Post by rakovsky on Apr 29, 2019 13:22:05 GMT -8
Josephus was a famous mid-late first century Jewish historian who narrated the Jewish revolts of his era in his book Wars of the Jews. His book Wars of the Jews actually runs from the time of the Maccabees and the Hellenic leader Antiochus IV Epiphanes in c.168 BC up to the c. 73 AD Jewish revolt in Cyrene in Libya. Interestingly, the book practically begins and ends with two distantly related events: (A) The exile of Jewish priests from Jerusalem's Temple in c. 168 to Egypt when that Temple was desecrated by the Hellenic conquerors, and (B) the destruction of the second, Jewish Temple in Egypt in c. 73 AD that the exiled priests had created. In his work, I believe that Josephus sees a connection between the ruination or destruction of the Jewish Temple predicted in Daniel 9 with both the 2nd century desecration of Jerusalem's Temple and the same Temple's c.70 AD destruction.
Josephus commonly wrote for a gentile audience while advocating sympathy for Judaism (as in his Against Apion) in an era when the boundaries between Christianity and the rabbinical community hasn't yet so hardened. As a result, his writings brought together both worlds (Jewish and non-Jewish) for me, and made Jewish culture more accessible and feel less foreign to me.
Most scholars believe that Josephus was not a Christian because the early 3rd century Christian writer Origen correctly cited Josephus as saying that James was the brother of Jesus who is "called Christ", but then added that Josephus "did not accept our Jesus to be Christ." (Origen's writings about Josephus are here: www.textexcavation.com/anaorigjos.html)
However, I think that the balance of the evidence shows that a minority of scholars (like the 18th century translator of Josephus' works, William whiston) are right that Josephus was a secret Christian. He dedicated his Antiquities to Epaphroditus, whom I believe Paul may have addressed along with the member of Nero's household in Philippians 2:25-30. The "Testimonium Flavianum" in his Antiquities is a passage describing Jesus as the prophesied Christ and as a wonder-worker, although scholars more often think that it's a forgery because of Origen's words above. But besides the Testimonium, even Josephus' passages on John the Baptist and James are sympathetic. Additionally, Josephus makes what I and some scholars think are repeated cryptic allusions to Christianity. Further, he has a background that could predispose him to Christian sympathies: He was a Galilean Jew who was baptised by a hermit in the wilderness in the period before the rabbinical Council of Jamnia rejected Christianity in 70 AD. Although a Jewish military leader, he surrendered to the Romans and opposed Jewish military resistance to Rome, which resembles the apparent policy of apostles like Paul on Christian-Roman relations. Maybe Origen wasn't really knowledgeable enough about Josephus' writings.
I think that Josephus alluded to Christian themes in his writings when telling the stories of: (A) His own baptism by "Banus" (perhaps meaning the bather), (B) Onias the wonderworker (Honias the Circle-Drawer in the Mishnah), (C) a prophet named Jesus who wandered Jerusalem during the c. 70 AD revolt, predicted its destruction, and vanished, (D) Josephus' rescue of three friends from crucifixion, one of whom survived, (E) the Jewish rebel leader who escaped by leaping far down into a cave where he stayed for three days and then reappeared alive, (F) Paulina's sleeping with Decius Mundus, who pretended to be the god Anubis and revealed his true nature after three days, followed by the story of 3 Jewish swindlers who stole the money that they gathered from the convert Fulvia for Jerusalem's Temple (The Paulina, Decius Mundus and Fulvia stories being inversions of the Virgin Birth, the 3rd day resurrection, and Paul's gathering of tithes/tenths for Jerusalem's temple), (G) Josephus' escape from a crowd that wanted to kill him by jumping from a high point onto the back of his comrade James (alluding to James' death by being pushed off a wall and stoned), (H) the false prophets in the wilderness claiming divine inspiration, followed by the Egyptian who appeared to claim Messianic status and led a failed revolt on the Mount of Olives in Book II, Chp 13:4-5 of the Wars of the Jews.
William Whiston's 18th century translation of the Wars of the Jews can be found here:
www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/index.htm
The early 20th century translation by Thackeracy (Loeb Classics Library) is better and is placed side by side with the Greek text. It can be found here:
archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Thackeray%2C+H.+St.+J.+%28Henry+St.+John%29%2C+1869%3F-1930%22
(Question 1: Solved) Did the pharisees of Josephus' time teach reincarnation?
William Whiston translates Book II of the Wars of the Jews, Chp. 8.14 as saying, "They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, - but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment." Loeb's translation goes: In Book III, 374, Josephus recounts his own speech to his soldiers, wherein he said:
On the other hand, the Jewish Encyclopedia entry on the Transmigration of souls says:
As a result, the Catholic writer Jimmy Akin theorizes on his blog:
As to Josephus' speech to his soldiers, Akin paraphrases and explains it this way:
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia's entry on the Pharisees gives the following comment about Josephus' passage on the pharisees' belief in souls moving into other bodies:
Steve Mason writes in Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Critical Study:
The Christian apologetics website "Tektonics", in its article "Reincarnation and the Bible", addresses L. David Moore's claim that "Both the Pharisees and the Essenes at the time of Jesus believed in reincarnation as documented by Josephus." The Tektonics website disagrees with Moore, saying that Josephus
(Question 2: Solved) (A: Solved) Why would the Lord desire the defeat and slaughter of Japha (or for that matter other rebellious cities)?
(B: Solved) What prophecy in the sacred books was Josephus referring to in Book III, Chp. 8, below?
In Book II, Chp. 16 (Loeb's translation), Herod Agrippa II gives a speech to a Jewish audience, encouraging them to avoid war. After laying out the Romans' military prowess, he says:
Later in Book III, Chapter 7 (Loeb's translation), Josephus narrates the Romans' attack on the rebel city of Japha, and ascribes the Romans' victory and the city's slaughter to the Lord, apparently because of the formidability of the city's defenses, as well as the fact that the rebel city's guards themselves were responsible for blocking the rebel forces that attacked the Romans from retreating back into the city. The passage says:
Then in Book III, Chapter 8, Josephus discusses the Roman tribune Nicanor's proposal that Josephus surrender:
At the end of the chapter (Bk III, Chp. 8:9), Josephus relates that he had correctly predicted the city of Jotapa's fall to the Romans and his surrender to them. After his capture by the Romans, he told the Roman commander, "You imagine, Vespasian, that in the person of Josephus you have taken a mere captive; but I come to you as a messenger of greater destinies. Had I not been sent on this errand by God, I knew the law of the Jews and how it becomes a general to die." He then told Vespasian that Vespasian and his son Titus would become emperors. He narrates next that:
(Question 3: Solved) How would you explain to someone how to have the courage to face a slow natural death, like by cancer, rather than using Euthanasia? What are the main pieces of encouragement that you would give them?
