Bibliography
| Title: Josephus on Parthian Babylonia. Antiquitaties XVIII, 310-379 Secondary Title: JAOS Volume: 107 Pages: 605-622 Type: Journal Article Year: 1987 Abstract: "The first half of the article is an identification of the rival factions in Seleucia whose conflict was the background for the massacre of the Jews on the Tigris. The second half denies sequential relation between the rise to power of the Jewish brothers from Nehardea and the massacre; the incidents were simultaneous".
"Book 18 of Josephus' Antiquities concludes with two incidents in the history of the Jews of Babylonia in the 1st century A.D.: the rise to power of two Jewish brothers from Nehardea who ruled briefly over part of Babylonia (18:314-371), and a massacre of the Jew in Seleucia on the Tigris (18:372-379). The conflict that led to the massacre ca. A.D. 40/41 was between the old Greco-Macedonian families and the hellenized, wealthy Babylonians who had been admitted to citizenship in the polis of Seleucia. The narratives derived from two different sources, and so Josephus' sequential relation between the two accounts is secondary and unhistorical. In reality the two incidents were simultaneous". - D.J.H. Keywords: Jewish History: Persian Era to the Maccabees |