The Hebrew Bible of Josephus: Main Features (Cahiers de la Revue Biblique) 9042936762, 9789042936768

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In his major work, the Jewish Antiquities, Josephus gives a history of his people in Greek. He begins with the Bible, and after it he collects other source till his own time. The work was published in 93, under emperor Domitian, but unfortunately the Biblical part is a paraphrase, not an accurate translation, and it has often been thought that it was merely a loose adaptation of a previous Greek translation. However, this study offers a minute comparison with other ancient Biblical texts known to us in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. The general conclusion is that he used only a Hebrew source, which has some affinities with several Qumran fragments. Beyond many little details, one can see that for some books, especially Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, the copies he used were quite different from the canonical forms. Étienne Nodet o.p., emeritus professor of Intertestamental Literature at the École Biblique de Jérusalem. He has been working for many years on Josephus Flavius’ writings, looking for the cultural context of ancient Judaism and early Christianity.

THE HEBREW BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

THE HEBREW BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

THE HEBREW BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS MAIN FEATURES By Étienne NODET École biblique, Jérusalem Preface by Adrian SCHENKER University of Fribourg (CH)

PEETERS – LEUVEN

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THE HEBREW BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

CAHIERS DE LA REVUE BIBLIQUE

92 THE HEBREW BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS MAIN FEATURES By Étienne NODET École biblique, Jérusalem Preface by Adrian SCHENKER University of Fribourg (CH)

PEETERS

LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT

2018

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2018 – Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven. ISBN 978-90-429-3676-8 eISBN 978-90-429-3735-2 D/2018/0602/84 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes.

PREFACE In Deuteronomy (4:5-6), Moses said to the Israelites who were about to enter the Promised Land, “See, I now teach you statutes and laws…. Keep them and do them, for this is your wisdom and your discernment in the sight of the peoples, who will hear all these statutes and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and discerning people’.” Israel’s wisdom had no cause to fear a comparison with other peoples’ wisdom. On the contrary, other peoples would admire Israel’s wise laws and customs as soon as they became known to them. This conviction and promise of the lawgiver Moses may well have set off the initial spark for the unprecedented new idea of a translation of the Torah into Greek. In fact, no important literary work written in a foreign language had ever been rendered into Greek before the Pentateuch was translated in the 3rd c. B.C. This idea had its origin in the Alexandrian Jewish community, which was surrounded by Greeks who were proud of their successes and convinced of their cultural superiority, and by Egyptians looking back with no less pride at a history coming down from time immemorial. The Jewish literature in Greek that began at that time shows, in any case, a great effort to open a real or imaginary dialogue with the Greekspeaking world. Aristobulos in the 2nd c. B.C., Philo of Alexandria at the end of the 1st c. B.C. and in the early 1st c. A.D., and Josephus Flavius in the second half of that same century are outstanding representatives of this intellectual movement of Judaism in Hellenistic times. These great philosophers and historians had colleagues in Egypt and the Semitic Orient, such as Manetho (3d c. B.C.), Berossos (3d c. B.C.) in Babylon, and, only a little later than Josephus, Philo of Byblos (1st-2nd c. A.D.). Manetho and Berossos were learned priests who had access to historical sources and records in their own languages. They did not translate these documents verbatim. They reported in Greek the long history of their nation and religion in order to show interested Greek readers the wealth of wisdom and belief stored up in their old and venerable cultures, which were by no means inferior to that of the Greek world. In this general Hellenistic and Jewish context, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus Flavius occupy a unique position, for two reasons. First, as is not the case with other authors of Antiquity, their voluminous works have mostly survived; secondly, they expounded on the Bible for their contemporary readers. They are therefore among the earliest witnesses and interpreters of the Hebrew Bible. Philo expounds on the Pentateuch at a high level in his philosophical and theological commentaries, while Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews record the history of ancient Israel from its

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

beginnings down to his own lifetime in a lavish display of exceptional biblical erudition. In writing The Jewish War, Josephus may have wished to erect a literary monument for this conflict similar to the one Thucydides produced for the Peloponnesian War. Both authors were historians of wars who, at the same time, had been eye witnesses and even actors in the conflicts themselves. In any event, Philo’s and Josephus’ writings provide an access to the understanding of the Hebrew Bible in the 1st A.D. that is comparable in importance only with a third literary work of the same period: the New Testament. The three centuries preceding Philo and Josephus were decisive for the composition of the Hebrew Bible as we have it now. The way in which we perceive this early history of the Bible text is still a subject of debate among scholars. Notwithstanding the many new biblical documents that came to light with the discoveries of the Dead Sea scrolls in 1947 and the years following, and despite intense research over more than fifty years, there has emerged no consensus as to the form that the Biblical text had reached in the time of Philo and Josephus in the land of Israel-Palestine and abroad in the diaspora, especially in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Was there a mere pluriformity of the Bible text? Or was there one text, or perhaps a limited number of text forms, that had been privileged by the religious communities of Judaism existing at that time in Jerusalem, Samaria, Alexandria, Qumran, and, possibly, elsewhere? An inquiry into the Bible text of Josephus is indispensable, therefore, because he quotes the Bible extensively (the Pentateuch and the historical books) and, at the same time, he is a contemporary, and a representative, of early rabbinic Judaism, which specifically adopted a particular consonantal Biblical text, substantially identical with the so-called Masoretic Bible. He is therefore an eye witness of the period in which the “Masoretic” Bible came into being, or, at least, was chosen as the authoritative Bible by the rabbis. It should be asked, by all means, whether this great historian and reader of Jewish Scripture, living in the very years when the formative period of biblical text history came to a close, might shed some light upon it. Such an inquiry, however, is no easy task. In fact, it is hard to know precisely which biblical texts existed at the time of Josephus. He might have known a forerunner of the Masoretic text, since many biblical scrolls of the Dead Sea reflect a textual form close to the Masoretic text, which indeed seems to reach back to an early origin in the Second Temple period. However, besides this text, the Qumran scrolls attest to a plurality of forms that differ more or less widely from the forerunner, or forerunners, of the Masoretic text. Since, in almost all instances, these biblical scrolls are fragmentary (exceptions are the great Isaiah scroll from cave 1 and the Samaritan Pentateuch), they may be compared with Josephus’ Bible quotations only in some places and not in others. In fact, cases where a comparison is possible are rather rare. An interesting instance occurs for the narrative section at 1 Sam 11, where Josephus’ account (Antiquities VI, 68-7) coincides with that of 4QSama, while in all



PREFACE

III

other text witnesses the passage is missing. As for the Septuagint, it contains all the biblical books quoted by Josephus, but in Greek translation. Its Hebrew base text is not preserved. It cannot be reconstructed everywhere with certainty. Therefore, we cannot be certain about this Hebrew text, even supposing that Josephus had such a text at his disposal, which is quite a hypothetical supposition. Moreover, the Greek version underwent many revisions in its long transmission history. It is therefore indispensable to restore the Greek text as it existed at the time of Josephus, and in the form in which Josephus read it. Here again there is no firm ground to walk on, as the available biblical text witnesses do not allow us to identify the Bible of Josephus. Therefore, a search for the Bible of the great Jewish historian must begin with a study of his writings, and in particular with his quotations from, or references to, the Bible. This is the path of Etienne Nodet’s investigation in this new monograph, The Bible of Josephus. Nodet is professor at the École biblique et archéologique française in Jerusalem. A great deal of his scientific work is devoted to the Jewish historian. He is currently finishing a French translation of the Jewish Antiquities.1 The reader of this abundantly-annotated new version soon becomes aware of its great wealth of notes specifically intended to explain the peculiarities of the Bible used by Josephus. Scattered membra disiecta are gathered by this present work into a large mosaic, which shows the full picture of the Bible as read and understood by the Jewish historian. Except for Philo of Alexandria, there is no other Jewish interpreter of the Bible in the GreekRoman world more important than Josephus. Insights that the notes on the Biblical text in Nodet’s translation had already suggested in many places appear here in the unifying perspective of one fully-elaborated theory. The explanation hitherto adopted by most scholars, especially in the wake of Henry St. John Thackeray (1869-1930), the great and influential scholar in Septuagint and Josephus studies, is the assumption of a paraphrase of the Bible made by the Jewish historian. In this view, Josephus rewrote the Bible, drawing in some places from scrolls of the Bible in Hebrew that were close to the Masoretic text, and in others from the Septuagint, then adding elements from yet other sources, such as oral traditions that appear later in targums or in apocryphal literature. Essentially, Josephus did not quote but rephrase in his own words what he read in the Bible. Nodet’s purpose is to demonstrate, on the contrary, that Josephus made his own translation of several Hebrew (and Aramaic) biblical books preserved in the library of the temple in Jerusalem. He bases this opinion on an explicit statement of the historian himself at the very beginning of the Jewish Antiquities, I 5: “The present work… will embrace our entire ancient history and political constitution, translated from the 1 Étienne NODET, Flavius Josèphe : Les Antiquités juives, Livres I à XI (Paris: Cerf, 19922010).

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Hebrew records” (translation: H. St. J. Thackeray).2 The aim of Nodet’s present monograph is to verify in detail Josephus’ claim to have translated himself the Hebrew biblical books (that is, the Pentateuch and historical books). For this purpose, Nodet systematically compares numerous biblical passages occurring in Josephus with the corresponding Masoretic text, and with the Old Greek Bible (Septuagint) in its Palestinian and Lucianic recensions, where they are extant, together with its underlying Hebrew text, as far as that may plausibly be restored. As a further criterion for testing Josephus’ own knowledge of Hebrew, the author uses his transliterations of Hebrew proper names. These text-critical investigations are certainly delicate, in particular because of possible contaminations in the transmission history of the Jewish Antiquities caused by scribes, who, bearing in mind their own Greek Bible, were easily tempted to replace genuine readings of Josephus with those of the Septuagint, which was more familiar to them. This meticulous study of the many biblical readings in Josephus will of course offer matter for discussion – all the more so because Nodet is not afraid of bold and unusual hypotheses. In any case, Nodet’s confident suggestion, supported by good reasons, that we consider Josephus as a translator and therefore as a true witness of a specific text-form of the Hebrew Bible, as well the vast text critical material gathered by the author in this robust work, are an invitation to take a fresh look at an old and illustrious problem. Readers who are specialists of the great Jewish historian, and biblical scholars interested especially in textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, will probably find many new insights in their fields of study in this book. They may agree with Nodet or quibble with him, but they will surely come away enriched with deeper understanding thanks to the author’s unconventional and intrepid questioning. Adrian Schenker

University of Fribourg, Switzerland May 2018

2 In the rendering of Étienne NODET: “Le présent ouvrage… se propose de contenir toute notre histoire ancienne, et d’exposer nos constitutions, le tout traduit des livres hébraïques.”