In Book III, Chapter 8:4, Josephus gave a speech to his soldiers aimed at discouraging them from killing themselves.
He says that it's honorable to die in war by combat, rather than suicide, and that it's honorable to die for liberty by fighting those who would rob us of it. He adds:
(Question 4: Solved) What prophecies, made before Christ's birth and besides those in the Book of Daniel, predicted the destruction of Jerusalem's Second Temple?
In Book VI, 2:1, Josephus made a speech to the rebel leader John of Gischala who held Jerusalem, encouraging the latter to surrender to Rome:
Here is Loeb's Translation:
The Sibylline Oracles were written by Greek and Roman oracle women ("sibyls"), as well as by Jewish and Christian writers using those oracles as a genre (ie. creating "oracles" pretending to be composed by the pagan prophetesses).
In Book IV,6:3, Josephus had written about the Zealots:
It looks to me like this refers to the prophecy at the end of Daniel 9.
(Question 5: Solved) Is Josephus' calculation for the years that the Second Temple stood correct?
The timing of the Second Temple has prophetic significance and some ancient Jewish writers paid careful attention to its calculation. For example, its building is an important element in the calculation of the time of the coming of the Anointed One in Daniel 9.
In Book VI, 4:8 of Wars of the Jews, Josephus found it remarkable that the Second Temple was destored on the same month and day of the month as the First Temple, and he says that the Second Temple lasted 639 years:
According to Wikipedia, the second year of Cyrus' reign as king of Persia was about 558 BC. The destruction of Jerusalem's Temple occurred in 70 AD.
558 BC + 70 AD - 1 year for Year Zero = 627
So my calculation gives 627 years, but Josephus gave 639 years.
On the other hand, scholars, including the translator William Whiston, agree that Josephus sometimes gave mistaken calculations for his dates.
For example, in Book VII of the Antiquities, Josephus calulcates the duration of the temple that the Jewish priests who were exiled in the 2nd century B.C. built in Egypt, but some scholars think that Josephus' calculation is based on a mystical significance, rather than on an exact astronomical dating.
Josephus wrote about the exiled priest Onias' temple in Egypt: "The duration of the temple from its erection to its closure was three hundred and forty-three years"
Thackeray comments that Josephus might have made an error in calculating the duration of Onias' temple to give it a mystical meaning:
(Question 6: Solved) What prophecy in Jewish holy writings predicted the capture of Jerusalem's Temple when the Temple became four-square?
In his writings, Josephus details the construction of the Second Temple including buildings (eg. towers and apartments) that were attached to it. In Book VI, Chp.2 of Wars of the Jews, he narrates how the Jewish rebels damaged some of them so that capturing the buildings wouldn't help the Romans as much in capturing the Temple:
Then in Book VI, Chapter 5, he mentions the prophecy that the temple would be captured when it was made four-square:
The only passage that I know in the TaNaKh that foretells the Second Temple's capture is the passage in Daniel 9:26 ("the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.) My best guess would be that he is interpreting the events and the prophecy with the following logic: The prophecy says that the temple would be devastated and destroyed with a war by the people of the prince that shall come, and that desolations are determined until its end, so the temple's desolation in destroying the apartments that made the temple "square" (in that sense, bare or desolate) meant that the war of 70 AD was the one that Daniel 9 had prophesied. And as a result, the temple was to be captured by the people of the coming prince in that war.
(Question 7) Do you agree with Josephus' idea that Justice inflicts on sinners a more severe punishment when they imagined that they avoided punishment because they weren't punished immediately?
In Chapter Book VII, Chapter 2, Josephus tells of the capture of Simon, son of Gioras, when he tried to escape by hiding in a hidden cavern and then coming out of the ground where the temple had been. I think that Josephus describes this metaphorically in a way that alludes to the resurrection of the dead, because it says that Simon "appeared out of the ground", so that he astonished those who saw them, and it refers to "This rise of his out of the ground". This image reminds me of Daniel 12:2 ("And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shamе and everlasting contempt.")
Whiston's Footnote cites Eccl. 8:11, which says, "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."
Later in Book VII, Chapter 8, Josephus asks rhetorically about Simon, son of Gioras:
Here is Loeb's translation of Josephus' statement in Book VII, Chp. 2 philosophisizing on Justice, above:
I don't know if this statement is true. In his writings, Josephus describes human rights abuses by both sides, such as the rebels' killing of those whom they accused of desertion or treachery. Let's say a Judean rebel kills a villager. If the rebel was captured and punished immediately, he could be crucified or otherwise killed. But if he escaped, believed that he would elude punishment, and then got captured and crucified or otherwise killed a few years later, he would end up in the same fate. So is it really right to compare the two fates and say that the second is more severe?
Josephus commonly wrote for a gentile audience while advocating sympathy for Judaism (as in his Against Apion) in an era when the boundaries between Christianity and the rabbinical community hasn't yet so hardened. As a result, his writings brought together both worlds (Jewish and non-Jewish) for me, and made Jewish culture more accessible and feel less foreign to me.
Most scholars believe that Josephus was not a Christian because the early 3rd century Christian writer Origen correctly cited Josephus as saying that James was the brother of Jesus who is "called Christ", but then added that Josephus "did not accept our Jesus to be Christ." (Origen's writings about Josephus are here: www.textexcavation.com/anaorigjos.html)
However, I think that the balance of the evidence shows that a minority of scholars (like the 18th century translator of Josephus' works, William whiston) are right that Josephus was a secret Christian. He dedicated his Antiquities to Epaphroditus, whom I believe Paul may have addressed along with the member of Nero's household in Philippians 2:25-30. The "Testimonium Flavianum" in his Antiquities is a passage describing Jesus as the prophesied Christ and as a wonder-worker, although scholars more often think that it's a forgery because of Origen's words above. But besides the Testimonium, even Josephus' passages on John the Baptist and James are sympathetic. Additionally, Josephus makes what I and some scholars think are repeated cryptic allusions to Christianity. Further, he has a background that could predispose him to Christian sympathies: He was a Galilean Jew who was baptised by a hermit in the wilderness in the period before the rabbinical Council of Jamnia rejected Christianity in 70 AD. Although a Jewish military leader, he surrendered to the Romans and opposed Jewish military resistance to Rome, which resembles the apparent policy of apostles like Paul on Christian-Roman relations. Maybe Origen wasn't really knowledgeable enough about Josephus' writings.
