Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Can you please clarify one point here. Did Josephus have in front of 
him the Hebrew of the books (or most of them) now in the Tanakh, or 
might he have had them only in Greek translation (LXX or something 
similar)? Is there any clear evidence on this point? If he did not 
have the rest of the Tanakh in Hebrew, it is hardly significant that 
he did not have the Hebrew version of Ezra.

Also, do you have the reference in Josephus to a supposed list of 
books which excludes Ezra? I refer to what you wrote: "He gives us an 
outline of the most accepted Jewish works that seems to reflect some 
notion of canon, but he didn't have Ezra!" The nearest I can find is 
from "Against Apion" 1:8:

     8. For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, 
     disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks 
     have,] but only twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records 
     of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; 
     and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the 
     traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval 
     of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the 
     time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of 
     Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after 
     Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. 
     The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for 
     the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been 
     written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been 
     esteemed of the like authority with the former by our 
     forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of 
     prophets since that time;...

This seems to show that the Hebrew scriptures (which Josephus is 
contrasting with unreliable Greek writings) consisted of a series of 
reliable books covering the period up to Artaxerxes - which is the 
time of Ezra (according to MT). This strongly suggests to me that 
Josephus knew of some form of the story of Ezra in Hebrew, though this 
was probably not what was in front of him when he wrote. And then what 
exactly were the 22 books he had in mind? Later Jewish sources count 
24 books, including Ezra and Nehemiah together. "New Bible Dictionary" 
refers to Origen, Epiphanius and Jerome in suggesting that Josepus 
counted togther Judges and Ruth, also Jeremiah and Lamentations, and 
on this basis Josephus must have counted Ezra/Nehemiah, as a single 
book, as part of his presumably Hebrew canon.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: Josephus & 1Esdras (Peter)
Author:  mc2499 AT mclink.it at internet
Date:    14/07/1999 14:43


Dear Peter,

You write:

>I'm not sure what you are trying to prove here.

I was interested in establishing whether Josephus could have derived the 
Greek forms of names he did without having the Greek 1 Esdras before him. 
I'm inclined to think not.

>But your method does
>not say anything about the dating of Ezra or any other Hebrew text. 
>Surely the most obvious explanation is that Josephus, writing in Rome 
>(is that right?) in Greek, used the version of the story of Ezra which 
>was most easily available to him and convenient for his work, 2 Esdras 
>as in the Septuagint - which I guess was more easily available in Rome 
>than any Hebrew texts.

Josephus had remarkable access to literary works... nearly all the OT/HB, 
works such as 1 Maccabees, Philo, Aristeas, Jubilees (or similar), other 
non-biblical patriarchal legend sources, an enormous quantity of non-Hebrew 
historical and apologetical works. If Ezra was available to anyone at the 
time, there would be no reason for Josephus not to have had it. He gives us 
an outline of the most accepted Jewish works that seems to reflect some 
notion of canon, but he didn't have Ezra!

>If elsewhere he was closer to the Hebrew,
>perhaps it just means that he better remembered the Hebrew (or 
>Aramaic?) form of those passages.

He was not working from memory: he was epitomising the texts. That should 
be obvious from a comparison of the order of the information he provides 
based on the various works.

>It does not mean that he did not
>know the Hebrew of Ezra (or that he did) but rather that he used the 
>source in front of him.

From solely the works of Josephus, this would be correct. He is, however, 
the first person to tell us about Ezra. No work that we know of prior to 
his cites anything that is recognisably from the biblical book of Ezra.

But I did not want to go through all the evidence to show that Ezra is a 
problematic book that cannot in any sense be treated as a historical 
source. You might consult the essay by Garbini on my website on the Aramaic 
of Ezra (and Daniel) www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/histreli.htm
You can read his "History and Ideology in Ancient Israel", ch 13. C.C. 
Torrey wrote a lot about Ezra that hasn't received much attention early 
this century. I have just finished a draft of a brief paper on the 
theophoric references in 1 Esdras and Ezra in which I attempt to show the 
priority of 1 Esdras, if you're interested.


Yours,


Ian


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