INTRODUCTION Josephus Flavius (ca. 37-96) was a priest born in Jerusalem. After the 67-73 war, he became a writer, as a high-ranking freedman of emperor Vespasian’s. In his first work, The Jewish War (War), published ca. 78, he gives a detailed account of the war in seven books, which begins with a sketch of Jewish history from the Maccabean crisis (167-164 BCE), and ends ca. 74 after the fall of Masada; his goal, with official Roman patronage, was to convince his readers of the futility of further opposition to Rome; a first, shorter version, has survived only in a Slavonic translation.1 In 93, he published his major work, The Jewish Antiquities (Ant.), in twenty books; he presents in Greek the whole history of his nation, paraphrasing the Bible from Adam and completing it up to the eve of the war (66); he later added an autobiography (Life), whose bulk is a defense of his conduct during the few months of his command in Galilee. His last work, traditionally titled Against Apion (AgAp), published ca. 95, is an apology of Judaism in two books: he endeavors to refute current prejudices against the Jews and to show their extreme antiquity by collecting evidence from Greek historians, because, for the intended nonJewish reader, the Bible itself could not be an authority.2

I – About Bible Translations In the prologue of the Antiquities, Josephus introduces his work with two statements: first, it “embraces our entire history and political constitution, translated from the Hebrew records”; second, nothing will be added or omitted. The latter assertion is obviously false, for he added many traditions or comments, and omitted many details, and sometimes whole episodes (e.g. the story of the golden calf). In other words, what he calls a translation is actually a paraphrase, sometimes very loose, so that in many cases, it is virtually impossible to ascertain the exact wording of his sources. As for the former, he expands it with an allusion to the earlier un1 For a discussion of its authenticity, see Étienne NODET, “The Slavonic Version of the Jewish War”, in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus (ed. Tom HOLMÉN & Stanley E. PORTER; Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 1525-43. 2 The major critical edition is still FLAVII IOSEPHI Opera (ed. Benedikt NIESE; Berlin: Weidmann, 7 vol., 1885-95); we use here his verse numbering and mss acronyms. The LOEB English translation (1926-37 for the Bible paraphrase) has been used throughout.

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dertaking described in the Letter of Aristeas, which expounds at length the story of a translation of the Pentateuch, usually called the Septuagint3, and gives it all due authority, as a kind of big colophon, and suggests that it was stored and protected in a public library; this was a formal publication. It dates the performance to the reign of Ptolemy II (283-246 BCE), who successfully made a request for translators to the high priest Eleazar of Jerusalem; the translation is said to be perfectly accurate. The Letter, a Jewish work, is usually dated somewhere between 150 and 120 BCE, that is, more than one century after the given context of the translation.4 Then Josephus, who knew the Letter and paraphrased it (Ant. 12:11-118), clarifies two points: first, only the Pentateuch was translated, and no other books, so that the series has to be completed; second, the high priest would have refused if it was “a custom to make anything good into a secret”. In fact, this is a kind of disclaimer, for Eleazar was somewhat reluctant, since he did say that accepting the king’s request was “beyond nature” (παρὰ φύσιν, Letter, § 44). It means that Josephus was somewhat afraid to break a taboo, because as an official Roman writer, his purpose was to have his work formally published and stored in public libraries; Eusebius reports that this was done, and that his statue was erected in Rome (HE 3.9.1). A side consequence is that Josephus’ explanations are blurring one point: he does not make clear whether he used or not the Septuagint Pentateuch. Of course, formal publishing does not preclude other private translations prior to Josephus: in his prologue, the translator of Ben Sirah, who dates his work ca. 132 BC, says that the Greek renderings of “the law, the prophecies and the other books differ not a little as originally expressed”. On the contrary, Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20 BCE – 50 CE) followed the Letter’s view, at least for the Pentateuch, that the translation was perfect and had the authority of the original. He expounded at length Moses’ books, but his use of the others is scant: he cites and quotes the book of Judges (Conf. ling. § 129); 1 Samuel (10 times); 1 Kings (3 times); Job (Mut. nom. § 48); Psalms (a score of times); Proverbs (5 times); Isaiah (7 times); Hosea (twice); Zechariah (Conf. ling. § 62). For Philo, Solomon was one of Moses’ disciples, his name meaning “Peace” (Congr. § 177, quoting Prov 3:11); David was God’ singer. In fact, he may have known most books in Greek translation, but he was interested neither in history nor in eschatology. Typically, he never mentions any exile, but 3 The word is usually – and wrongly – taken to refer to the old Greek Bible, containing the translations of the Hebrew books and other books known only in Greek. EUSEBIUS, In Psalm. § 2, already uses it as a current denomination. 4 See Benjamin G. WRIGHT III, The Letter of Aristeas (Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, 2015), p. 21-30.



INTRODUCTION

3

says incidentally that Jerusalem, the metropolis, has sent Jewish colonies in various countries, including Babylonia (Legatio, § 282); he has nothing against the diaspora reality. From this evidence, we cannot conclude that beyond the Pentateuch the Biblical books were translated and collected in a systematic way.5 On the contrary, Josephus had a clear view of the whole as a collection of 22 books: 5 of Moses, 13 Prophets and 4 of wisdom and praise, which matches the extent of the Massoretic Hebrew text (AgAp I:39-40). He reports that during Titus’ triumph, in 71, all the spoils of the temple were shown, including as the last item the copy of “the law of the Jews” that was to be stored in Vespasian’s palace (War 7:150.162); later, he said that Titus presented him with “the sacred books” (Life § 418), most probably the same; besides the Biblical books, the plural may indicate other documents, for he occasionally mentions poetic texts kept in the temple: a piece on the miracle of water at Rephidim (Ant. 3:38); a prophetic song of Moses (4:303); the miraculous stopping of the sun (Ant. 5:61, cf. the Book of the Upright One of Josh 10:13). These are not included in Scripture, for Josephus clearly distinguishes: sometimes, even for miraculous events he is not fond of, he explicitly refers to the “holy books” (Ant. 1:13, 2:347, 10:210). Thus, we have a glance at Josephus’ Hebrew sources. About this, an undated Rabbinic tradition says that there were three copies of the Torah in the temple, and an eclectic edition was made by professional “proofreaders”, who kept the majority variants (SifDeut § 356); this was, so to speak, the birth of the Massoretic text as an official edition; it is confirmed by the rule that the “book of the Temple Court” does not defile the hands, meaning that it is unsuited (like 𝔊𝔊) for public worship (m.Kel 15:6). Another saying suggests a date: by the time of R. Akiba, ca. 120, it was mandatory to discard the old books (b.Pes 112a), which means that they were still extant.6 Incidentally, it is said plainly that the Hebrew text sent to Alexandria for the translation described in the Letter was special (b.Meg 9a-b), and a list of deviant readings is given. All this opens up the possibility of marginal glosses, as well as alterations due to the frequent use of the temple copy (or copies). Sometimes, Josephus alludes to his using a Hebrew source: about Jonah, he says he reports the story as he found it in the Hebrew books (Ant. 9:208); about Daniel he clearly states that he translates into Greek the books of the Hebrews, and refers the reader who 5 See Francis BORCHARDT, “The LXX Myth and the Rise of Textual Fixity”, JSJ 43 (2012), p. 1-21. 6 See Saul LIEBERMAN, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950), p. 20-31.

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wants to know more to the original (Ant. 10:218). According to 1 Kgs 22:42, the name of Jehoshaphat’s mother was “Azubah”, which means in Hebrew “abandoned, forsaken”, a weird name for a woman; Josephus inadvertently translated it into “Abidah”, which has the same meaning in Aramaic (Ant. 8:315); thus, reading something in Hebrew, he spontaneously thought in Aramaic. In the prologue of the War, when he states that he wrote a first account “in the language of his country” and sent it to the “Upper Barbarians” (War 1:3 f.), i.e. the people living outside the Roman dominion, among others the eastern Jews; it can be safely assumed that he used Aramaic. His goal was to stress the futility of waging war against Rome. It is clear that Aramaic terms were familiar to him: he transcribes Sabbath with σάββατα (‫שבתא‬, Ant. 1:33); Passover with πάσχα (‫פסחא‬, Ant. 2:313); he explains that the priests are χαναναία, a corruption of χααναία (‫כהניא‬, Ant. 3:151), the high priest is ἀναραβήχης, a corruption of χααναραβά (‫ ;)כהנא רבא‬for the river Tigris, he gives a transcription of the Aramaic ‫( דגלת‬Ant. 1:39), but hints at puns built upon the Hebrew ‫ ;חדקל‬for the stole of the high priest (‫ )אבנט‬he gives the Aramaic word witnessed by the targums (‫המינא‬, Ant. 3:156); for Reuben he puts Ῥουβῆλος (Ant. 1:304, etc.), known in the Syriac Bible, and of very similar pronunciation. Sometimes, Josephus is simply clumsy: for instance, he explains that Pentecost (the “fiftieth day”) is called by the Hebrews ἀσαρθά, a transcription of the Aramaic ‫“ עצרתא‬closure meeting” (and not of the Hebrew ‫)עצרת‬, and adds that the word means “fiftieth” (Ant. 3:252, from Lev 23:15); this is clearly false, but the clumsiness of the whole sentence indicates a gloss, perhaps by an assistant or a later copyist.

Indeed, at the end of the work, Josephus says he had a command of Greek literature, though he could not “attain precision in the pronunciation” (Ant. 20:263); he stresses his outstanding knowledge of ancestral traditions, and even tells us of his precocious talents which, at the age of 14, brought learned scholars to consult him (Life § 9). In any case, he admits that some assistants helped him as a writer (AgAp 1:50).7 More interestingly, perhaps, he seems not to consider the possibility that anyone might compare his work with any other rendering of the Bible, which means that nothing else was available in public libraries for Roman educated people. However, in AJ 4:197, he apologizes to his countrymen for having classified the legal matters, which are scattered in Moses’ books. Combined with the previous hints, this means that in the Antiquities, he mainly addresses Hebrew-speaking readers, that is, the Jews, as far as they are good Roman citizens. 7 As shown for the Antiquities by Henry St. J. THACKERAY, Josephus: The Man and Historian (New York: Hebrew Union College, 1929), p. 73-89; in spite of some later objections, his demonstration stands.



INTRODUCTION

5

Some have argued that Josephus’ knowledge of Hebrew was superficial, but the proof texts adduced are generally inconclusive: for instance, he was reproached to say that the name “Eve” means “mother of all” (Ant. 1:36, from Gen 3:20), but a better variant reads correctly “mother of all the living”. Elsewhere he says that “jubilee” means “freedom” (Ant. 3:383, from Lev 25:10), which seems quite unsatisfactory (‫“ יובל‬ram, horn”), but we should remember that the verse itself defines freedom (‫ )דרור‬as “jubilee”; moreover, the same word occurs in Aramaic (‫)יובלא‬, and Josephus cannot ignore it, albeit with a ritual significance as in the Septuagint ἀφέσεως σηµασία “signal of release’, leaving aside some confusion between “sabbatical year” and “jubilee”. Josephus states that Gilgal means “free” (Ant. 5:34, from Josh 5:9), but this unexpected equivalence only derives from the context, which deals with the liberation from Egypt, and from a variant reading, as we shall see. In any case, Josephus writes for Greekspeaking readers, and his carelessness is notorious. More generally, Josephus gives many translations of Hebrew names and nouns; for instance, at Ant. 5:360 (after 1 Sam 4:21), the name Ichabod of Pinehas’ child is poorly transmitted, but the explanation “ingloriousness” is right; at Ant. 7:10 (after 2 Sam 2:8), the place name Mahanaim is translated as a plural “camps”.

In spite of all this evidence, the common view is that Josephus paraphrased a previous Greek translation. But before dealing with this point, we have to consider the way he worked.