I think that Josephus alluded to Christian themes in his writings when telling the stories of: (A) His own baptism by "Banus" (perhaps meaning the bather), (B) Onias the wonderworker (Honias the Circle-Drawer in the Mishnah), (C) a prophet named Jesus who wandered Jerusalem during the c. 70 AD revolt, predicted its destruction, and vanished, (D) Josephus' rescue of three friends from crucifixion, one of whom survived, (E) the Jewish rebel leader who escaped by leaping far down into a cave where he stayed for three days and then reappeared alive, (F) Paulina's sleeping with Decius Mundus, who pretended to be the god Anubis and revealed his true nature after three days, followed by the story of 3 Jewish swindlers who stole the money that they gathered from the convert Fulvia for Jerusalem's Temple (The Paulina, Decius Mundus and Fulvia stories being inversions of the Virgin Birth, the 3rd day resurrection, and Paul's gathering of tithes/tenths for Jerusalem's temple), (G) Josephus' escape from a crowd that wanted to kill him by jumping from a high point onto the back of his comrade James (alluding to James' death by being pushed off a wall and stoned), (H) the false prophets in the wilderness claiming divine inspiration, followed by the Egyptian who appeared to claim Messianic status and led a failed revolt on the Mount of Olives in Book II, Chp 13:4-5 of the Wars of the Jews.
William Whiston's 18th century translation of the Wars of the Jews can be found here:
www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/index.htm
The early 20th century translation by Thackeracy (Loeb Classics Library) is better and is placed side by side with the Greek text. It can be found here:
archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Thackeray%2C+H.+St.+J.+%28Henry+St.+John%29%2C+1869%3F-1930%22
(Question 1: Solved) Did the pharisees of Josephus' time teach reincarnation?
William Whiston translates Book II of the Wars of the Jews, Chp. 8.14 as saying, "They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, - but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment." Loeb's translation goes:
Every soul, they maintain, is imperishable, but the soul of the good alone passes into another body,(A) while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment.
FOOTNOTE A: The doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul is expressed in rather similar terms in Wars iii.374 (Compare Apion. II 218)
FOOTNOTE A: The doctrine of the reincarnation of the soul is expressed in rather similar terms in Wars iii.374 (Compare Apion. II 218)
"Know you not that they who depart this life in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown; that their houses and families are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste bodies a new habitation?(A)
FOOTNOTE A: With this passage compare Apion II. 218 'to those who observe the laws and, if they must needs die for them, willingly meet death, God has granted a renewed existence and in the revolution (of the ages) the gift of a better life.'
FOOTNOTE A: With this passage compare Apion II. 218 'to those who observe the laws and, if they must needs die for them, willingly meet death, God has granted a renewed existence and in the revolution (of the ages) the gift of a better life.'
On the other hand, the Jewish Encyclopedia entry on the Transmigration of souls says:
This doctrine was foreign to Judaism until about the eighth century, when, under the influence of the Mohammedan mystics, it was adopted by the Karaites and other Jewish dissenters (Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v., “Transmigration of Souls”).
As a result, the Catholic writer Jimmy Akin theorizes on his blog:
What Josephus is talking about here is the reconstituted, resurrected body they will receive on the last day—not a series of bodies received in different lifetimes during history.
It’s the same basic mode of language St. Paul uses when—in the middle of a passionate defense of the doctrine of resurrection—he writes:
<<But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what sort of body do they come?” Foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. . . .>>
<<Thus also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruptibility. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:35-36, 42-44, LEB).>>
St. Paul makes it clear that there is both continuity and difference between the bodies we have in this life and the resurrected bodies we will one day receive. There is continuity because it is fundamentally the same body: “It” (singular) is sown, and “it” is raised. But there is also a difference, because its initial condition is natural and corruptible and its later condition is spiritual and incorruptible.
(SOURCE: Jimmy Akin, "Josephus and Reincarnation", Jimmy Akin's Blog, March 2017.
It’s the same basic mode of language St. Paul uses when—in the middle of a passionate defense of the doctrine of resurrection—he writes:
<<But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what sort of body do they come?” Foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. . . .>>
<<Thus also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruptibility. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:35-36, 42-44, LEB).>>
St. Paul makes it clear that there is both continuity and difference between the bodies we have in this life and the resurrected bodies we will one day receive. There is continuity because it is fundamentally the same body: “It” (singular) is sown, and “it” is raised. But there is also a difference, because its initial condition is natural and corruptible and its later condition is spiritual and incorruptible.
(SOURCE: Jimmy Akin, "Josephus and Reincarnation", Jimmy Akin's Blog, March 2017.
As to Josephus' speech to his soldiers, Akin paraphrases and explains it this way:
It’s not that a single righteous man will enter multiple bodies over the course of history. It’s that multiple righteous men will each enter a single body on the last day. ... The souls of the righteous “obtain a most holy place in heaven” and then at the end of the world—“in the revolution of ages”—they are again returned to bodily form. This is a description of the normal Pharisaic (and Christian) belief in the soul continuing in the intermediate state until the eventual, eschatological resurrection.
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia's entry on the Pharisees gives the following comment about Josephus' passage on the pharisees' belief in souls moving into other bodies:
We believe that really it is an attempt of Josephus to state the doctrine of the resurrection of the body in a way that would not shock Hellenic ideas. The Greek contempt for the body made the idea of the resurrection abhorrent, and in this, as in most philosophical matters, the Romans followed the Greeks.
