| <pb n="54" /><head>PART TWO THE PHARISEES IN THE<hi rend="italic">JEWISH WAR</hi></head><p>Between AD 75 and 79 Josephus completed his history of the "Jewish war" in Greek.<note id="p2_c3_n1" place="foot">The<hi rend="italic">terminus a quo</hi>is the dedication of the Temple of Peace in AD 75 (Dio Cassius 66:15), which is mentioned by Josephus in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>7:158. The<hi rend="italic">terminus ad quem</hi>is the death of Vespasian in AD 79, for Josephus would later claim (<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>359, 361) that he had presented a copy of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>to Vespasian. It is possible, as S. J. D. Cohen ( Josephus , 84-87) suggests, that the version presented to Vespasian was incomplete and that the later books were only completed after 79. For our purposes, a decision on this point is unnecessary; the Pharisee material of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>falls exclusively in the first two books.</note>By that time he had been granted Roman citizenship and was lodged securely in the emperor's former residence.</p><p>So far as is known, Josephus's first published descriptions of the Pharisees are those contained in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>.<note id="p2_c3_n2" place="foot">This would be true even if Laqueur's theory were accepted. He argues that at the heart of Josephus's<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>(issued after AD 100, he thinks) lies a much earlier document, a self-justifying presentation of his command in the Galilee, which he submitted to the Jerusalem authorities in AD 66/67 (Laqueur,<hi rend="italic">Historiker</hi>, 121). Of the two Pharisee passages in<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>, however, Laqueur attributes the first (<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>10-12) to the polemic of the final version (pp. 54f., 246) and therefore to a period after 100. The second passage (<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>189-198), it is true, occurs in a block that Laqueur attributes to the earlier<hi rend="italic">Rechenschaftsbericht</hi>(p. 114). Since, however, the Pharisees are introduced there as if they were unknown to the reader, the passage could hardly have been written for the Jerusalem authorities, who were the intended recipients of the<hi rend="italic">Rechenschaftsbericht</hi>(p. 121). I shall treat both passages in<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>, therefore, as later discussions of the Pharisees than those found in<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>, without otherwise debating the merits of Laqueur's theory at this point.</note>To understand what Josephus wished to convey about the Pharisees to the readers of his first work is the purpose of Part II. We shall look first at the purpose and outlook of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>and then at the relevant passages.</p><pb n="55" /><pb n="56" /><pb n="57" /><head>CHAPTER THREE PURPOSE AND OUTLOOK OF THE JEWISH WAR</head><p>Fortunately for the interpreter of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>, Josephus takes some trouble to enunciate his goals and point of view, both in the proem to<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>itself and in later reflective comments on that work.<note id="p2_c3_n3" place="foot">Cf., in particular,<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish Antiquities">Ant.</span></hi>1:1-4;<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>361-367;<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Against Apion">Ag.Ap.</span></hi>1:47-56.</note>Among all of these elaborate statements of intention, however, one item has riveted the attention of much twentieth-century scholarship. It is Josephus's notice that in the Greek<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>he was providing for a Greek-speaking audience what he had already composed in his native language (<span class="greek">τῇ πατρί</span>) for the Parthians, Babylonians, and others (<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>1:3, 6). This reference to an earlier, presumably Aramaic,<note id="p2_c3_n4" place="foot">So the common opinion, but cf. J.M. Grintz, "Hebrew as the Spoken and Written Language in the Last Days of the Second Temple",<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="Journal of Biblical Literature">JBL</span></hi>79 (1960), 32-47.</note>edition of<hi rend="italic"><span class="abbr" title="The Jewish War">War</span></hi>has for many scholars provided the key to the purpose of the extant Greek version.</p> |