II – Josephus at Work We do not know the way Josephus sorted out the vast array of information he collected, but some steps are apparent. According to all the available mss, each of the 20 books of the Antiquities begins with a kind of summary, supposed to be composed after the completion of the work, as was usual. However, these pieces are very poor tables of content: some items cover one or two verses of the text, others more than one hundred; many passages are omitted. Moreover, we read at Ant. 1:s8 (8th title) “our forefather Abraham occupied what was then called Canaan, and now Judaea”, which indicates a Jewish hand operating before 135, when Judaea became Syria-Palaestina after the Bar-Kokhba war. Since Josephus never had Jewish disciples who could have added something to a work stored in public libraries, we must ascribe these summaries to the author himself. We may add that no later Christian copyist would have been so sloppy to omit all the topics of Christian interest (Pharisees, Sadducees, Jesus, John the Baptist, etc.) and strongly praising Herod the Great and Agrippa I (another Herod). But we can take a further step by comparing first the summaries with the sources: for the Biblical paraphrase, they follow the books from afar, with some changes of order; for the subsequent period,

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they follow Josephus’ previous narrative (War), adding some new titles corresponding to further pieces of information. Now, comparing the summaries with the text, it becomes evident that the latter introduced more information, broadly developing most titles, leaving some others untouched. In other words, the summary were just preliminary sketches written by the author to distribute his project into 20 books, his model being the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in 20 books.8 These outlines were eventually left as summaries, for they do give a sufficient indication of the content of each book, that is, at the beginning of each scroll. Now we can consider some revisions of the text by the author or his staff, at three different levels. The first one concerns minute details. For instance, at Ant. 3:136-140, Josephus says that the transport rods of the “bread of the presence” were not removable (οὐκ ἐξαίρετοι) and says nothing of those of the Ark of the covenant, whereas according to Ex 25:15 and 25 the rods of the Ark were not removable, and nothing is said of the other rods. Instead of imagining a variant, it suffices to conjecture that “not removable” was first mistakenly omitted, then written in the margin between two columns, and eventually inserted into the wrong place. Incidentally, this indicates that at least for legal matters Josephus was determined to be accurate, which cannot be said of his handling of the narratives. The second level provides more substance. Here is an example that involves three redactional stages. The starting point is a short notice on the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes (Ant. 13:171-173), which is strange on three grounds: first, the definitions are philosophical only; and for a fuller statement the author refers to the second book of his Judaic History (in fact, War 2:119-166). Second, the notice is inserted immediately after the reply of the high priest Jonathan to Areios, king of the Spartans (1 Mac 12:6-18), without any connection with the Maccabean crisis (167-164), in which the Jewish parties were quite different from these schools; third, it replaces the letter of Areios, which in the original is an attachment to Jonathan’s; Josephus has quoted it previously, under king Seleucus IV. Then, in the story of a fight between Pharisees and Sadducees during a feast held by John Hyrcanus (ca. 110 BCE), Josephus begins with a reference to the previous notice to define them, which indicates that the two pieces are related, in spite of the remote relevance of the first. But at the end of the story, he gives another definition of these schools, according to their acceptance or not of non-Biblical 8 A fuller statement is given in Étienne NODET, Texte et sommaires des Antiquités de Josèphe (CRB 89; Paris / Leuven: Peeters, 2017), p. 7-105.



INTRODUCTION

7

traditions, which is much more to the point. He finally directs the reader to the second book of his Judaica, with another name (Ant. 13:288-298). Now, the notice put under Jonathan has the same size as Areios’ letter, and a tolerable conclusion is that Josephus wanted to move that letter earlier, within a poorly documented period, so that he had to fill up the gap, hence an additional notice on the schools, with a short reminder in the banquet story.9 Later, about Herod exempting from taxes the Pharisees and Essenes, Josephus says he will speak subsequently of the schools, without referring to the previous notices (Ant. 15:371). They are indeed presented in due course (Ant. 18:12 f), and there Josephus alludes to the parallel account in “the second book of the War of the Jews” with again another title. So, the three stages appear: the first without Hyrcanus’ feast; the second with it and the notice on nonBiblical traditions; the third with the removal of Areios’ letter, replaced by a further notice on the schools, which has nothing to do with the Maccabean crisis. A further proof is given by the clumsiness of the introduction of the feast,10 which is not reported in the parallel previous account of the War. War 1:

Ant. 13:

(67) The prosperous fortunes of John Hyrcanus himself and his sons provoked envy and sedition among the people. Many of them continuously held meetings against them, until their ardor burst out in open war,

(288) As for Hyrcanus envy among the Jews was aroused against him by his successes and his sons’. The Pharisees, one of the Jewish schools, as we have related above, were particularly hostile to him, etc. ((289-298: the feast, after which Hyrcanus rejects the Pharisees and moves to the Sadducees; at the end, another short notice on the schools.)) and the rebels were defeated. (68) For (299) Then Hyrcanus quieted the sedithe rest of his life John was happy. tion, and lived happily thereafter.

The earlier version of War 1 is less documented, but more consistent: the insertion has disturbed the context, so that the sedition has disappeared, and its “quieting” becomes unintelligible. As for the three different names to designate the same work of his, such a carelessness could hardly be ascribed to an assistant, whereas Jose9 See Joseph SIEVERS, “Josephus, First Maccabees, Sparta, The Three Haireseis — and Cicero”, JSJ 32 (2001), p. 241-251. 10 Rabbinic tradition has a similar story, but under Alexander Jannaeus, Hyrcanus’ son (b.Qid 66a), which fits better the context, for Jannaeus was most probably a bastard, unfit for the high priesthood, see Günther STEMBERGER, Pharisäer, Sadduzäer, Essener (SBS, 144; Stuttgart: Kathol. Bibelwerk, 1991), p. 100-102.

8

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

phus was not good at skimming through his own prose, so this feature must involve his responsibility. Sometimes, he repeats what he has just said, probably resuming his work after a break; for instance, Ant. 10:146 repeats the dating just given at 10:145. The third level, more consequential, is illustrated by the formation of the Life, which seems to be a 21st book of the Antiquities, since it ends with a reminder of Josephus’ patron Epaphroditus (§ 430, the last verse), to whom the larger work has been dedicated (Ant. 1:8). But some facts should be considered: 1. Book 20 is very short, for it only contains 268 verses (Niese’s edition), while the average length of books 1-19 is ca. 370 verses. But if we join the Life to it, in order to keep the number of 20 books, book 20 will be unusually long with more than 700 verses. Such a solution simply does not work. 2. Book 20, as it now stands, has two conclusions: the first (Ant. 20:259-266) begins with παύσεται δ’ ἐνταῦθά µοι τὰ τῆς ἀρχαιολογίας µεθ’ ἣν καὶ τὸν πόλεµον ἠρξάµην γράφειν “here will be for me the end of the Archaeology, which follows the War I wrote first”. Then Josephus gives a sketch of the whole work, states that he excels any compatriot in Jewish learning, and announces a short biography, as indicated in the last item of the summary (20:s27). This is a closing epilogue. 3. That biography is now put away in the lengthy appendix of the Life, and in its stead here we read a second conclusion (20:267-268): ἐπὶ τούτοις δὲ καταπαύσω τὴν ἀρχαιολογίαν βίβλοις µὲν εἴκοσι περιειληµµένην “with this I will finish the Archaeology, containing 20 books”; then he gives a date (93/94), and outlines further projects. This is an opening epilogue. These two conclusions point to two stages of composition, as it has been observed of old. 4. The Life is not an even autobiography, for it contains three parts of different scopes: a) § 1-27, Josephus introduces himself, then he relates his successful embassy to Rome, aged 27, and how he strove, when he came back in 65 or 66, to dissuade his countrymen to wage a war against Rome; at the end of this part he refers for more details to his books on the Jewish War. b) § 28-413, he gives a minute account of the few months he spent in Galilee in 66-67, ending with a short mention of the Jotapata siege and his capture by Vespasian, the Roman general; the overarching topic is an apology against one Justus of Tiberias who accused him of waging seditions against Rome. He concludes this part with an allusion to his position during the Jerusalem siege in 70, and again refers for further details to his previous account in the Jewish War. Josephus himself had been sent as a general in Galilee to or-



INTRODUCTION

9

ganize a defense against an upcoming invasion of the Romans. c) § 414-430, Josephus turns back to his capture by Vespasian, mentions his manumission, his three marriages, his partaking with Titus to the Jerusalem siege, and the favors bestowed to him by the emperors, from Vespasian to Domitian. 5. The narrative flow between the first and second parts is not smooth, and again between the second and the third. On the contrary, if we join the first and the third, the result is a continuous story, with a passing allusion to Jotapata and only one cross-reference to the War; what he actually did in Galilee does not appear. At the end, he boasts about the Roman favors the way he boasted about his Jewish learning in the first conclusion of the Antiquities. These observations allow us to conclude with a simple hypothesis: in a first edition of the Antiquities, the first conclusion was followed by a short biography, made of parts one and three of the Life and ending with a mention of Epaphroditus. This portion contains 44 verses, so that the length of book 20 was then 310 verses, closer to the average. Later, the written attacks of Justus, published after the War, obliged him to produce a defense; then, he detached his short biography from the Antiquities, inserted this new piece into it, and issued the Life as it now stands. He eventually added a second conclusion to the shortened Antiquities, with a date and some further projects – but without noticing the redundancy of the two conclusions. There is no reason to connect this major reworking with any literary stage of Hyrcanus’ banquet. For the Biblical paraphrase, this means that Josephus may have used different sources at various stages of its composition.

III – A Controversial Problem Many views have been expressed about Josephus’ Bible, their common denominator being a search for his Greek source, since it is fairly obvious that he did not use the usual Hebrew as it stands.11 For 11 Here is a sample or remevant studes, by no means exhaustive: Naomi G. COHEN, “Josephus and Scripture: Is Josephus’ Treatment of the Scriptural Narrative Similar throughout the Antiquities I-XI?”, JQR 54 (1964), p. 311-32; Louis H. FELDMAN & Gohei Hata (eds.), Josephus, The Bible, and History (Leide: Brill, 1989); Lawrence R. LINCOLN, “The Use of Names as Evidence of the Septuagint as a Source for Josephus’ Antiquities in Books 1 to 5”, in Johann COOK (ed.), Septuagint and Reception (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2009), p. 179-94; Mogens MÜLLER, “Josephus und die Septuaginta”, in Wolfgang KRAUS & Martin KARRER (eds.), Die Septuaginta: Texte, Theologien (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2010), p. 638-654; Victoria SPOTTORNO, “The Status of the Antiochene Text in the First Century A.D.”, in Siegfried KREUZER & Marcus SIGISMUND (eds.), Der Antiochenische Text der Septuaginta in seiner Bezeugung und seiner Bedeutung (Göttingen / Bristol: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,

10

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

the comparisons with Josephus the available texts are: a) in Hebrew: the Jewish Massoretic text (𝔐𝔐);12 the Samaritan forms are partial: the symbols will be Sam for the Pentateuch,13 SJosh and SJudg for Joshua and Judges;14 the Qumran fragments are often useful.15 b) in Greek: the Septuagint, or more accurately Old Greek (𝔊𝔊); the so-called Lucianic recension, or Antiochian text (𝔏𝔏);16 sometimes Origen’s Hexapla (Or.), especially Theodotion (Θ).17 We call H the ultimate Hebrew source of Josephus, on the assumption that whatever Greek text he may have used, there must be some Hebrew behind it, related or not to 𝔐𝔐. He was not aware of any books having no Hebrew basis. The late H. Thackeray, who as a translator was thoroughly conversant with Josephus’ works, and with 𝔊𝔊 as well, concluded after many years of work that Josephus had always two texts on his desk, one in Semitic and one in Greek, between which he was navigating: for the Pentateuch, Josephus followed mainly a Hebrew source; for Josh, Judg and Ruth, the position is not clear, and Josephus may have known a targum; from Samuel on through the end of the historical books, he mainly followed a Greek source that was related to 𝔏𝔏, which would show that such a translation was extant by the time of Josephus, hence the adjective “proto-Lucianic” coined for this. In 2013), p. 74-83; Marton RIBARY, “Josephus’ ‘Rewritten Bible’ as a Non-Apologetic Work”, in József Zsengellér (ed.), Rewritten Bible after Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Techniques? (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2014), p. 249-66. More significant is Louis H. FELDMAN, “Use, Authority and Exegesis of Mikra in the Writings of Josephus”, in Mikra (CRINT 2/1; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), p. 455-518; this study is thoroughly used here, as well as the same author’s Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937-1980) (Berlin / New York: W. de Gruyter, 1984). Further studies of limited scope will be mentioned in the relevant chapters. 12 Rudolf KITTEL et al., Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997); a new edition is in progress, see Adrian SCHENKER, “The edition Biblia Hebraica Quinta (BHQ)”, Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel 2 (2013), p. 6-16. 13 See The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah (Benyamin TSEDAKA & Sharon SULLIVAN, eds.; Grand Rapids / Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2013. 14 Text, translation and commentary are given by John MACDONALD, The Samaritan Chronicle No. II (or: Sepher Ha-Yamim) from Joshua to Nebuchadnezzar (BZAW, 107; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969); his way of numbering the sections is used here; see also Friedrich NIESSEN, Eine samaritanische Version des Buches Yehosua` und die SobakErzählung (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik, 12; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2000). 15 Mainly from the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (of Jordan) (Oxford; Clarendon, 42 vol., 1955-2010). 16 The first to observe affinities between Josephus and 𝔏𝔏 was Adam MEZ, Die Bibel des Josephus, untersucht für Buch V-VII der Archäologie (Basel: Jaeger & Kober, 1894). For both 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏, the most convenient tool is still Alfred RAHLFS, Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 31949; revised edition by Robert HANHART, 2006); his verse numbering is used throughout (Ra.). A new critical edition is in progress at Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 17 The best tool remains Frederick FIELD, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt (London / Oxford: University Press / Clarendon, 2 vol., 1874); see too Gerard J. NORTON & Carmen HARDIN (eds.), Frederick Field's Prolegomena CRB, 62; Paris: Gabalda, 2005.