Steve Mason writes in Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Critical Study:
Clearly, Josephus' chosen terms to describe the afterlife - terms like 'metabainein eis eteron soma, genesthai palin' and 'anabioun' - would have evoked among his Greco-Roman readers some sort of philosophy of reincarnation. (p. 165)
Nowhere does he suggest that souls of men or animals pass naturally at death into other bodies. Rather, he speaks always of rewards and punishments for virtue and vice. (p.166)
[T]he new body promised to the virtuous by Josephus and his Pharisees is always singular. ... [Josephus says] that the new body will be agnos and will bring a better life. Now outside of War 3 (Josephus' portrait of the afterlife), agnos occurs only four times in Josephus. Each time it clearly means 'holy, sacred, or consecrated'. Thackeray's rendering 'chaste' at War 3:374, then, seems peculiar. Josephus is talking about a holy or sacred body that will bring a better life. (p.167)
It would appear, then, that at a time when many different views of the afterlife were circulating in the Greco-Roman world, Josephus added to the list a Jewish theory of resurrection by appropriating for it the language of reincarnation. (p.169
Nowhere does he suggest that souls of men or animals pass naturally at death into other bodies. Rather, he speaks always of rewards and punishments for virtue and vice. (p.166)
[T]he new body promised to the virtuous by Josephus and his Pharisees is always singular. ... [Josephus says] that the new body will be agnos and will bring a better life. Now outside of War 3 (Josephus' portrait of the afterlife), agnos occurs only four times in Josephus. Each time it clearly means 'holy, sacred, or consecrated'. Thackeray's rendering 'chaste' at War 3:374, then, seems peculiar. Josephus is talking about a holy or sacred body that will bring a better life. (p.167)
It would appear, then, that at a time when many different views of the afterlife were circulating in the Greco-Roman world, Josephus added to the list a Jewish theory of resurrection by appropriating for it the language of reincarnation. (p.169
The Christian apologetics website "Tektonics", in its article "Reincarnation and the Bible", addresses L. David Moore's claim that "Both the Pharisees and the Essenes at the time of Jesus believed in reincarnation as documented by Josephus." The Tektonics website disagrees with Moore, saying that Josephus
reports Jewish beliefs in Greek terms for the benefit of his Gentile readers. Josephus says that the Pharisees believe that "the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment." (War 2.164) Not only is this contrary to reincarnation principles (as it undermines the idea of karma: bad men do not get another body of a lower form), it misunderstands "other bodies" -- which is a reference to the resurrection body.
(Question 2: Solved) (A: Solved) Why would the Lord desire the defeat and slaughter of Japha (or for that matter other rebellious cities)?
(B: Solved) What prophecy in the sacred books was Josephus referring to in Book III, Chp. 8, below?
In Book II, Chp. 16 (Loeb's translation), Herod Agrippa II gives a speech to a Jewish audience, encouraging them to avoid war. After laying out the Romans' military prowess, he says:
The only refuge, then, left to you is divine assistance. But even this is ranged on the side of the Romans, for, without God's aid, so vast an empire could never have been built up. Consider, too the difficulty of preserving your religious rules from contamination, even were you engaging a less formidable foe; and how, if compelled to transgress the very principles on which you chiefly build your hopes of God's assistance, you will alienate Him from you. If you observe your sabbath customs and refuse to take any action on that day, you will undoubtedly be easily defeated, as were your forefathers by Pompey, who pressed the siege most vigorously on the days when the besieged remained inactive; if, on the contrary, you transgress the law of your ancestors, I fail to see what further object you will have for hostilities, since your one aim is to preserve inviolate all the institutions of your fathers. How could you invoke the aid of the Deity, after deliberately omitting to pay Him the service which you owe Him?
...
Spare the temple and preserve for yourselves the sanctuary with its holy places; for the Romans, once masters of these, will refrain their hands no more, seeing that their forbearance in the past met only with ingratitude. As for me, I call your sanctuary and God's holy angels and our common country to witness, that I have kept back nothing which could conduce to your preservation; as for you, if you decide aright, you will enjoy with me the blessings of peace, but if you let yourselves be carried away by your passion, you will face, without me, this tremendous peril.
...
Spare the temple and preserve for yourselves the sanctuary with its holy places; for the Romans, once masters of these, will refrain their hands no more, seeing that their forbearance in the past met only with ingratitude. As for me, I call your sanctuary and God's holy angels and our common country to witness, that I have kept back nothing which could conduce to your preservation; as for you, if you decide aright, you will enjoy with me the blessings of peace, but if you let yourselves be carried away by your passion, you will face, without me, this tremendous peril.
Later in Book III, Chapter 7 (Loeb's translation), Josephus narrates the Romans' attack on the rebel city of Japha, and ascribes the Romans' victory and the city's slaughter to the Lord, apparently because of the formidability of the city's defenses, as well as the fact that the rebel city's guards themselves were responsible for blocking the rebel forces that attacked the Romans from retreating back into the city. The passage says:
"Trajan found a city presenting formidable difficulties, for in addition to its naturally strong situation, it was protected by a double ring of walls. However, its inhabitants ventured to advance to meet him, prepared, as he saw, for action; he charged them and, after a brief resistance, routed them and started in pursuit. They burst into the first enclosure, whither the Romans, following hard on their heels, penetrated with them. But when the fugitives rushed on to the second wall, their own fellow-citizens shut them out, for fear of the enemy forcing their way in at the same time. God, and no other, it was who made a present to the Romans of the wretched Galilaeans; it was He who now caused the population of the town to be excluded by the hands of their own people and delivered them to their murderous foes, to be exterminated to a man. Vainly did the swarming crowds batter the gates and implore the sentinels by their names to let them in: while their supplications were on their lips they were butchered.
Then in Book III, Chapter 8, Josephus discusses the Roman tribune Nicanor's proposal that Josephus surrender:
But as Nicanor was urgently pressing his proposals and Josephus overheard the threats of the hostile crowd, suddenly there came back into his mind those nightly dreams, in which God had foretold to him the impending fate of the Jews and the destinies of the Roman sovereigns. He was an interpreter of dreams and skilled in divining the meaning of ambiguous utterances of the Deity; a priest himself and of priestly descent, he was not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books. At that hour he was inspired to read their meaning, and, recalling the dreadful images of his recent dreams, he offered up a silent prayer to God. 'Since it pleases thee,' so it ran, 'who didst create the Jewish nation, to break thy work, since fortune has wholly passed to the Romans, and since thou hast made choice of my spirit to announce the things that are to come, I willingly surrender to the ROmans and consent to live; but I take thee to witness that I go, not as a traitor, but as thy minister.'
At the end of the chapter (Bk III, Chp. 8:9), Josephus relates that he had correctly predicted the city of Jotapa's fall to the Romans and his surrender to them. After his capture by the Romans, he told the Roman commander, "You imagine, Vespasian, that in the person of Josephus you have taken a mere captive; but I come to you as a messenger of greater destinies. Had I not been sent on this errand by God, I knew the law of the Jews and how it becomes a general to die." He then told Vespasian that Vespasian and his son Titus would become emperors. He narrates next that:
[Vespasian] found, moreover, that Josephus had proved a veracious prophet in other matters. For one of two friends in attendance at the private interview remarked: 'If these words are not a nonsensical invention of the prisoner to avert the storm which he has raised, I am surprised that Josephus neither predicted the fall of Jotapata to its inhabitants nor his own captivity.' To this Josephus replied that he had foretold to the people of Jotapata that their city would be captured after forty-seven days and that he himself would be taken alive by the Romans. Vespasian, having privately questioned the prisoners on these statements and found them true, then began to credit those concerning himself.
