| <head><hi rend="italic">D. R. Schwartz: A Return to Source Criticism</hi></head><p>A recent challenge to Smith/Neusner has come in an article by D. R. Schwartz, entitled "Josephus and Nicolaus on the Pharisees" (1983).<note id="p1_c2_n111" place="foot"><hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period">JSJ</span></hi>14 (1983), 157-171.</note>As the title suggests, Schwartz wants to contest the increasingly popular Smith/Neusner theory by reviving a source-critical explanation of Josephus's Pharisee passages:</p><p><q>Moreover, the question [of sources] takes on special importance insofar as it has been ignored by several recent studies which have sought to explain some of Josephus's statements on the Pharisees, namely those which ascribe to them great influence and popularity, solely on the basis of his own needs and politics.<note id="p1_c2_n112" place="foot">Ibid., 157.</note></q></p><p>Thus Schwartz sets out to determine which Pharisee passages can be attributed to Josephus himself and which ones were simply taken over by Josephus from Nicolaus.</p><p>Of special interest are Schwartz's criteria for deciding the source question. For each of the four passages that he attributes to Nicolaus,<note id="p1_c2_n113" place="foot">These are<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:171-173, 288, 401f.; 17:41-45.</note>he can cite various linguistic details, which we shall consider below in our analysis of the respective pericopae. When Schwartz comes, however, to summarize his reasons for attributing passages to Nicolaus, his main criterion is that they "express hostility toward the Pharisees".<note id="p1_c2_n114" place="foot">Ibid., 162.</note>Specifically, the Pharisees appear as "those who incite the masses against rulers".<note id="p1_c2_n115" place="foot">Ibid.</note>Two other passages, by contrast, "present thoroughly positive accounts of the Pharisees", and "these improvements in the image of the Pharisees show that it is Josephus who is speaking".<note id="p1_c2_n116" place="foot">Ibid., 163. The passages are<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:162-163 and<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>18:12-15.</note>For Schwartz, then, as for Hölscher long ago, the author's attitude toward the Pharisees is the crucial factor—though by no means the only factor—in deciding whether Josephus or someone else was the author.<pb n="38" />Josephus the Pharisee cannot be expected to have portrayed the Pharisees in a negative light.</p><p>How does Schwartz's analysis confront the Smith/Neusner theory? In the first place, of all the passages adduced by Neusner to demonstrate Josephus's promotion of the Pharisees in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>(13:288, 401f.; 17:41-45; 18:15-17), Schwartz argues that only the last comes from Josephus himself; the others mention Pharisaic power but "in a way which would hardly commend them to the Romans, emphasizing their subversive capabilities".<note id="p1_c2_n117" place="foot">Ibid., 165f.</note>This shows that Josephus did not invent his statements about Pharisaic power in order to appeal to the Romans; rather, most come from Nicolaus. Second, Schwartz denies a major premise of Smith's, namely, that the Pharisees at Yavneh were bidding for Roman endorsement.<note id="p1_c2_n118" place="foot">Ibid., 167f.</note>In place of the Smith/Neusner theory, therefore, he offers a reconstruction more along the lines of Rasp's.</p><p>In Schwartz's view,<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>reflects the most thorough and sustained polemic of all Josephus's writings, for that work manages to obscure the Pharisees' political activities.<note id="p1_c2_n119" place="foot">Ibid., 169.</note>For example, although<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>mentions Simeon ben Gamaliel as a leader in the revolutionary government (2:628; 4:159), it does not identify him as a Pharisee; only<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>191 does. In<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>1:67, Schwartz argues, Josephus suppressed the fact, which he only divulges in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>13:288, that the Pharisees had headed the revolt against John Hyrcanus. And<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>does not mention that the oath of allegiance refused by the Pharisees named Augustus himself (but<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>17:42). Finally,<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>2:118 claims that the rebel sect of Judas had nothing in common with the others; but<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>18:10, 23 links it closely with the Pharisees. On all of these points, Schwartz contends, it is<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>that omits the "damaging pieces of information which connect the Pharisees with rebels".<note id="p1_c2_n120" place="foot">Ibid.</note>In<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>and<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>, on the other hand, although these works are still conditioned by Josephus's biases, "Josephus was less cautious and therefore much source material, which indicated Pharisaic involvement in politics and even in rebellion, found its way into these books.<note id="p1_c2_n121" place="foot">Ibid.</note></p><p>Thus Schwartz concludes against Neusner that it was Josephus's intention to confine the Pharisees to a harmless, purely religious domain and that<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>, because it reflects this tendency most closely,<note id="p1_c2_n122" place="foot"><hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>1:110-114, in which the Pharisees do appear in a political role, Schwartz describes as the only passage in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>that "got through" from Josephus's source, contrary to his own intention (170).</note>is not a reliable guide as to what the Pharisees were really about. In<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>and<pb n="39" /><hi rend="italic">Life</hi>, on the other hand, Josephus was less cautious because the issue had lost some of its urgency. So he allowed his source (Nicolaus) to assert its claim that the Pharisees were inciters of the masses against the rulers. And these admissions of Pharisaic political power, because they contradict Josephus's own intentions, must be seen to carry considerable historical weight.</p><p>With Schwartz's article we bring to a close this survey of scholarly interpretations of Josephus on the Pharisees. Not only is his contribution recent, but it also draws together many threads of the previous discussions. Like the earlier source critics, Schwartz allows that Josephus could mechanically copy passages on the Pharisees that were inimical to his own interests as a Pharisee. Like Laqueur and Rasp, he looks to Josephus's circumstances to explain some of the Pharisee material (especially in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>). And all of this is directed against another effort along that line, namely, the Smith/Neusner theory.</p> |