INTRODUCTION

11

various places, he notes, the influence of a targum is clear. The objections to such a clear synthesis can be summarized as follows: first, a proto-Lucianic Greek text, which cannot be held as a fanciful paraphrase, implies a Hebrew origin; thus, one may ask why Josephus would not have known it directly.18 While Sam was never taken very seriously, because of its poor scribal transmission,19 the Qumran documents have proven beyond any doubts that the Hebrew text was not very stable until the formation of 𝔐𝔐, to wit, after Josephus, as indicated above.20 Second, concerning the possible use of a written Aramaic targum, 2 Kgs 9:20 provides us with a remarkable case: Jehu was recognized by his “driving furiously”, but both Josephus (Ant. 9:117) and the targum say that he was “driving calmly”, obviously from a different reading, or misreading. Other cases of similarity can be found, and here is a sample: Ant. 1:27 and all the targ. interpret ‫ רוח מרחפת‬of Gen 1:2 as “a breath from above”; 1:58 and the targ. introduce a delay in Cain’s punishment (Gen 4:13); 1:110 adds “at the beginning”, like TOnk on Gen 11:2; 1:151 identifies Yisca with Sarai, as TYon does at Gen 11:29 (see b.Sanh 69b); 1:171-72, the king of Elam is put in first place (see too Gen. Apocryph. 21:23); 1:222 f. stresses Isaac’s merit, like the targ.; 1:345 agrees with TYon on Gen 35:8, for the chronology of Rebecca’s death; 2:2 speaks immediately of Jacob’s preparing a dish of lentils, as do TYon and TNeof, unlike Gen 25:34; 2:91 gives an interpretation of Zaphenat-Paneah (Gen 41:45) found in the targ.; 4:115-17 compares the children of Jacob to the stars of heaven, like TYer on Num 23:10; 5:7 and targ. say that Rahab’s house was an inn (Josh 2:1); 8:362 and targ. say that “David went about softly”, against “barefoot” of 1 Kgs 21:27; 8:232 and targ. have an addition to 1 Kgs 13:3; 8:414 gives the name of Ahab’s slayer, like the targ. of 2 Chr 18:33. It should be observed that in most cases, the common content of Ant. and targ. solves a difficulty of 𝔐𝔐.

That Josephus knew Aramaic is not an issue, but we must observe first, that there is no evidence of any written targum prior to Josephus, and second, that all the known targums depend on 𝔐𝔐, albeit with some very local variant readings. Gen 49:10 offers a curious

18 See Emanuel TOV, “Lucian and Proto-Lucian: Toward a New Solution of the Problem”, RB 79 (1972), p. 101-13; he shows that the label “Proto-Lucian” is misleading when it designates a Greek tradition over centuries, but of unknown origin: there was another translation independent of 𝔊𝔊 and based on a Hebrew somewhat akin to the Qumran fragments. 19 The first to accept its importance was Abraham GEIGER, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel usw. (Breslau: Hainauer, 1856), p. 97-104. For the significance of its numerous contacts with 𝔊𝔊, see Paul KAHLE, “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Pentateuchtextes”, in Opera minora (Leiden: Brill, 1956), p. 3-37; Kim KYUNG-RAE, Studies in the Relationship between the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint (unpublished Ph.D.; Jerusalem, Hebrew University, 1994). 20 See Eugene ULRICH, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Developmental Composition of the Bible (VTSup, 169; Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2015).

12

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

example: 𝔐𝔐 has “the scepter shall not depart from Judah... until Shiloh (‫ )שׁילה‬comes”, whereas the most literal targum (TOnk) reads “the Messiah” instead of “Shilo”. Thus, as a targum influence upon Josephus is most unlikely, we should consider two other possibilities: either Josephus remembering his education or some preaching, or else a reverse influence of Josephus upon the targum. In view of the authority and availability of Josephus’ works, the latter case is not unthinkable, all the more so that the Rabbis were able to borrow numerous foreign terms. We shall see that sometimes even 𝔊𝔊 did the same.

IV – Aim and Method

The purpose of this study is to show that Josephus, beyond Jewish traditions and Greek authors, used only a Hebrew text, at least in the initial version of his work, before some corrections.21 We must stress that the archetypes of all the extant mss of the Antiquities are most probably two or three centuries later than the original scrolls, written by Josephus and/or his assistants. Since the ancient publishing process was slow, each book upon completion was immediately sent to the publisher, which provided opportunities to correct the previous ones, even after some copies had been issued. This very reality had already left signs in the War. Later, copyists using more than one manuscript source have sometimes combined the author’s various editions. Moreover, the archetypes, as far as they can be restored, contain many alterations, either mistakes or learned corrections. Of course, it is impossible to deal properly with Josephus’ Bible before an identification of all these alterations, when this is possible. 1. The easiest cases concern the numerous Biblical proper names, since they involve no special interpretation, and the obvious source of many corruptions, besides random mistakes, has been 𝔊𝔊, the Bible of the Christian copyists:

Gen 5:29 ‫נ ֹח‬, 𝔊𝔊 Νωε, Ant. 1:129 Νῶχος, Noah.

21 Some preliminary studies have been published: “Josephus and the Pentateuch”, JSJ 28 (1997), p. 154-94; “Josephus and the Books of Samuel”, in Studies in Josephus and the Varieties of Ancient Judaism (Festschrift L. H. Feldman; Leiden: Brill, 2007), p. 141-67; “The Text of 1-2 Kings Used by Josephus”, in The Books of Kings: Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception (ed. André LEMAIRE & Baruch HALPERN; Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2010), p. 41-66; “Jérémie: le témoignage de Flavius Josèphe”, RB 118 (2011), p. 225-40; “Prières de Manassé (2 Ch 33,13*; TSK 1.144*; 4Q381)”, RB 117 (2010), p. 345-60. As for the passages at Ant. 12-13 on the Maccabean crisis, Josephus did use a Hebrew source akin to 1 Maccabees, see “Josèphe et 1 Maccabées”, RB 122 (2015), p. 507-39; however, his narrative involves literary and historical problems that are beyond the scope of this study.



INTRODUCTION

13

Josephus explains here his declension system, so that this is the only place where this well-known name has not been altered by copyists into the 𝔊𝔊 form. Many other Biblical names have lost their declension marks. Gen 41:45 ‫צפנת פענח‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ψονθοµφανηχ, Ant. 2:91 Ψόνθος Φάνηχος, Zaphenatpaneah (Joseph’s name after his promotion). The Ant. mss have two indisputable contacts with 𝔊𝔊: the first letter Ψ-, a metathesis for -‫צפ‬, and the final χ for ‫ח‬. But we may remark first that Josephus never transcribes ‫ ח‬at the end of a word, and second that he explains the name correctly (“discoverer of secrets”), which is impossible with the 𝔊𝔊 form. So, we can safely conclude that the archetype betrays a copyist’s “correction” after 𝔊𝔊.

Ex 3:1 ‫יתרו‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ιοθορ, Ant. 2:264 Ἰέθερος, Jethro-Reuel, Moses’ father-in-law. Some awkward variants (ιεθεγλαιου RM; ιοθογλαιου O; υεθεγλαιου L; gethegleon, gethegleth Lat) come neither from an alteration of P into ΓΛ (Schlatter’s suggestion), nor from a strange Hebrew hybrid ‫( יתרעואל‬Schalit), for ‫ ע‬never becomes γ by Josephus. Elsewhere, his transcription of ‫ רעואל‬is indeed Ῥαουῆλος (a son of Esau, Ant. 2:4). So, it is easier to assume that the corruption came out from a fusion with the well-known 𝔊𝔊 form Ραγουελ (“Reuel”, Jethro’s name at Exod 2:16), once introduced as a copyist’s gloss. Num 12:16 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 במדבר פארן‬ἐν τῇ ἐρήµῳ τοῦ Παραν Ant. 3:300 εἰς τὴν φάραγγα. Instead of “wilderness of Paran”, Josephus puts “ravine, grievous for habitation”, that is, a kind of wilderness. As for “ravine”, we can surmise a slight scribal error ΦΑΡΑΓΓΑ for ΦΑΡΑΝΑ, under some influence of the usual noun φάραγξ. In War 4:512, the valley name Φαρα-Φερεται (biblical Para, from Josh 18:23 ‫הפרה‬, 𝔊𝔊 [A] Αφαρ, [B] Φαρα), is contaminated the same way by φάραγξ in the mss, so that Lat reads faragga or faragata. Judg 3:31 ‫שמגר‬, 𝔊𝔊 Σαµεγαρ, Ant. 5:197 Σαάγαρος, Shamgar (judge). The mss variants (σαναγαροσ, σαγαροσ, σαγαροσµεσ) are scribal corrections stemming from an uncial error AA for M. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Γοθολια 2 Kgs 8:26 ‫ושׁם אמו עתליהו בת־עמרי‬ Ant. 9:96 Ὀθλία. For queen Athaliah’s name, the Ant. mss are often corrected after 𝔊𝔊. Jer 38(45):6 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ובבור אין־מים‬ Ant. 10:121 πρὸ τοῦ αὐχένος ὑπὸ ‫כי אם־טיט ויטבע ירמיהו בטיט‬ τοῦ πλήθους περισχηθεὶς ἦν. Jeremiah was let down in a cistern with ropes; “in the cistern there was no water, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud”. The Ant. mss have: “He was being swallowed down by the crowd”; this hardly makes sense, and πλήθους has been corrected into πηλοῦ “mud”.

2. The most intricate cases are related to the laws, e.g. Lev 23:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שבעת כבשים‬ Ant. 3:253 µόσχους τε θύουσιν τρεῖς καὶ κριοὺς 22 ‫ופר אחד ואילם שנים‬ δύο καὶ ἄρνας τεσσαρακαίδεκα. The Pentecost holocaust includes one calf, two rams and seven lambs according to Lev 23:18, but Num 28:17 puts two calves, one ram and seven lambs. According to b.Men 45b, these two definitions point to two different sacrifices that add up; so the actual holocaust includes three calves, three rams and fourteen lambs. Josephus adds the two lists together in the same way, but he has two rams only. This discrepancy may be due to an eyewitness’ memory, to a mistake 22

𝔊𝔊 and Sam, but not Ant., add ‫תמימים‬.