The Josephus.org website goes over Josephus' reasons for the defeat this way:
Why the Almighty Caused Jerusalem and His Temple to be Destroyed
The burning of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE/AD created a profound dilemma for faithful Jews of the time. Hadn't religious observance throughout the land reached new heights in the years preceding the war? Wasn't the revolt against Rome directly the result of zealous people vowing to have "no master except the Lord?" (Ant. 18.1.6 23). Then why did the Lord allow the Romans to crush the revolt and destroy his Temple?
Josephus offered a variety of solutions to this problem. His overall goal was to defend the Jews against the accusation that their Lord had deserted them. A further goal, which he only hinted at, was to pave the way for approval by the Roman authorities, at some future time, for the rebuilding of the Temple.
Contents
Death of the High Priest
The Pollution of the City
Pollution of the Temple with Blood
Assassins in the Temple
--The Slaughter of the Guards
--The Murder of Zacharias
--The Lamentation of Josephus
The Fulfillment of Ancient Prophecies
The Temple is Set on Fire
A Comforting Thought
Omens of Destruction
The burning of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE/AD created a profound dilemma for faithful Jews of the time. Hadn't religious observance throughout the land reached new heights in the years preceding the war? Wasn't the revolt against Rome directly the result of zealous people vowing to have "no master except the Lord?" (Ant. 18.1.6 23). Then why did the Lord allow the Romans to crush the revolt and destroy his Temple?
Josephus offered a variety of solutions to this problem. His overall goal was to defend the Jews against the accusation that their Lord had deserted them. A further goal, which he only hinted at, was to pave the way for approval by the Roman authorities, at some future time, for the rebuilding of the Temple.
Contents
Death of the High Priest
The Pollution of the City
Pollution of the Temple with Blood
Assassins in the Temple
--The Slaughter of the Guards
--The Murder of Zacharias
--The Lamentation of Josephus
The Fulfillment of Ancient Prophecies
The Temple is Set on Fire
A Comforting Thought
Omens of Destruction
- Star and Comet
Light Around the Altar
Cow Gives Birth to Lamb
The Eastern Gate
Miraculous Phenomenon of Chariots in the Air
Sound of a Great Multitude
Jesus son of Ananias: A Voice from the East (A must-read.)
(Question 3: Solved) How would you explain to someone how to have the courage to face a slow natural death, like by cancer, rather than using Euthanasia? What are the main pieces of encouragement that you would give them?
In Book III, Chapter 8:4, Josephus gave a speech to his soldiers aimed at discouraging them from killing themselves.
He says that it's honorable to die in war by combat, rather than suicide, and that it's honorable to die for liberty by fighting those who would rob us of it. He adds:
It is equally cowardly not to wish to die when one ought to do so, and to wish to die when one ought not. What is it we fear that prevents us from surrendering to the Romans? Is it not death? And shall we then inflict upon ourselves certain death, to avoid an uncertain death, which we fear, at the hands of our foes? 'No, it is slavery we fear,' I shall be told. Much liberty we enjoy at present! 'It is noble to destroy oneself,' another will say. Not so, I retort, but most ignoble; in my opnion there could be no more arrant coward than the pilot who, for fear of a tempest, deliberately sinks his ship before the storm.
No; suicide is alike repugnant to that nature which all creatures share, and an act of impety towards God who created us. Among the animals there is not one that deliberately seeks death or kills itself; so firmly rooted in all is nature's law- the will to live. That is why we account as enemies those who would openly take our lives and punish as assassins those who clandestinely attempt to do so. And God- think you not that He is indignant when man treats His gift with scorn? For it is from Him that we have received our being, and it is to Him that we should leave the decision to take it away. All of us, it is true, have mortal bodies, composed of perishable matter, but the soul lives for ever, immortal: it is a portion of the Deity housed in our bodies. If, then, one who makes away with or misapplies a deposit entrusted to him by a fellow-man is reckoned a perjured villain, how can he who casts out from his own body the deposit which God has placed there, hope to elude Him whom he has thus wronged? It is considered right to punish a fugitive slave, even though the master he leaves be a scoundrel; and shall we fly from the best of masters, from God Himself, and not be deemed impious? Know you not that they who depart this life in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown; that their houses and families are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste [or "holy"] bodies a new habitation? But as for those who have laid mad hands upon themselves, the darker regions of the nether world receive their souls, and God, their father, visits upon their posterity the outrageous acts of the parents. That is why this crime, so hateful to God, is punished also by the sagest of legislators. With us it is ordained that the body of a suicide should be exposed unburied until sunset, although it is thought right to bury even our enemies slain war.(A) In other nations the law requires that a suicide's right hand, with which he made war on himself, should be cut off, holding that, as the body was unnaturally severed from the soul, so the hand should be severed from the body.
[FOOTNOTE (A): Josephus apparently refers to some Rabbinical tradition: the Pentateuch is silent on the subject of suicide.]
We shall do well then, comrades, to listen to reason and not to add to our human calamities the crime of impiety towards our creator. If our lives are offered us, let us live: there is nothing dishonourable in accepting this offer from those who have had so many proofs of our valor; if they think fit to kill us, death at the hands of conquerors is honourable... I pray however, that the Romans may prove faithless; if, after pledging their word, they put me to death, I shall die content, for I shall carry with me the consolation, better than a victory, that their triumph has been sullied by perjury.
