The Jewish War: First half of Book 5

[cahn]

Happy day-after-Easter!

Last week: Eyeliner shows that the Zealot faction is really bad! (No, really!) The Year of the Four Emperors, and those emperors discussed. Nero and his end. Lord Hervey of Frederician salon makes a surprise appearance!

This week: Titus attacks Jerusalem, but the factions have already done a lot of the work for him...

Next week: Rest of book 5!

Comments

[zdenka]

Does Josephus ever mention R. Yochanan ben Zakkai? I feel like we should have a Yochanan ben Zakkai digression at some point.

/Not actually doing the reading, just enjoying cahn's summaries and the conversation, and popping up with tangential thoughts at random times . . .

[cahn]

Nooooo as far as I know he does not! However! My edition name-checks Yohanan ben Zakkai in the introduction as an "intriguing parallel story." We should absolutely have a Yochanan ben Zakkai digression, I agree! I will put that in the next post.

Oh yay I'm extremely pleased you are actually reading my summaries! I wasn't sure anyone would get anything out of them -- since selenak and cenozoicsynapsid are reading along, they don't really need them as summaries, although I do put my random thoughts/notes in them as well :)

[zdenka]

Excellent!

I definitely am reading them! :D

[cenozoicsynapsid]

Just to second this: I was thinking of posting a R' Yohanan digression last week. Glad zdenka got there first.