14

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

by Josephus or to a scribal error. It could conceivably have crept out from a misreading ‫ ואיל משנים‬for ‫ואילם שנים‬, but this seems less likely.

After the removal of all the detected cases that are unlikely to teach us anything about Josephus’ Bible, the remainder can be classified according to the nature of his variants, starting with the facts that seem most contrary to the hypothesis outlined above. 1. Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐 (and/or Sam); 2. Josephus’ agreements with 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏); 3. Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) witnessing the same Hebrew source; 4. Josephus’ idiosyncrasies and own Hebrew variants (H). These four groups contain only facts, but a short observation allows us to venture a comment: the third class includes many proper names, for which Josephus’ transcription depart from 𝔊𝔊 or 𝔏𝔏; this supports the general hypothesis that he followed a Hebrew text, directly or maybe through a previous Greek translation, of which he would be the only witness. The groups are scrutinized for each portion of the Hebrew Bible; all along, they include almost the same subgroups, which are explained with some details in the first chapter. For the sake of saving space, the quotations are often shortened, by omitting particles or irrelevant details, especially for the excerpts of the Antiquities, because of Josephus’ propensity to lengthen his prose. The sign ≈ between two symbols (e.g. 𝔊𝔊 ≈ 𝔏𝔏) indicates similar variants, but the second is not quoted, because the differences are not relevant to the current discussion. The goal of the study excludes dealing with literary or historical questions, apart from rare cases. Nor is it intended to discuss the textual criticism of 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 beyond Rahlfs-Hanhart’s manual edition, with some exceptions, using the published volumes of the Editio critica maior, launched in 1908 by A. Rahlfs and R. Smend. For these reasons, the use of the vast secondary literature is scant.

CHAPTER ONE THE PENTATEUCH I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊

Josephus’ agreements with 𝔊𝔊 are obviously numerous. The discussion here aims at determining whether he definitely saw a Greek form of 𝔊𝔊, or if it suffices to admit that he could have used a 𝔊𝔊-like Hebrew text. The passages of Ant. are discussed in slightly different ways depending on the way 𝔊𝔊, 𝔐𝔐, and sometimes other authorities agree or disagree with one another. So, the evidence is sorted out into three groups: 1. inconclusive agreements with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐, either of words or of explanations of obscure passages, when the Hebrew source of 𝔊𝔊 is identical with 𝔐𝔐; 2. serious agreements, in the same conditions; 3. agreements with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐, when 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔐𝔐 differ; Special cases involving the Samaritan Pentateuch (Sam) will be dealt with in a later section (§ III). I.1 Inconclusive agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊

Many Hebrew expressions as they stand in 𝔐𝔐 are rendered the same way by Josephus and 𝔊𝔊. Beside many geographical names (Gaza, Mamre, Nile, Red Sea, Tanis, &c.) a few interpretations can be mentioned:

Gen 2:8 (‫גן )בעדן‬, 𝔊𝔊 Παράδεισον (ἐν Εδεµ), Ant. 1:37 παράδεισον. For the garden of Eden, the word “paradise” is very usual. The plain meaning is “orchard”, see TYon on Gen 21:33 ‫אשל 𝔐𝔐( פרדסיא‬, 𝔊𝔊 ἄρουρα). Gen 14:5 ‫רפאים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Γίγαντες = Ant. 1:174, Rephaim, Giants. 𝔊𝔊 has the same rendering for Josh 12:4 and 13:12 (17:15, 𝔊𝔊 om.), but for Gen 15:20, Dt 2:11.20 and 3:11.13, 𝔊𝔊 transcribes Ραφαιν. This translation is normal; thus, it does not imply a dependence of Josephus on 𝔊𝔊. At Ant. 3:305, he puts also Γίγαντες for Num 13:22 ‫ענק‬, while 𝔊𝔊 transcribes Εναχ; again, this is a usual translation, and GenR 26:7 on Gen 6:4 identifies seven different names for the same giants (including these two); see Chap. III, § II.1, Judg 1:20. Gen 15:11 ‫וישּב א ֹתם‬, 𝔊𝔊 συνεκάθισεν αὐτοῖς, Ant. 1:185 paraphrases.

16

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

With the 𝔐𝔐 vocalization, we obtain “[Abram] drove them off” (root ‫)נשב‬, so Ak. ἀπεσόβησεν αὐτούς; this meaning is the only one which fits into the context, but 𝔊𝔊 understood ‫“ וישב ִאתם‬sat with them” (root ‫ישב‬, more usual); another sense is possible (see GenR 44:16, Theodor p. 348, about ‫שב א ֹתם )תשובה‬ ַ ַ‫“ וי‬he let them return” (root ‫)שוב‬.1 Josephus has: “Birds of prey were flying to the scene, […] there came a divine voice”; this looks like a kind of session of people sitting together, since the birds are not cast away; he did not see the plain meaning (𝔐𝔐), and seems to have been confused by the 𝔊𝔊 meaning, which comes out spontaneously from the most common root. Gen 30:14 (‫דודאים )בשדה‬, 𝔊𝔊 µῆλα µανδραγόρου = Ant. 1:307. The meaning of these “love apples” (in the argument of Leah and Rachel) is discussed b.Sanh 39b; one of the proposals is “mandrakes” (‫יברוחים‬, cf. TOnk et TYon), like 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus. Other identifications are suggested, most probably because the mandrake does not grow in Mesopotamia, where the scene took place (Laban’s house). This plant is indeed Mediterranean, and its properties are well known. So, Josephus's interpretation may well have been independent of 𝔊𝔊. Gen 41:45 ‫און‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ἡλίου Πόλις = Ant. 2:91, On-Heliopolis (Egypt). This translation is well known. Ex 1:11 mentions the store-cities of Pithom and Rameses, and 𝔊𝔊 adds καὶ Ων, ἥ ἐστιν Ἡλίου πόλις (see following note). 𝔊𝔊 πόλεις ὀχυράς Ex 1:11 ‫ויבן ערי מסכנות‬ Ant. 2:203 τείχη… ταῖς πόλεσιν. 𝔐𝔐 states that the Israelites had to build store-cities; so TOnk, but 𝔊𝔊 and TNeof translate “fortified cities”. Josephus, who ascribes to the Israelites all the major public works of Egypt (canals, pyramids, &c.), speaks of city walls but does not name any city, and we cannot ascertain his source. At least one of the cities already existed (Rameses, Gen 47:11). 𝔊𝔊 ταῖς µαίαις Ex 1:15 ‫ַל ְמיַ ְלּד ֹת‬ Ant. 2:206 f. τοὺς τοκετοὺς αὐτῶν ‫ָה ִע ְב ִריּ ֹת‬ τῶν Ἑβραῖων παρατηρεῖν τὰς Αἰγυπτίων µαίας. The Ket is ambiguous. One can understand either that the midwives Shiphra and Puah are Hebrew, so 𝔐𝔐 Qer, all the targums (which have “Jewish2”, except TNeof) and one Or. fragment (ταῖς µαίαις ταῖς Ἑβραίαις); or else, that they are the midwives working for the Hebrews, and may be foreigners, so 𝔊𝔊; Josephus follows the latter path, and stresses that due to their being Egyptian they have to obey Pharaoh’s orders. This fits very well into the meaning of the context, so we cannot conclude that Josephus did see 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊 καὶ ξύλα ἄσηπτα Ex 25:5 ‫ועצי שטים‬ Ant. 3:102 µηδὲν ἀπὸ σήψεως… The building materials to be brought by the people for the Dwelling include “acacia wood”, which Josephus renders “timber of the finest quality liable to no injury from rot”, a rather inflated paraphrase with the same meaning as 𝔊𝔊. In Ex 26:15 (and 38:20), a longer expression appears, ‫עצי שטים עומדים‬, usually understood “vertical frames of acacia wood”, a tolerable meaning; but there 𝔊𝔊 only 1 PHILO, QG 3:8, implies a 𝔊𝔊-like lemma; but in 3:10, he says that Abraham sat down on passions (allegorizing the birds, root ‫ )ישב‬and cast them off (repellendo, Aucher, root ‫)נשב‬, for the righteous man is the true healer (curator), who helps the others and allows repentance (root ‫ ;)שוב‬behind the allegories one can see the three meanings of ‫( וישב‬see also Haeres § 243-247). 2 TYon states that the midwives are Yochebed and Miryam, Moses’ mother and sister (from b.Sota 11b).



I – THE PENTATEUCH

17

says ἐκ ξύλων ἀσέπτων, and so displays the source of its rendering: ἄσεπτα “rotproof” is for ‫“ עומדים‬steady”. Rab. trad. knows this interpretation: b.Yoma 72a aptly uses the same expression to explain ‫ שטים‬by “lasting”, which perfectly agrees with 𝔊𝔊; so ‫ עומדים‬is viewed as a gloss of ‫שטים‬. Thus, for both 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus, this is a fixed sense rooted in Hebrew (see too Dt 10:3), and does not necessarily point to a variant. 𝔊𝔊 καὶ ἐλάλησεν (Κορε) Num 16:1 (‫ויקח )קרח‬ Ant. 4:14 (Κορῆς) ἱκανὸς εἰπεῖν. Literally, 𝔐𝔐 means “And Korah took”, without an object.3 𝔊𝔊 renders flatly “spoke”, as if its Hebrew source were the colorless ‫ ;וידבר‬Josephus looks alike, but his insistence on Korah’s persuasiveness indicates that he wanted to render “take, attract”. So, he seems to be closer to 𝔐𝔐 than to 𝔊𝔊.

𝔊𝔊 ἐπὶ τὴν γερουσίαν Dt 25:7 ‫)השערה( אל הזקנים‬ Ant. 4:255 ἐπὶ τὴν γερουσίαν. Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 render “to the elders” the same way “to the gerousia” (the senate), but this is almost a literal translation for a usual biblical institution. Moreover, Josephus’s phraseology is different, and he omits “at the gate” (of the city); so, it cannot be concluded that he did see 𝔊𝔊. Dt 28:68 (‫ 𝔊𝔊והתמכרתם )אל לא ֹיביך‬καὶ πραθήσεσθε Ant. 4:313 πραθέντας δουλεύειν. At the end of the list of curses, a statement can be understood in two ways, reflexive or passive: “And there you will sell yourselves to your enemies”, or “you will be sold”. The former is retained by Rashi, the latter by 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus. But this contact is quite weak, since Josephus interprets spontaneously according to what he knew of the usual condition of war prisoners.

If we except the passages dealt with in the next section, this list contains all the significant contacts between Ant. and 𝔊𝔊. They are not numerous and, broadly speaking, they are neutral, in the sense that they neither imply nor preclude Josephus’ direct dependence on 𝔊𝔊 in any form known to us. I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊

In sharp contrast with the cases discussed in the previous section, there is only two places where Josephus obviously follows the wording of 𝔊𝔊, in two different ways:

𝔊𝔊 καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς Gen 2:7 …‫וייצר‬ Ant. 1:34 καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον, χοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς λαβών. 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus are quite alike, though the constructions and meanings differ: for the former, χοῦν is attribute, for the latter it is the object of λαβών. Of course, a very easy explanation may be Josephus’ slight rewriting of the 𝔊𝔊 verse. But an immediate objection comes from the context: Why, in the whole Pentateuch, does this kind of minute rewriting occur only here? So, another explanation may be ventured: Philo, Op. mundi, § 134, has a sentence very close to Josephus’: καὶ ἔπλασεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον χοῦν λαβὼν ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς; both the words and constructions are identical, with a slightly different order. Now, 3 An Or. gloss reads ὑπερηφανεύθη “became proud”, either from a homonym verb or from the plain meaning of the context; Rab. trad. (Tanh § 2, see Rashi on Num 16:1) explains “his heart took him”, thus hinting at the same idea.