No; suicide is alike repugnant to that nature which all creatures share, and an act of impety towards God who created us. Among the animals there is not one that deliberately seeks death or kills itself; so firmly rooted in all is nature's law- the will to live. That is why we account as enemies those who would openly take our lives and punish as assassins those who clandestinely attempt to do so. And God- think you not that He is indignant when man treats His gift with scorn? For it is from Him that we have received our being, and it is to Him that we should leave the decision to take it away. All of us, it is true, have mortal bodies, composed of perishable matter, but the soul lives for ever, immortal: it is a portion of the Deity housed in our bodies. If, then, one who makes away with or misapplies a deposit entrusted to him by a fellow-man is reckoned a perjured villain, how can he who casts out from his own body the deposit which God has placed there, hope to elude Him whom he has thus wronged? It is considered right to punish a fugitive slave, even though the master he leaves be a scoundrel; and shall we fly from the best of masters, from God Himself, and not be deemed impious? Know you not that they who depart this life in accordance with the law of nature and repay the loan which the law of nature and repay the loan which they received from God, when He who lent is pleased to reclaim it, win eternal renown; that their houses and families are secure; that their souls, remaining spotless and obedient, are allotted the most holy place in heaven, whence, in the revolution of the ages, they return to find in chaste [or "holy"] bodies a new habitation? But as for those who have laid mad hands upon themselves, the darker regions of the nether world receive their souls, and God, their father, visits upon their posterity the outrageous acts of the parents. That is why this crime, so hateful to God, is punished also by the sagest of legislators. With us it is ordained that the body of a suicide should be exposed unburied until sunset, although it is thought right to bury even our enemies slain war.(A) In other nations the law requires that a suicide's right hand, with which he made war on himself, should be cut off, holding that, as the body was unnaturally severed from the soul, so the hand should be severed from the body.
[FOOTNOTE (A): Josephus apparently refers to some Rabbinical tradition: the Pentateuch is silent on the subject of suicide.]
We shall do well then, comrades, to listen to reason and not to add to our human calamities the crime of impiety towards our creator. If our lives are offered us, let us live: there is nothing dishonourable in accepting this offer from those who have had so many proofs of our valor; if they think fit to kill us, death at the hands of conquerors is honourable... I pray however, that the Romans may prove faithless; if, after pledging their word, they put me to death, I shall die content, for I shall carry with me the consolation, better than a victory, that their triumph has been sullied by perjury.
(Question 4: Solved) What prophecies, made before Christ's birth and besides those in the Book of Daniel, predicted the destruction of Jerusalem's Second Temple?
In Book VI, 2:1, Josephus made a speech to the rebel leader John of Gischala who held Jerusalem, encouraging the latter to surrender to Rome:
Whiston's Translation:
Thou hast indignation at me again, and makest a clamor at me, and reproachest me; indeed I cannot deny but I am worthy of worse treatment than all this amounts to, because, in opposition to fate, I make this kind invitation to thee, and endeavor to force deliverance upon those whom God hath condemned. And who is there that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets contain in them, - and particularly that oracle which is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God, therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans,(8) and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your pollutions."
FOOTNOTE 8:
Of this oracle, see the note on B. IV. ch. 6. sect. 3. Josephus, both here and in many places elsewhere, speaks so, that it is most evident he was fully satisfied that God was on the Romans' side, and made use of them now for the destruction of that wicked nation of the Jews; which was for certain the true state of this matter, as the prophet Daniel first, and our Savior himself afterwards, had clearly foretold.
Thou hast indignation at me again, and makest a clamor at me, and reproachest me; indeed I cannot deny but I am worthy of worse treatment than all this amounts to, because, in opposition to fate, I make this kind invitation to thee, and endeavor to force deliverance upon those whom God hath condemned. And who is there that does not know what the writings of the ancient prophets contain in them, - and particularly that oracle which is just now going to be fulfilled upon this miserable city? For they foretold that this city should be then taken when somebody shall begin the slaughter of his own countrymen. And are not both the city and the entire temple now full of the dead bodies of your countrymen? It is God, therefore, it is God himself who is bringing on this fire, to purge that city and temple by means of the Romans,(8) and is going to pluck up this city, which is full of your pollutions."
FOOTNOTE 8:
Of this oracle, see the note on B. IV. ch. 6. sect. 3. Josephus, both here and in many places elsewhere, speaks so, that it is most evident he was fully satisfied that God was on the Romans' side, and made use of them now for the destruction of that wicked nation of the Jews; which was for certain the true state of this matter, as the prophet Daniel first, and our Savior himself afterwards, had clearly foretold.
Here is Loeb's Translation:
...Who knows not the records of the ancient prophets and that oracle which threatens this poor city and is even now coming true? For they foretold that it would then be taken whensoever one should begin to slaughter his own countrymen.(b)...
Loeb's Footnote (b): Reference uncertain, but Cf. Orac. Sibyll. iv.115 ff ... kai Solimoisi kaki polemoio thuella... (an allusion follows to Nero's flight and the Roman civil war)... The fourth book of Sibylline Oracles dates from c. AD 80 and is therefore almost contemporary with the Jewish War of Josephus.
Loeb's Footnote (b): Reference uncertain, but Cf. Orac. Sibyll. iv.115 ff ... kai Solimoisi kaki polemoio thuella... (an allusion follows to Nero's flight and the Roman civil war)... The fourth book of Sibylline Oracles dates from c. AD 80 and is therefore almost contemporary with the Jewish War of Josephus.
The Sibylline Oracles were written by Greek and Roman oracle women ("sibyls"), as well as by Jewish and Christian writers using those oracles as a genre (ie. creating "oracles" pretending to be composed by the pagan prophetesses).
In Book IV,6:3, Josephus had written about the Zealots:
Whiston's Translation:
These men, therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men, and laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment
These men, therefore, trampled upon all the laws of men, and laughed at the laws of God; and for the oracles of the prophets, they ridiculed them as the tricks of jugglers; yet did these prophets foretell many things concerning [the rewards of] virtue, and [punishments of] vice, which when these zealots violated, they occasioned the fulfilling of those very prophecies belonging to their own country; for there was a certain ancient oracle of those men, that the city should then be taken and the sanctuary burnt, by right of war, when a sedition should invade the Jews, and their own hand should pollute the temple of God. Now while these zealots did not [quite] disbelieve these predictions, they made themselves the instruments of their accomplishment
It looks to me like this refers to the prophecy at the end of Daniel 9.
(Question 5: Solved) Is Josephus' calculation for the years that the Second Temple stood correct?
The timing of the Second Temple has prophetic significance and some ancient Jewish writers paid careful attention to its calculation. For example, its building is an important element in the calculation of the time of the coming of the Anointed One in Daniel 9.
In Book VI, 4:8 of Wars of the Jews, Josephus found it remarkable that the Second Temple was destored on the same month and day of the month as the First Temple, and he says that the Second Temple lasted 639 years:
Whiston's translation:
Now the number of years that passed from its first foundation, which was laid by king Solomon, till this its destruction, which happened in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, are collected to be one thousand one hundred and thirty, besides seven months and fifteen days; and from the second building of it, which was done by Haggai, in the second year of Cyrus the king, till its destruction under Vespasian, there were six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days.
