Steve Mason. Judean War 4

This is the second of several planned volumes in the Brill Josephus Project (BJP) for the Jewish War (or Judean War). The volume on War 2, also by Steve Mason, was published in 2008. Steve Mason treated Josephus’s Life (2001), John Barclay Against Apion (2006), Louis Feldman Judean Antiquities 1–4 (1999), Christopher Begg Judean Antiquities 5–7 (2004), Begg and Paul Spilsbury Judean Antiquities 8–10 (2005), Spilsbury and Chris Seeman Judean Antiquities 11 (2016), and Jan Willen van Henten Judean Antiquities 15 (2013). As in all volumes of BJP, the author translates and comments on the basis of the Niese text (1885). The translation is printed at the top of the page with commentary on text-critical, literary, rhetorical, historical, geographical, topographical, and archaeological matters provided in 2,475 footnotes printed at the bottom of the page in double columns (“bottom” being relative: p. 30 has two lines of translation and 48 × 2 lines of comments.Book 4 of Josephus’s Jewish War (or Judean War, as the Brill Josephus Project calls the work) bridges the narrative of the conflict between the Jews in Galilee and Jerusalem from its origins (Book 2) and the arrival of Vespasian and Titus in the north (Book 3) to the siege of Jerusalem (Books 5–6). The narrative moves from the capitulation of the Galileans after the seizure of Iotapata on July 1 AD 67 and the clearing out of Gamala (Golan), Mount Tabor, and Gischala (4.1–120) to early January in 70 when Vespasian was set on sailing from Alexandria to Rome, leaving Titus in charge of capturing Jerusalem (4.658). The first half of Book 4 focuses on John of Gischala, a survivor of the fighting in the north who escapes to Jerusalem, manages to gain control of the small faction of Disciples (the Zealots; note the Excursus pp. 91–96), and engineers the entry of the Idumeans into Jerusalem (in the winter of AD 67–68). The heavy fighting in the temple that resulted from the Zealots joining forces with the Idumeans resulted in 8,500 dead (4.313). The murder of the former high priests Ananus II and Jesus son of Gamalas (4.315–25), who had opposed the more radical militant leaders, was followed by a campaign of terror (4.326–67) during which 12,000 young nobles were killed (4.333). The civil war in Jerusalem and in the countryside (for the latter cf. 4.398–409) eventually pitted John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora (4.353, 503–44) against each other. Vespasian decided to let the city of Jerusalem destroy itself, erecting a loose ring of garrisons around the city (4.367–77, 410–39). Idumeans who had remained loyal to John fight against the Zealots (4.566–71), while Idumeans who had remained in the city join the chief priests who had survived and the citizens of Jerusalem, inviting Simon to neutralize John and the Zealots (4.572–76). Simon controls the upper and lower city while the Zealots fought from their base on the Temple mount (4.577–84). The final section of Book 4 treats Vitellius, hailed as imperator by the German legions, who terrorized Rome, and Vespasian, whose legionaries in Caesarea acclaim him as imperator (Vespasian recalls that Josephus had once addressed him as imperator while Nero was still alive, which leads to Josephus’s release, 4.623–29) and who establishes his imperial power in Egypt (4.585–58).Josephus’s literary strategy shows that he seeks to point to the complementarity of the civil war in Jerusalem and Judea with the civil war in Rome (4.440–41). This allows him to demonstrate that the Judeans as a people are not an inferior nation but a people who faced threats from tyrants such as Rome (John and Simon in Judea, Vitellius in Rome), that the rising conflict with Rome was due not to a desire for war among the Judeans but to the civil war between militant factions, and that the Flavians (Vespasian and Titus) have preserved both Rome and the Judean people (p. 8).The comments on 4.163—Ananus’s lament on the pollution of the holy spaces in the temple by the Zealots—in note 673 could benefit from including references to interpretations that relate the occupation of the temple by Zealot leaders such as Eleazar of Gion (4.225) whose actions left the outer temple (the Court of the Nations) “drenched with blood” (4.313) and to the appointment of Phanni son of Samuel as high priest despite the fact that he was not of high priestly descent (4.155–57) to the “abomination of desolation” in Mark 13:14 (Vicky Balabanski, Eschatology in the Making, SNTSMS 97 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 122–34; Joel Marcus, Mark, AYB 27 [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000/2009], 890–91).Mason repeats his view that Josephus’s narrative is “not a transparent record of what happened” as no account of historical events can ever provide such a record: “It is a crafted narrative that evidently serves Josephus’ purposes and carries his themes” (Introduction, p. 9). While is it certainly correct that “Josephus composes this history in tragic hues against a set of core values, impulsive masses, virtuous leaders devoted to public service, would-be tyrants and violent men seeking their own power, a sacred sanctuary polluted and in need of purging, and much else,” it cannot be known whether “[w]hat Josephus omits, or mentions but declines to explain, is vastly greater than what he uses to shape his story” (p. 9).This volume continues the fine tradition of the Brill Josephus Project providing invaluable information on Josephus, on Jewish and Roman history, and, in this volume, on the consequences of civil war, political scheming, and human brutality

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