18

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

in the prolog to Ant. (1:25) Josephus lays claim to philosophy, and states he is planning a treatise on Customs and Causes, a work he never completed. It has been noticed that in this prologue, and in the Creation story which follows, he had before him Philo’s book mentioned above,4 which deals with general principles and Creation. Josephus never quotes Philo explicitly, but he mentions him as a famous philosopher (Ant. 18:259 f.). So, we may wonder whether Josephus, when he began his major work, did not hope to win fame on the same field. This is not the place to dwell on Josephus’ dependence on Philo in general,5 but he obviously did not have the same skills. To sum up, it is quite possible that the source of Josephus's discussed passage was not 𝔊𝔊, but Philo (who comments on his 𝔊𝔊). This would explain why Josephus has no more 𝔊𝔊-like sentence, since he soon abandoned all allegorical phraseology (and Philo’s leadership) and was content to be an historian and rendering the biblical narrative. 𝔊𝔊 τρύβλιον, φιάλην, Num 7:13 ‫ מזרק‬,‫קערת‬ Ant. 3:220-2 φιάλην καὶ τρύ14 ‫כף אחד‬ θυίσκην µίαν βλιον καὶ θυίσκην, 15 ‫ כבש‬,‫ איל‬,‫פר‬ µόσχον, κριόν, ἀµνόν µόσχον, κριὸν σὺν ἀρνίῳ, 16 ‫שעיר‬ χίµαρον, χίµαρον, 17 ‫זבח השׁלמים‬ θυσίαν σωτηρίου θυσίας σωτηρίους, ‫ אילם‬,‫בקר‬ δαµάλεις, κριούς, βόας, κριούς. For the inauguration of the wilderness Dwelling, the tribal chiefs bring wagons and oxen, then costly cultic objects with offerings. Josephus lists all these items (“salver, bowl, censer”, then “calf, ram, lamb, kid”, &c.) with the same words as 𝔊𝔊. These minute agreements for a single topic are somewhat unexpected, in view of Josephus’ normal style. Now, we may remark some other unusual features: 1. Josephus here (§ 222) mentions “other sacrifices called those ‘of salvation’”, with the 𝔊𝔊-rendering for ‫( זבח השלמים‬v. 17), but in the sequel (§ 225), Josephus refers to the same sacrifices as “thank-offerings” (θυσία χαριστήριος); 2. the section § 219-222 is out of place, for it belongs to the inaugural ceremonies narrated earlier (§ 204 f.), and many inconsistencies in the context6 (§ 205223) show that it has been worked over in several stages. These discrepancies lead to the hypothesis that the discussed section was first omitted (overlooked) by Josephus, whatever his source, and later added somewhat clumsily by himself, an assistant or even a copyist who followed 𝔊𝔊 as it stands.

In summary, even when the source of 𝔊𝔊 is identical with 𝔐𝔐, significant agreements between Ant. and 𝔊𝔊 may exist, but only these two passages are worth consideration. This is very few considering that Books 1-4 cover the whole Pentateuch and contain about 12,000 lines according to Josephus’ stoichiometry (Ant. 20:267).7 For either one we tried to construct an ad hoc explanation to remove the problem, so that we may go on with the general working hypothesis, that Josephus translated from a Hebrew Bible. The only conclusion to be drawn now is that this hypothesis needs very strong arguments to survive. 4 See Henry St. J. THACKERAY, “Introduction”, p. xiii and translation footnotes (Loeb, Vol. IV); Salomo RAPPAPORT, Agada une Exegese bei Flavius Josephus (Wien, 1930). 5 See FELDMAN, p. 410 f. 6 See Loeb’s footnotes (on § 205, 222). 7 Josephus’ lines have approximately the same length as the Loeb edition.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

19

A first one, albeit peripheral, can be adduced from the study of M. Harl, who made a lexical comparison between 𝔊𝔊 Deuteronomy and the relevant portions of Ant.8 She begins by stating that the research is bound to fail, owing to the different scopes of the works: the 𝔊𝔊 translators strove to precision and technicity, whilst Josephus avoided technical terms as far as possible and tried to write classical prose; after a detailed discussion, she concludes that there is no relationship between Ant. and 𝔊𝔊, but she adds that Josephus does not seem to have used a Hebrew source.9 The latter conclusion looks strange, for it does not emerge from the study itself. As for the former, it confirms the suggestion made above, that any significant contact of Ant. with the wording of 𝔊𝔊 should be deemed exceptional. I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐

Unlike the cases belonging to the previous groups, it is much easier to characterize Josephus’ source when 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔐𝔐 disagree, at least if his paraphrase is not too loose. This occurs in two main circumstances: first, in the places where 𝔐𝔐 and (the source of) 𝔊𝔊 differ significantly in content, but they are only a few in the Pentateuch; second, for the transcription of the very numerous proper names. We give here only a sample, in which we try to restore the Hebrew vorlage of 𝔊𝔊, which may be called H, for here it is identical with the ultimate source of Ant.; the problem now is to determine whether Josephus depends on it through 𝔊𝔊 or not.

𝔊𝔊 καὶ ἐξέβαλεν τὸν Αδαµ Gen 3:24 ‫ויגרש את האדם‬ H ‫ויגרש את האדם‬ ‫וישכן‬ καὶ κατῴκισεν αὐτὸν ‫וישכן אותו‬ ‫מקדם לגן עדן‬ ἀπέναντι τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς ‫מקדם לגן עדן‬ ‫את הכרבים‬ καὶ ἔταξεν τὰ χερουβιµ ‫וישם את הכרבים‬ 𝔐𝔐 states that God “expelled Adam and placed at the east (or: in front) of the garden of Eden the Cherubim”, but for 𝔊𝔊 he placed Adam “at the east of the garden, then put the Cherubim”. Ant. 1:51 has µετοικίζει τὸν Ἄδαµον […] εἰς ἕτερον χωρίον “he removes Adam […] to another place”, omitting the Cherubim. This agrees with the first part of 𝔊𝔊, hence H. Thus, ‫ וישכן‬has an object, so that ‫ הכרבים‬must have been the object of another verb, as in 𝔊𝔊. So, ἔταξεν must be the rendering of such a verb, and the most common equivalent of τάσσω is ‫שים‬, hence the conjectured H ‫וישם את הכרבים‬. Now, we may add that the 𝔐𝔐 sen8 Marguerite HARL, “L’originalité lexicale de la version grecque du Deutéronome et la ‘paraphrase’ de Josèphe (Ant. IV, 176-331)”, in Leonard J. Greenspoon (ed.), VII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Paris 1992 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), p. 1-20; see also EAD., “La ‘Bible d’Alexandrie’ et les études sur la Septante. Réflexions sur une première expérience”, Vigiliae Christianae 47 (1993), p. 31340. Both studies come in the footsteps of a translation and extensive commentary of 𝔊𝔊, see Marguerite HARL et al., La Bible d'Alexandrie: 5. Le Deutéronome (Paris: Cerf, 1992). 9 The same generalized conclusion is arrived at in another study which deals with a keyterm for Josephus’ thought, see Daniel B. LEVINE, “Hubris in Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities 1-4”, HUCA 44 (1993), p. 51-87; Philo and Josephus have the same use of ὕβρις.

20

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

tence is somewhat awkward: ‫“ וישכן‬let dwell, stationed” is better for human being than for Cherubim, and its object is strangely separated from it.10 𝔊𝔊 οὐχ οὕτως· Gen 4:15 ‫לכן‬ H ‫לא כן‬ ‫כל הרג קין‬ πᾶς ὁ ἀποκτείνας Καιν ‫כל הרג קין‬ ‫שבעתים קם‬ ἑπτὰ ἐκδικούµενα παραλύσει ‫שבעתים יקם‬ 𝔊𝔊 states “It is not so; whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance”, but for the beginning, 𝔐𝔐 has “Therefore, whoever etc.”; according to Ant. 1:59, God told Cain that he would be in no danger, so Josephus reads the first part like 𝔊𝔊.11 However, the second part of 𝔐𝔐 can be rendered either like 𝔊𝔊 or “whoever kills Cain will be punished at the seventh generation” (because it has the same expression at v. 24 ‫שבעתים יקם קין‬, 𝔊𝔊 ἑπτάκις ἐκδεδίκηται ἐκ Καιν); the latter interpretation, which may conceivably rest upon a Hebrew reading connected with ‫ שבעתים‬and unknown to us, is given by Sym., Théod., rab. trad. (TOnk, TYon,12 Rashi) and Ant. 1:58 τιµωρήσασθαι κατὰ τὴν ἑβδόµην γενέαν; thus, Josephus cannot have seen 𝔊𝔊 here. If we put these remarks together, the only useful conclusion is that he does not depends on 𝔊𝔊, but on its source H. 𝔊𝔊 Ναιδ, Ant. 1:60 Ναίδα (acc.), Nod, Cain’s retreat Gen 4:16 ‫נוד‬ H ‫ניד‬

𝔊𝔊 Ar ἄγγελοι, M υἱοί, Ant. 1:73 ἄγγελοι Gen 6:2 (‫בני )האלהים‬ H ‫מלאכי‬ 𝔐𝔐 has “The sons (or: ‘angels’) of God (or: ‘the gods’) saw that the daughters of the men”; 𝔊𝔊 hesitates between “sons” and “angels”, but Philo, Gigant. § 6 reads, and comments on, ἄγγελοι, as well as Enoch 6-9, Jubilees § 5 and a syrohex. gloss (‫מלאכיא‬, see Field). GenR 26:5 (Theodor, p. 247) reports a discussion in which a statement strongly supports the reading ‫( מלאכי‬instead of ‫)בני‬. Sam, Ak. and Theod. agree with 𝔐𝔐, but Sym. (υἱοὶ τῶν δυναστευόντων) demythologizes 𝔐𝔐, as well as rab. trad. (TYon, TNeof, Rashi), which understands “sons of nobles, of judges”. So, Josephus’s angels are well documented beyond 𝔊𝔊. Gen 10:13 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ענמים‬Αινεµετιιµ Ant. 1:137 Ἀναµίας, Anam H ‫)?ענמיתים( ענמיה‬ 𝔊𝔊 comes from ‫( ענמיתיים‬or ‫עינמיתיים‬, cf. Sam ‫)עינמים‬, which may derive from ‫ענמיה‬, witnessed by Josephus; he does not depend on 𝔊𝔊, but ‫ ענמיה‬may have been regularly extracted from H ‫ענמיתים‬. In 1 Chr 1:11 𝔊𝔊 (A pl.; damn. Ra.) Αναµιειν points to ‫ענמיים‬. 𝔊𝔊 Ἀδελφή µού ἐστιν· ἐφοβήθη, Gen 20:2 ‫אח ֹתי היא‬ H ‫אחתי היא כי ירא‬ γὰρ εἰπεῖν ὅτι Γυνή µού ἐστιν ‫לאמר אשתי היא‬ (om.) µήποτε ἀποκτείνωσιν αὐτὸν ‫פן יהרוהו‬ οἱ ἄνδρες τῆς πόλεως δι᾿ αὐτήν ‫אנשי העיר עליה‬ Gen 20:2 𝔐𝔐 does not explain why Abraham wants Sara to be held as his sister, but 𝔊𝔊 adds: “for he was afraid of saying ‘She is my wife’, lest the men of the city should kill him because of her”. A very similar explanation is given in the parallel story of Isaac at Gerar (Gen 26:7 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊), which Josephus alters by omitting Sara and the trick (Ant. 1:259 f.), most probably in order to remove any