Loeb's translation:
From its first foundation by King Solomon up to its present destruction, which took place in the second year of Vespasian's reign, the total period amounts to one thousand one hundred and thirty years seven months and fifteen days; from its rebuilding by Haggai in the second year of the reign of Cyrus until its fall under Vespasian to six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days.(b)
Loeb's Footnote (b): Chronological system uncertain.
Now the number of years that passed from its first foundation, which was laid by king Solomon, till this its destruction, which happened in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, are collected to be one thousand one hundred and thirty, besides seven months and fifteen days; and from the second building of it, which was done by Haggai, in the second year of Cyrus the king, till its destruction under Vespasian, there were six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days.
Loeb's translation:
From its first foundation by King Solomon up to its present destruction, which took place in the second year of Vespasian's reign, the total period amounts to one thousand one hundred and thirty years seven months and fifteen days; from its rebuilding by Haggai in the second year of the reign of Cyrus until its fall under Vespasian to six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-five days.(b)
Loeb's Footnote (b): Chronological system uncertain.
According to Wikipedia, the second year of Cyrus' reign as king of Persia was about 558 BC. The destruction of Jerusalem's Temple occurred in 70 AD.
558 BC + 70 AD - 1 year for Year Zero = 627
So my calculation gives 627 years, but Josephus gave 639 years.
On the other hand, scholars, including the translator William Whiston, agree that Josephus sometimes gave mistaken calculations for his dates.
For example, in Book VII of the Antiquities, Josephus calulcates the duration of the temple that the Jewish priests who were exiled in the 2nd century B.C. built in Egypt, but some scholars think that Josephus' calculation is based on a mystical significance, rather than on an exact astronomical dating.
Josephus wrote about the exiled priest Onias' temple in Egypt: "The duration of the temple from its erection to its closure was three hundred and forty-three years"
Thackeray comments that Josephus might have made an error in calculating the duration of Onias' temple to give it a mystical meaning:
The first figure is probably corrupt ; 243 years, i.e. c.170 B.c.-A.D. 73, would be approximately correct. Dr. Eisler, however, in a forthcoming work, has an ingenious explanation of the figure in the text. " By one of those errors in calculation, not rare and easily intelligible in this author, Josephus imagined that the duration of the Onias temple . . . was a period of 343 ( = 7x7x7) years or seven jubilees. . . . This mystical number indicates that J. saw in the destruction of the two Jewish temples, at Heliopolis and in Jerusalem, God's judgement upon the impious transgression of the deuteronomic law (of the single sanctuary). . . . Some idea similar to that of the seventy year- weeks of Daniel may have been in his mind."
(Question 6: Solved) What prophecy in Jewish holy writings predicted the capture of Jerusalem's Temple when the Temple became four-square?
In his writings, Josephus details the construction of the Second Temple including buildings (eg. towers and apartments) that were attached to it. In Book VI, Chp.2 of Wars of the Jews, he narrates how the Jewish rebels damaged some of them so that capturing the buildings wouldn't help the Romans as much in capturing the Temple:
In the mean time, the Jews were so distressed by the fights they had been in, as the war advanced higher and higher, and creeping up to the holy house itself, that they, as it were, cut off those limbs of their body which were infected, in order to prevent the distemper's spreading further; for they set the north-west cloister, which was joined to the tower of Antonia, on fire, and after that brake off about twenty cubits of that cloister, and thereby made a beginning in burning the sanctuary; two days after which, or on the twenty-fourth day of the forenamed month, [Panemus or Tamuz,] the Romans set fire to the cloister that joined to the other, when the fire went fifteen cubits farther. The Jews, in like manner, cut off its roof; nor did they entirely leave off what they were about till the tower of Antonia was parted from the temple, even when it was in their power to have stopped the fire; nay, they lay still while the temple was first set on fire, and deemed this spreading of the fire to be for their own advantage. However, the armies were still fighting one against another about the temple, and the war was managed by continual sallies of particular parties against one another.
Then in Book VI, Chapter 5, he mentions the prophecy that the temple would be captured when it was made four-square:
Whiston's translation:
Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our race what is for their preservation; but that men perish by those miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves; for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple four-square, while at the same time they had it written in their sacred oracles, "That then should their city be taken, as well as their holy house, when once their temple should become four-square." But now, what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how," about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth." The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate, although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city and their own destruction.
Loeb's translation:
...Thus the Jews after the demolition of Antonia, reduced the temple to a square, although they had it recorded in their oracles that the city and the sanctuary would be taken when the temple should become four-square...
Now if any one consider these things, he will find that God takes care of mankind, and by all ways possible foreshows to our race what is for their preservation; but that men perish by those miseries which they madly and voluntarily bring upon themselves; for the Jews, by demolishing the tower of Antonia, had made their temple four-square, while at the same time they had it written in their sacred oracles, "That then should their city be taken, as well as their holy house, when once their temple should become four-square." But now, what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how," about that time, one from their country should become governor of the habitable earth." The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular, and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian, who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate, although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure, and some of them they utterly despised, until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city and their own destruction.
Loeb's translation:
...Thus the Jews after the demolition of Antonia, reduced the temple to a square, although they had it recorded in their oracles that the city and the sanctuary would be taken when the temple should become four-square...
The only passage that I know in the TaNaKh that foretells the Second Temple's capture is the passage in Daniel 9:26 ("the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.) My best guess would be that he is interpreting the events and the prophecy with the following logic: The prophecy says that the temple would be devastated and destroyed with a war by the people of the prince that shall come, and that desolations are determined until its end, so the temple's desolation in destroying the apartments that made the temple "square" (in that sense, bare or desolate) meant that the war of 70 AD was the one that Daniel 9 had prophesied. And as a result, the temple was to be captured by the people of the coming prince in that war.
(Question 7) Do you agree with Josephus' idea that Justice inflicts on sinners a more severe punishment when they imagined that they avoided punishment because they weren't punished immediately?
In Chapter Book VII, Chapter 2, Josephus tells of the capture of Simon, son of Gioras, when he tried to escape by hiding in a hidden cavern and then coming out of the ground where the temple had been. I think that Josephus describes this metaphorically in a way that alludes to the resurrection of the dead, because it says that Simon "appeared out of the ground", so that he astonished those who saw them, and it refers to "This rise of his out of the ground". This image reminds me of Daniel 12:2 ("And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shamе and everlasting contempt.")
