| <head>II.<hi rend="italic">Aims of the Study</hi></head><p>Our goal, then, will be to interpret Josephus's descriptions of the Pharisees. Interpretation is necessary because his statements (like anyone's) are not autonomous, self-evident units of truth, but rather productions of his own thought. Josephus could conceivably have omitted any reference to the Pharisees. The interpreter must ask why he elected to mention them, what these accounts contribute to his narratives, and why he chose certain words and not others to describe the Pharisees. If Josephus claims, for example, that the Pharisees<span class="greek">δοϰοῦντες</span><pb n="42" /><span class="greek">εὺσεβέστερον ϰαὶ ἀϰριβέστερον εἶναι τѽν ἀλλѽυ</span>(<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>1:110), one must ask whether this particular choice of vocabulary and construction has any significance. If Josephus describes the Pharisees' activities under John Hyrcanus or Alexandra Salome, one must ask why he introduces them there, what he thinks of the Hasmoneans, and what role he gives the Pharisees in Jewish history. Although these basic kinds of questions have usually been ignored, they are indispensable for historical research: one cannot get behind Josephus's intention as a witness unless one knows what that intention is.</p><p>If this holistic approach is successful, it should also yield defensible conclusions on three specific issues that recur in the secondary literature. These are: (a) the problem of Josephus's own relationship to the Pharisees; (b) the question whether he deliberately changed his presentation of the group between<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>and<hi rend="italic">Ant./Life</hi>; and (c) the problem of his use of sources for his descriptions of the Pharisees. The resolution of these particular issues will be a function of the overall interpretive process.</p> |