10 PHILO, QG 1:57, contra paradisum collocat cherubim (AUCHER) agrees with 𝔊𝔊. However, in Cherub., § 1, the Biblical lemma given by the mss is 𝔊𝔊-like, but in Philo’s commentary, the Cherubim are placed in front of the garden (§ 11); thus, his biblical text was 𝔐𝔐-like, and the lemma of the mss has been corrected according to 𝔊𝔊. 11 𝔐𝔐 has here a kind of scriptio defectiva of ‫לא כן‬, which occurs also in Gen 30:15 & 48:18 (𝔊𝔊 οὐχ οὕτως). 12 See Etan LEVINE, The Aramaic Version of the Bible. Content and Context (BZAW 174; Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1988), p. 33.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

21

idea of a doublet, as he does elsewhere when he has two very similar sources. Here (Ant. 1:207), he mentions Abraham’s fear and the threat of death because of Sara; thus, he reads like 𝔊𝔊, hence H (close to Gen 26:7 𝔐𝔐). 𝔊𝔊 κατανυχθέντος δὲ Ισαακ Gen 27:38 (om.) H ‫וידם יצחק‬ ‫וישא עשו קלו‬ ἀνεβόησεν φωνὴν Ησαυ ‫וישא עשו קלו‬ Josephus reports briefly the interview between Isaac and Esau, after Jacob has obtained the blessing by fraud (Ant. 1:274-275): “Perceiving his error, Isaac held his peace (ἡσυχίαν ἄγει)”. This statement cannot have rendered Isaac’s violent trembling (v. 33, 𝔐𝔐 ‫חרדה‬, 𝔊𝔊 ἔκστασις), but may correspond to a longer variant of 𝔊𝔊 at v. 38 “Isaac was filled with pain”, which comes after Esau’s supplication and before his final cries. The Greek verb renders elsewere ‫ויד ֹם‬ (‫דום‬, ‫)דמם‬, which may mean “to hold one’s peace” (see Lev 10:3 ‫ ;וידם אהרון‬Josh 10:2). It is quite possible here that Josephus does not depend on 𝔊𝔊, but on its source H. 𝔊𝔊 ὁ δὲ εῖπεν Τί ἐστι; Ant. 2:172 τίς ἐστι; H ‫ויאמר מה זה‬ Gen 46:2 ‫ויאמר הנני‬ In Jacob’s vision at Beersheba, God called him, then he answered: “Here I am!” (𝔐𝔐) or “What is this?” (𝔊𝔊, ‫ ;)מה זה‬Josephus puts “Who is this?” One may conclude he depends on a variant ‫מי זה‬, but this expression occurs in poetic texts only (Is 63:1; Jer 46:7, 49:19, 50:44; Ps 24:8, 25:12; Job 38:2, 42:3; Lam 3:37), while ‫מה זה‬, a reaction to an unexpected event, is usual in prose (Gen 27:20; Ex 4:2 [Ket ‫ ;]מזה‬Judg 18:24; 1 Sam 10:11; 1 Kgs 14:6, 21:5; 2 Kgs 1:5; Qoh 2:2; Est 4:5; Neh 2:4). So, rather than surmising an unusual reading behind Josephus, we restore H like 𝔊𝔊, and suppose that Josephus altered his source slightly, so that Jacob’s surprise appears politer. (The mss SP have τί, which is indeed a variant of the archetype, but one should suspect a copyist’s harmonization with 𝔊𝔊.) Gen 46:17 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בריעה‬Βαρια Ant. 2:183 Βάρης, Beria son of Asher H (‫ברי)ה‬ In 1 Chr 7:31, 𝔊𝔊 puts Βεριγα for ‫בריעה‬, which suggests by contrast that here it renders ‫בריה‬, without ‫ ;ע‬Josephus seems to depend on the latter form, but he never renders ‫ע‬, and his actual system of endings and declensions of names is not very consistent. 1 Chr 7:36 mentions another Asherite named ‫ברי‬, 𝔊𝔊 Βαρι. 𝔊𝔊 ἐὰν δὲ µὴ ἀλλάξης Ex 13:13 ‫אם לא תפדה‬ H ‫אם לא תפדה‬ ‫וערפתו‬ λυτρώσῃ αὐτό ‫וערכתו‬ 𝔊𝔊 ἐὰν δὲ µὴ λυτρώσῃ αὐτό, τιµὴν δώσεις.) (30:40 ‫וערפתו‬ According to Ex 13:13, a first-born donkey, being an unclean animal, has to be redeemed with a lamb or kid, otherwise 𝔐𝔐 says that its neck must be broken, but 𝔊𝔊 states that it must be paid at its value (from ‫ ;)וערכתו‬the same phrase is repeated in 30:40 (the 𝔊𝔊 renderings are different). Josephus states the same way (Ant. 4:71) that the first-born of an unclean animal must be redeemed for one and a half sheqel (value not biblical, but given by b.Bek 10b); by putting together all the relevant biblical passages, he summarizes all the first fruits to be given to the priests; he does not allude to breaking the neck (a loss for the priests), thus ignoring any 𝔐𝔐-like source. Ex 21:29 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ולא ישמרנו‬καὶ µὴ ἀφανίσῃ Ant. 4:281 ἀποσφαττέτω H ‫ולא ישמדנו‬ If the owner of an ox has been warned of its being dangerous (“in the habit of goring”), 𝔐𝔐 states that he must keep it under control, but 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus say he must slaughter it. This discrepancy is very easy to explain in Hebrew by a graphically slight difference ‫ר‬/‫ד‬, hence H. Philo, Spec. leg. 3:145, holds that the

22

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

ox has to be kept in confinement, thus agreeing with 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊. m.BabaQ 4:9 reports a saying that combines the two readings (and puzzled later commentators, unaware of 𝔊𝔊): “The only good confinement is with a knife”. 𝔊𝔊 τῇ ἐπαύριον Lev 23:11 ‫ממחרת‬ Ant. 3:250 τῇ δὲ δεύτερᾳ H ‫ממרחת‬ ‫השבת‬ τῆς πρώτης13 τῶν ἀζύµων ‫היום הראשון‬ (23:15 ‫ממחרת השבת‬, 𝔊𝔊 ἀπὸ τῆς ἐπαύριον τῶν σαββάτων) The first sheaf of the harvest must be presented the “day after the Sabbath” (𝔐𝔐), or “the day after the first day” (𝔊𝔊), referring to the first day of Unleavened Bread (Nisan 15th); here Philo, Spec. leg. 2:162 (ἡ µετὰ τὴν πρώτην εὐθὺς ἡµέραν), agrees with 𝔊𝔊. The two wordings point to the same day, if “Sabbath” means here the very day of the feast (with the ancient sense of “full Moon”14). Josephus does not know this possible meaning of “Sabbath” (see Ant. 3:250), so if he had read “Sabbath”, he would not have said “the second day of Unleavened Bread”, but understood “the first day of the week” (Sunday). As Lev 23:15 𝔊𝔊 shows, this discussion has nothing to do with the controversial definition of the origin of the Pentecost calculation (see Philo, Spec. leg. 2:176; Ant. 3:252; b.Men 65b). Lev 27:2 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 נדר בערכך‬εὐζὴν ὥστε τιµῆν Ant. 4:73 οἱ κορβᾶν H ‫נדר בערך‬ ‫נפשת‬ τῆς ψυχὴς αὑτοῦ αὐτοὺς ὀνοµάζαντες ‫נפשו‬ For the consecration of individuals, 𝔐𝔐 and rab. trad. (m.Arak 1:1) speak only of vows bearing on somebody else (‫)נפשת‬, with an ad hoc evaluation (‫)בערכך‬. But 𝔊𝔊, Philo (Spec. leg. 2:32) and Josephus here speak of self-consecration, with possible redemption. So, Josephus had a 𝔊𝔊-like source, and added a Hebrew technical term (‫)קרבן‬, which appears in Lev 15:6 𝔐𝔐 (and par.) with the same meaning. 𝔊𝔊 ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ἐν Num 16:30 ‫ואם בריאה‬ Ant. 4:47 πράστησον H (‫ואם בראי)ה‬ ‫יברא‬ φάσµατι δείξει δὲ καὶ νῦν ‫יראה‬ 𝔐𝔐 is difficult: “And if Yhwh creates a new creation” (hapax). For Ibn Ezra, the basic meaning of ‫ ברא‬is “cut, split” (see Ez 23:47), which fits into the context (the earth opens its mouth); TNeof speaks of a new creature, and TYon explains that it is to be the mouth of the earth (v. 32 𝔐𝔐), see too m.Abot 5:6. 𝔊𝔊, which does not mention the mouth of the earth, has here: “But if the Lord shows with a sign”15 from ‫ואם בראי יַראה‬. Josephus says “you prove now anew”, thus reading like 𝔊𝔊. Num 20:28 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויפשט משה‬καὶ ἐξέδυσεν Ant. 4:83 Ἀαρών... ἀποδύεται H ‫ויפשט‬ ‫את אהרן‬ Ααρων τὴν ἀρχιερατικὴν ‫אהרן‬ ‫את בגדיו‬ τὰ ἱµάτια αὐτοῦ στολήν ‫את בגדיו‬ 𝔐𝔐 says that Moses took Aaron’s robes off him, with a double ‫את‬, which agrees with v. 26; so TOnk and TYon; TYer and TNeof (and Syro-Hex.) omit ‫משה‬, but have ‫ית אהרן‬, which keeps the same meaning. On the contrary, 𝔊𝔊 omits Moses, so that one can understand that Aaron himself undresses, which agrees with Jo13 14

FIELD gives a variant τοῦ σαββάτου, perhaps a correction of Or. Josephus used the solar (Julian) calendar, see Ant. 4:78, 4:327, and was not at home with the traditional Jewish lunar calendar (e.g. his mistake Ant. 4:84), see Étienne NODET, “Calendriers bibliques: Salomon, Éléphantine, Jubilés, Dédicace”, Trans 39 (2010), p. 119-48. 15 A Hex. gloss mentions χάσµατι (“in a yawning chasm”) for φάσµατι, a reading discussed by Augustine (see Field); it may be a Greek pun, or perhaps the rendering of a variant (or a Hebrew pun) ‫“ ביראה‬pit, well” (see m.Erub 2:1, later tradition knows only the meaning “well”, see Saul LIEBERMAN, Tosefta kifshutah 3:311).



I – THE PENTATEUCH

23

sephus (who does not say that Moses went up Mount Hor): both witness a reading without the first ‫( את‬hence H). 𝔊𝔊 = Ant. 4:67 δισχιλίους πήχεις Num 35:4 ‫אלף אמה‬ H ‫אל ַפים אמה‬ The pasture land surrounding the towns to be given to the Levites extends as far as 1,000 cubits, according to 𝔐𝔐, but 𝔊𝔊, Philo (Spec. leg. 1:158) and Josephus say 2,000. 𝔊𝔊 οὐ µετακινήσεις Ant. 4:225 µὴ ἐξέστω κινεῖν H ‫לא תסיע‬ Deut 19:14 ‫לא תסיג‬ 𝔐𝔐 forbids “to push forward” the boundary marks of the neighbors, but 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus are less specific, with “to displace”; CD 1:16 has ‫לא תסיע‬, with the same meaning, hence H. Deut 31:9 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויכתב משה‬καὶ ἔγραψεν Μωυ- Ant. 4:194 ἐν βιβλίῳ H ‫ויכתב משה‬ ‫את‬ σης τὰ ῥήµατα τοὺς νόµους ‫את דברי‬ ‫התורה הזאת‬ τοῦ νόµου τούτου καὶ τὴν διάταξιν ‫התורה הזאת‬ εἰς βιβλίον τῆς πολιτείας ‫על ספר‬ Unlike 𝔐𝔐 (“Moses wrote down this law”), 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus refer clearly to a book. In AgAp 1:39, Josephus speaks of the five books (βιβλία) of Moses; here, his mentioning only one book indicates, that he follows a source (and avoids deciding whether Moses wrote then the whole Law, or only Deuteronomy, alluded to in Dt 17:18 ‫משנה התורה‬, 𝔊𝔊 τὸ δευτερονόµιον).