And here it was that Titus was informed of the seizure of Simon the son of Gioras, which was made after the manner following:
This Simon, during the siege of Jerusalem, was in the upper city; but when the Roman army was gotten within the walls, and were laying the city waste, he then took the most faithful of his friends with him, and among them some that were stone-cutters, with those iron tools which belonged to their occupation, and as great a quantity of provisions as would suffice them for a long time, and let himself and all them down into a certain subterraneous cavern that was not visible above ground. Now, so far as had been digged of old, they went onward along it without disturbance; but where they met with solid earth, they dug a mine under ground, and this in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise from under ground in a safe place, and by that means escape. But when they came to make the experiment, they were disappointed of their hope; for the miners could make but small progress, and that with difficulty also; insomuch that their provisions, though they distributed them by measure, began to fail them. And now Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and elude the Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the temple had formerly been. At the first, indeed, those that saw him were greatly astonished, and stood still where they were; but afterward they came nearer to him, and asked him who he was. Now Simon would not tell them, but bid them call for their captain; and when they ran to call him, Terentius Rufus (2) who was left to command the army there, came to Simon, and learned of him the whole truth, and kept him in bonds, and let Caesar know that he was taken. Thus did God bring this man to be punished for what bitter and savage tyranny he had exercised against his countrymen by those who were his worst enemies; and this while he was not subdued by violence, but voluntarily delivered himself up to them to be punished, and that on the very same account that he had laid false accusations against many Jews, as if they were falling away to the Romans, and had barbarously slain them[,] for wicked actions do not escape the Divine anger, nor is justice too weak to punish offenders, but in time overtakes those that transgress its laws, and inflicts its punishments upon the wicked in a manner, so much more severe, as they expected to escape it on account of their not being punished immediately. (3) Simon was made sensible of this by falling under the indignation of the Romans. This rise of his out of the ground did also occasion the discovery of a great number of others Of the seditious at that time, who had hidden themselves under ground. But for Simon, he was brought to Caesar in bonds, when he was come back to that Cesarea which was on the seaside, who gave orders that he should be kept against that triumph which he was to celebrate at Rome upon this occasion.
Whiston's Footnotes:
(2) This Tereutius Rufus, as Reland in part observes here, is the same person whom the Talmudists call Turnus Rufus; of whom they relate, that "he ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high Idaces of a forest;" which was long before foretold by the prophet Micah, ch. 3:12, and quoted from him in the prophecies of Jeremiah, ch. 26:18.
(3) See Ecclesiastes 8:11.
This Simon, during the siege of Jerusalem, was in the upper city; but when the Roman army was gotten within the walls, and were laying the city waste, he then took the most faithful of his friends with him, and among them some that were stone-cutters, with those iron tools which belonged to their occupation, and as great a quantity of provisions as would suffice them for a long time, and let himself and all them down into a certain subterraneous cavern that was not visible above ground. Now, so far as had been digged of old, they went onward along it without disturbance; but where they met with solid earth, they dug a mine under ground, and this in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise from under ground in a safe place, and by that means escape. But when they came to make the experiment, they were disappointed of their hope; for the miners could make but small progress, and that with difficulty also; insomuch that their provisions, though they distributed them by measure, began to fail them. And now Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and elude the Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the temple had formerly been. At the first, indeed, those that saw him were greatly astonished, and stood still where they were; but afterward they came nearer to him, and asked him who he was. Now Simon would not tell them, but bid them call for their captain; and when they ran to call him, Terentius Rufus (2) who was left to command the army there, came to Simon, and learned of him the whole truth, and kept him in bonds, and let Caesar know that he was taken. Thus did God bring this man to be punished for what bitter and savage tyranny he had exercised against his countrymen by those who were his worst enemies; and this while he was not subdued by violence, but voluntarily delivered himself up to them to be punished, and that on the very same account that he had laid false accusations against many Jews, as if they were falling away to the Romans, and had barbarously slain them[,] for wicked actions do not escape the Divine anger, nor is justice too weak to punish offenders, but in time overtakes those that transgress its laws, and inflicts its punishments upon the wicked in a manner, so much more severe, as they expected to escape it on account of their not being punished immediately. (3) Simon was made sensible of this by falling under the indignation of the Romans. This rise of his out of the ground did also occasion the discovery of a great number of others Of the seditious at that time, who had hidden themselves under ground. But for Simon, he was brought to Caesar in bonds, when he was come back to that Cesarea which was on the seaside, who gave orders that he should be kept against that triumph which he was to celebrate at Rome upon this occasion.
Whiston's Footnotes:
(2) This Tereutius Rufus, as Reland in part observes here, is the same person whom the Talmudists call Turnus Rufus; of whom they relate, that "he ploughed up Sion as a field, and made Jerusalem become as heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high Idaces of a forest;" which was long before foretold by the prophet Micah, ch. 3:12, and quoted from him in the prophecies of Jeremiah, ch. 26:18.
(3) See Ecclesiastes 8:11.
Whiston's Footnote cites Eccl. 8:11, which says, "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."
Later in Book VII, Chapter 8, Josephus asks rhetorically about Simon, son of Gioras:
Again, therefore, what mischief was there which Simon the son of Gioras did not do? or what kind of abuses did he abstain from as to those very free-men who had set him up for a tyrant? What friendship or kindred were there that did not make him more bold in his daily murders? for they looked upon the doing of mischief to strangers only as a work beneath their courage, but thought their barbarity towards their nearest relations would be a glorious demonstration thereof.
Here is Loeb's translation of Josephus' statement in Book VII, Chp. 2 philosophisizing on Justice, above:
Thus was Simon, in retribution for his cruelty to his fellow-citizens, whom he had mercilessly [tyr]annized, delivered by God into the hands of his deadliest enemies ; not subjected to them by force, but spontaneously exposing himself to punishment — an act for which he had put many to a cruel death on false charges of defection to the Romans. For villainy escapes not the wrath of God, nor is Justice weak, but in due time she tracks down those who have transgressed against her and inflicts upon the sinners a chastisement the more severe, when they imagined themselves quit of it because they were not punished immediately.
I don't know if this statement is true. In his writings, Josephus describes human rights abuses by both sides, such as the rebels' killing of those whom they accused of desertion or treachery. Let's say a Judean rebel kills a villager. If the rebel was captured and punished immediately, he could be crucified or otherwise killed. But if he escaped, believed that he would elude punishment, and then got captured and crucified or otherwise killed a few years later, he would end up in the same fate. So is it really right to compare the two fates and say that the second is more severe?
- there are 70 faces to 
