Howell; Rodgers Zuleika; & Zuleika Rodgers

Author:Chapman, Honora Howell; Rodgers, Zuleika; & Zuleika Rodgers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated
Published: 2016-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

13.3 Josephus and 1 Maccabees

In recounting the history of the Hasmoneans, Josephus had before him the First Book of Maccabees. That work, composed probably in the late second century B.C.E., traced the fortunes of the family from the outbreak of the rebellion under Mattathias in 167 through the death of Simon in 135. Josephus followed it closely for almost all of that period, employed it as his principal source, echoing its narrative and often its very language. Not that he was a slavish copier. Various divergences from the text occur, expansions, elaborations, or indeed omissions. Josephus did not rely exclusively on 1 Maccabees (Goldstein 1976, 558–574; Cohen 1979, 44–47; Gafni 1989, 116–131; Bar-Kochva 1989, 186–193; Feldman 1994, 41–43; Nodet 2005, 407–431). Just what other source or sources he might have used and the degree of his dependence on these putative works are matters of sheer speculation and can be safely avoided here. The historian was able to make his own changes and for his own purposes. He was no mindless reproducer of whatever texts he might have had in his possession. The survival of 1 Maccabees, allowing us to compare Josephus’s presentation directly with that of his primary source, makes this quite clear. The two accounts are unmistakably parallel—which makes the deviations all the more conspicuous.

One passage deserves special notice. The author of 1 Maccabees holds the Hasmoneans in high esteem. The work as a whole serves almost as a paean to the family and an exhibit of their admirable qualities and accomplishments. Josephus, to a large degree, has similar sentiments, as one might expect from a descendant of that house. Perhaps the most overt statement along these lines in 1 Maccabees occurs in the author’s contrast of victories by Judas, Jonathan, and Simon with the failures of their subordinate commanders, Josephus, son of Zacharias, and Azarias. The latter two had sought to emulate the successes of the Maccabees, marched in violation of orders against the town of Jamnia, and suffered ignominious defeat. The author opines that the reasons for their failure lay not only in disobedience of their orders but in the fact that they did not belong to that family of men to whom alone the salvation of Israel had been entrusted (1 Macc. 5.61–62). Here was the most forthright assertion that the Hasmoneans had divine sanction for the rescue of their people.

Josephus reproduces this text—with one striking alteration. He ascribes the disaster at Jamnia to the generals who failed to heed Judas’s instructions to avoid battle until he arrived, adding even that Judas had expected calamity if there were any deviation from his orders. But Josephus pointedly omits any reference to the Hasmonean family as the designated standard-bearer for the deliverance of the nation (Ant. 12.350–352). Given the close paraphrase in the rest of the passage, that can hardly be an accident. Josephus, despite his genealogical claim, rejected the idea that the Hasmoneans as a clan were marked out by God for the salvation of his people. The reason for this conscious and deliberate departure from his source has generated debate.

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