Bibliography
| Title: Josephus' Portrait of Saul Secondary Title: HUCA Volume: 53 Pages: 45-99 Type: Journal Article Year: 1982 Abstract: "In depicting Saul Josephus stressed those qualities which would appeal to a Greek audience, revealing his own apologetic ends and the influence of Isocrates and Aristotle".
"Josephus' treatment of Saul in Antiquities 6 is a hellenized portrait of a Jewish hero, with emphasis placed on precisely those qualities that would appeal to a Greek audience: the external ones of good birth and handsome stature, the four cardinal virtues of character (wisdom, courage, temperance, justice), and the spiritual attribute of piety toward God and family. Josephus also had to deal with Saul's madness and jealousy. In painting events with epic, rhetorical, and tragic hues, Josephus followed the Isocratean school of historiography. But he was also indebted to the Aristotelian school, which stressed studying character for its own sake and writing biography as a genre". - D.J.H.
"Summary: In striving for his apologetic ends, Josephus was clearly influenced by the historiographical ideals of the rhetorical school associated with the mane of Isocrates and the scientific school founded by Aristotle. His depiction of Saul is to be viewed as a hellenized portrait of a Jewish hero, in line with the ideals of Isocrates, Theopompus, and Dionysius, with stress placed upon precisely those qualities which would appeal to a Greek audience. These are first, the external qualities of good birth and handsome stature; second, the four cardinal virtues of character . wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, and third, the spiritual attribute of piety. These are, to be sure, hardly distinctive with the Greeks and are surely important to Jews as well; but what is decisive is the phraseology which Josephus employs, which is so often reminiscent of Greek writers, notably Dionysius. the close connection of tragedy and history which we see in Josephus' portrait of Saul may be due also to their single common source-epic. this may, indeed, ultimately explain why Josephus' depiction is so redolent of Achilles". Keywords: Antiquities |