The Jewish War: First half of Book 2

[cahn]

Last week: Discussion on how Herod stacked up against various Roman emperors in terms of body count of his nearest and dearest; how Friedrich Wilhelm might hear the Josephus text; Herod throwing money around; Cleopatra!

This week: ...uhhhh there was a lot going on and I haven't actually finished the reading yet *ducks* -- I am doing that right now and I should most likely be able to comment tomorrow. (I don't anticipate this being a problem again for at least two more months, and most likely not then either; this was a confluence of various time sinks that doesn't usually happen all at the same time.) But I wanted to go ahead and get the post up because I know you guys have read it... (ETA: have finished the reading now :P :) )

Next week: finishing up Book 2!

Comments

There are three kinds of Jew...

[cenozoicsynapsid]

So this is the chapter where Josephus (a Pharisee, right?) tells us about Jewish sects. Or rather, about Essenes, Essenes, Essenes and oh yeah, there are these other guys too. I am honestly very puzzled by his choices here. I get that the portrayal of each sect is supposed to analogize them to Greek philosophical movements or mystery cults, but it seems like he spends most of his time on the most exotic sect, which is not normally how he tries to "sell" Judaism to his audience.

Normally he focuses on the ways Jews are normal and the abnormal parts of their doctrine are (1) ancient and (2) praiseworthily abstemious--- the Jews don't raid the temple treasury, they have prohibitions that they take very seriously because they're old, and so forth. (The Romans think old things are really important, so this is the kind of behavior they respect even when the customs seem weird to them.) The Essenes are abstemious for sure, but they're not the oldest sect, nor does Josephus tell us that their strictures are traditional or justified by Jewish law. About the best he can do is tell us about their beliefs in the afterlife, which are similar to Greek religion in that they're typical of pretty much everywhere in the Mediterranean.

As to his actual description of the Essenes, there's a lot of "New Religious Movement" energy. Degrees of initiation, asceticism--- especially limited food and speech, strict hierarchies, communal property: there are a lot of mechanisms for mass control and indoctrination of new recruits. Perhaps he features them so prominently because he wants to blame the upcoming war on "crazy cultists"? We'll find out, I guess, I haven't read ahead.

Re: There are three kinds of Jew...

[cahn]

It is bizarre! And yeah, seems very different from how he treats Judaism in all the rest of the texts to, as you say, sell it to his audience.

(The Romans think old things are really important, so this is the kind of behavior they respect even when the customs seem weird to them.)

Oh, I didn't pick up on that, thanks! I did kind of feel like with e.g. the covert portraits being moved into Jerusalem that the Jews were coming across as more reasonable to a modern eye, at least.

there are a lot of mechanisms for mass control and indoctrination of new recruits.

This is a good point.

Re: There are three kinds of Jew...

[selenak]

Thirding the bizarreness of the authorial choice of giving his Roman/Greek audience a detailed description of the Essenes at this particular point of the story. Honestly, the sole two things I remember from school (i.e. many decades ago) about the Essenes is a) John the Baptist was supposed to be one, and b) Dead Sea Scrolls?

Though your guess that he might be building them up to explain at least parts of the coming war would make sense. What it does highlight is that at this point in Judaism history, evidently the time was ripe for new branches/movements. I can also see why medieval monks found all of this absolutely fascinating and worth transcribing, never mind the few inserted sentences later.

Whether Josephus himself was a Phariseen or Sadducean, I don’t recall, would have to look it up.