The Jewish War: Book 3

[cahn]

Last week: The Jews are basically in an abusive relationship with Rome and have no good options; they choose the particular bad option of picking a war with Rome that they can't win. The Romans are terrible. Also continuing discussion here about Britannicus, Messalina, and the Praetorians.

This week: Vespasian comes down like a ton of bricks. That whole !!!! part of Josephus happens, where he gets stuck in the cave with a bunch of others and invents and wins the Josephus problem (well, in the text it says they draw lots, so he doesn't actually really cite what developed into the problem) (*) and surrenders to the Romans once he and another guy are the only ones left, and prophesies to Vespasian that he will become emperor. (selenak: Is it Feuchtwanger's invention to add the nomenclature of Messiah in there too? That definitely... upped the ante.)

(I'll comment more on this tomorrow -- I got done with the reading late and obviously barely got this written.)

Next week: first part of book 4, to "Despite the Zealotes didn't exactly behave as if they disbelieved the prophecies, they themselves contributed to their fulfillment" (Josephus describing the Zealotes as the worst!) (388)

(*) E. wanted to know what I was reading, so I told her about the Josephus problem, and she said, "Real-world applications of math!"

Comments

Re: What Josephus tells Vespasian - The Feuchtwanger version

[selenak]

True, though I bet if Nero had heard about it, he’d have thought, hey, if anyone is the Messiah, whatever the Messiah is, I AM! And due to Poppea’s interest in Judaism, he might have actually heard about the Messiah beforehand. Then again, if Nero didn’t kill Vespasian for falling asleep during a concert of his, he clearly likes the old fellow. :)

What I cut from Feuchtwanger’s rendition of the scene is the part where once having said it, Joseph starts to rationalize it to himself and thinks, why not, MAYBE he really is the Messiah, he could be the Messiah, do we know he’s not the Messiah? Etc. The whole scene from Joseph correctly guessing Vespasian doesn’t want to win this year and give up his shiny command and legions and working from there to the Messiah prophecy to the rationalisation to Vespasian asking, only half joking, “so, when can I expect my Messiah-dom” and Joseph’s reply which is a longer version of “I can’t give you an exact date but if it takes too long, feel free to kill me, whereas I am sure it won’t take that long and that you yourself will take these chains from me” just feels so compellingly written and psychologically plausible to me that it’s my inner headcanon. While I acknowledge it’s a fictionalisation and he might just as well have said something else.

BTW, when I typed it with lots of typoes, it registred that Feuchtwanger’s translators made a pretty awkward mistake with all the “he supported Vespasian’s gaze”. The German word Feuchtwanger uses is “ertrug”, past tense of “ertragen”. Which I would translate with “he endured Vespasian’s gaze” etc. “Tragen” = “carry, support”, but “ertragen” = “endure”.

Re: What Josephus tells Vespasian - The Feuchtwanger version

[cahn]

Joseph starts to rationalize it to himself and thinks, why not, MAYBE he really is the Messiah, he could be the Messiah, do we know he’s not the Messiah?

Yeah, I remember this now that you're reminding me. Gosh, yes, so psychologically plausible, like you say.