The instances of this kind are very numerous. They show a strong dependence of Josephus on 𝔊𝔊 or its source H, but never (necessarily) of the Greek wording of 𝔊𝔊; on the contrary, as suggested here and there, he is sometimes likely to depend directly on the Hebrew vorlage of 𝔊𝔊. However, for the present discussion of the general hypothesis about Josephus’ Hebrew Bible, all this group is to be considered neutral. Incidentally, this remark underlines the two exceptions discussed in the previous section.

II – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊

Now the opposite position should be considered, when Josephus cannot depend on 𝔊𝔊. This occurs in two main circumstances: 1. Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 are parallel, independently witnessing the same Hebrew source; 2. Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 agree against 𝔊𝔊 (H and 𝔐𝔐 are identical). II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 parallel

In many instances, Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 disagree, though 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔐𝔐 do not. After the removal of all the secondary causes of such disagreements, mainly Josephus’ literary activity and errors of copyists, two significant cases remain: discrepancies in the transcription of Hebrew words, and independent interpretation of difficult words or verses. This occurs rather frequently, and we give only a sample.

24

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

𝔊𝔊 κατέπαυσεν Gen 2:2 ‫וישבת‬, Ant. 1:33 σάββατα, δηλοῖ δὲ ἀναπαυσιν. The word “Sabbath” is strongly suggested by ‫ ;וישבת‬but it cannot be extracted from 𝔊𝔊. Gen 2:23 ‫אשה‬, 𝔊𝔊 εἰς γυναῖκα, Ant. 1:36 ἔσσα δὲ... καλεῖται γυνή. Josephus adds a transcription of the Hebrew noun. Gen 3:20 ‫חוה‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ζωή, Sym. Ζωογόνος, Ak. Αὖα, Ant. 1:36 Εὔα, Eve. 𝔊𝔊 translates (“Life”), thus making clear the explanation “mother of all the living”; Josephus did see the name. Gen 4:4 ‫)ו(מחלבהם‬, 𝔊𝔊 ἀπὸ τῶν στεάτων αὐτῶν, Ant. 1:54 γάλα. 𝔐𝔐 (sing.) can be understood either “fat”, so 𝔊𝔊 (maybe from a plural ‫)מחלביהם‬ and all the translations, or else “milk”, as does Josephus; but this looks very much like an idiosyncrasy, lacking any authority: he wanted Abel to be gentle, contrarily to violent Cain. Gen 5:29 ‫נ ֹח‬, 𝔊𝔊 Νωε, Ant. 1:129 Νῶχος, Noah. Josephus explains here his declension system, so that this is the only place where this well-known name has not been altered by copyists into the 𝔊𝔊 form. Gen 10:4 ‫ ִכתים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Κίτιοι, Ant. 1:128 Χέθιµος, Kittim, son of Yavan. Josephus puts normally χ for ‫כ‬, whereas 𝔊𝔊 has most often κ. Gen 10:7 ‫רעמה‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ρεγµα, Ant. 1:135 Ῥᾶµος, Ramah, son of Kush. Josephus does not render ‫ע‬, whereas the usual 𝔊𝔊 transcription is γ (Gaza, &c.). As for the ending -ος (and not -ης) one cannot conclude that Josephus read ‫רעם‬, for other cases show that Josephus puts a long ending when the previous vowel is short, and vice versa. 𝔊𝔊 τὴν ἵππον, Ak. περιουσίαν, Sym. ὕπαρξιν Gen 14:11 ‫ר ֻכש‬ Ant. 1:181 λεῖα. Josephus, Ak. and Sym. read ‫“ ר ֻכש‬goods, booty”, but 𝔊𝔊 understood ‫“ ָר ָכש‬cavalry”. 𝔊𝔊 Μελχισεδεκ, Gen 14:18 ‫מלכי צדק‬ Ant. 1:180 adds βασιλεὺς δίκαιος. Unlike 𝔊𝔊, Josephus joins a translation “righteous king”; so Philo, Leg. alleg. 3:79, and Heb 7:2. 𝔊𝔊 οὔπω µέν (= ‫) ִבלתי‬ Gen 18:12 ‫אחרי בֹלתי‬ Ant. 1:198 ἀδύνατον ‫היתה לי‬ µοι γέγονεν εἶναι ‫עדנה‬ ἑως τοῦ νῦν (= ‫)עד הנה‬ τὴν τεκνοποιίαν. 𝔐𝔐 stresses an impossibility: “Now that I am worn out, is pleasure again for me ?” 𝔊𝔊 states only a fact (which entails a doubt): “This never occurred to me until now”. According to Josephus, Sara said that “child-bearing was impossible”; he did not see 𝔊𝔊. Gen 19:22 ‫צ ֹער‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ζογορα, Σηγωρ, Ant. 1:204 Ζοώρ, Zoar, near Sodom. Josephus (and 𝔊𝔊) may have read ‫צעור‬. However, after a transcription, he translates the name “littleness”, which cannot be extracted from 𝔊𝔊, but this is the obvious meaning of ‫( צ ֹער‬from ‫“ צעיר‬little”). Gen 22:2 ‫ארץ המ ֹריה‬, 𝔊𝔊 γῆν τὴν ὑψηλήν, Ant. 1:224 Μώριον ὄρος, Moriah. Sam has ‫“ מוראה‬fear”. Josephus’ transcription cannot come from 𝔊𝔊, which translates. Gen 12:6 ‫“ עד אלון מורה‬to the oak of Moreh” is rendered by 𝔊𝔊 ἐπὶ τὴν δρῦν τὴν ὑψηλήν, so that Mount Moriah is moved closer to Shechem. At 2 Chr 3:1 𝔊𝔊 transcribes ‫ המוריה‬as Αµορια.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

Gen 31:19 ‫התרפים‬, 𝔊𝔊 τὰ εἴδωλα, Ant. 1:310 οἱ τύποι τῶν θεῶν, teraphim. 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus interpret independently, but give the same meaning (idols).

25

Gen 33:16 ‫שעירה‬ ֵ , 𝔊𝔊 εἰς Σηιρ, Ant. 1:336 εἰς Σάειραν... προσαγορεύσας... δασεῖαν. Esau is withdrawing to Seir, and Josephus adds: “Having so named the place after his own shaggy hair”. The fem. adj. δασεῖαν is often held in suspicion, because it has nothing to do with 𝔊𝔊; but Josephus’ pun is easily explained from the Hebrew: ‫ שעירה‬derives from the place name ‫ שעיר‬by adding the direction ending ‫ה‬-, and it may be viewed as a fem. adj. “hairy” (from ‫“ שער‬hair”). Gen 34:2+ ‫שכם‬, 𝔊𝔊 Συχεµ, Ant. 1:337+ Σίκιµος, Σίκιµα, Sichem (man and city). Ex 8:21 ‫את הער ֹב‬, 𝔊𝔊 κυνόµυιαν, Ant. 2:303 θηρίων γὰρ παντοίων καὶ πολυτρόπων. The fourth plague (‫ )ערב‬can be understood “swarms of flies” (‫ ַער ֹב‬, so 𝔊𝔊 et Sym. “dog-flies”), or “wild beasts of every sort and kind” (‫ ֵע ֵרב‬, so Josephus here, Ak., Theod., TYon),16 Josephus did not see 𝔊𝔊 (nor Wis 11:17 either, which stresses that there were no strange animals). 𝔊𝔊 πέµπτη δὲ γενεά Ex 13:18 ‫ח ֻמשים עלו‬ Ant. 2:321 ἀνόπλων ὄντων. 𝔐𝔐 (as well as Ak., Sym., TOnk, and indirectly TNeof and TYer) states that the The Israelites left Egypt fully armed, but for Josephus (and Demetrios, quoted by Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.29) they were “unarmed”. He misunderstood the rare word ‫חמשים‬. 𝔊𝔊 saw the root ‫“ חמש‬five” and rendered “the fifth generation” (hence a problem with Gen 15:16 “the fourth generation”). 𝔊𝔊 σµαράγδου Ex 28:9 ‫)ולקחת את־שׁתי אבני( שׁהם‬ Ant. 3:165 σαρδόνυχες δύο. 𝔊𝔊 βηρύλλιον Ex 28:20 ‫( ושׁהם‬...‫)והטור הרביעי‬ Ant. 3:168 ὄνυξ. The identification of the precious stones is somewhat uncertain. For the high priest’s ephod (v. 9), “you shall take two onyx (𝔊𝔊 ‘emerald’, Ant. ‘sardonyx’) stones”. Now, for the 2nd stone of the 4th row of the breastplate, 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus render differently. See too Chap. VII, § III.2, 1 Chr 29:2. Ex 28:42 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 מכנסי בד‬περσκηλῆ λινᾶ Ant. 3:152 µαχανάσην· συνακτῆρια, διάζωµα. For most of the cultic and priestly items, 𝔊𝔊 gives only a translation (here binders, drawers), but Josephus adds a transcription and often an explanation. Lev 6:14 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 על מחבת )בשמן‬ἐπὶ τηγάνου Ant. 3:257 ἄλευρον ἐλαίῳ µεµαγµένον (‫ֻתפיני )מנחת פתים‬ ἐν ἐλαίῳ ἑλικτά καὶ πεπηγὼς ὀπτήσει βραχεἰᾳ. The daily cereal offering of the high priest is termed “paste” by 𝔐𝔐 ‫תפיני‬. 𝔊𝔊 renders the phrase with “rolls prepared with oil on a pan”. Josephus explains that this meal is “hardened by a little cooking”; although a pan and oil are used, he does not say “fried” (τηγανισθέν, see Philo, Spec. leg., 1:256), so he linked the difficult word ‫ תפיני‬to ‫“ אפה‬to bake”. He may depend on a reading ‫תאפינה‬. Num 11:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 קברות התאוה‬ Ant. 3:299 Καβρωθαβά, µνήµατα τῆς ἐπιθυµίας ἐπιθυµίας µνηµεῖα λέγοιτο. For the “Graves of Greed”, 𝔊𝔊 merely translates, but Josephus gives a transcription before translating. 𝔊𝔊 ἐν ὕπνῳ, ἀποκεκαλυµNum 24:4 ‫נ ֹפל וגלוי‬ Ant. 4:125 πεσὼν δ᾽ ἐπὶ στόµα ‫עינים‬ µένοι οἱ ὀφθαλµοι αὐτοῦ πάθη προύλεγεν. 16

Or even “ravens” (κόραξ, from ‫ )ע ֹרב‬ascribed to Sam by Or. (FIELD).

26

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

𝔐𝔐 is difficult “falling and revealed to the eyes”; TOnk puts “lying”, maybe close to 𝔊𝔊 “during his sleep”, TNeof “brought down by sword”, TYon and Josephus “falling upon his face”. Josephus’ rendering is independent of 𝔊𝔊.17 𝔊𝔊 εἰς τὴν κάµινον Num 25:8 ‫)ויבא…( אל הקבה‬ Ant. 4:153 ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ ‫)וידקר…( אל קבתה‬ διὰ τῆς µήτρας αὐτῆς Ζαµβρίου σκηνήν. Pinhas followed Zimri and Cozbi into the alcove (‫)הקבה‬, and there pierced both of them through the pudenda (‫ ;)קבתה‬unlike 𝔊𝔊, Josephus did not distinguish between the two similar Hebrew words. 𝔊𝔊 ἄσχηµον πρᾶγµα Deut 24:1 ‫ערות דבר‬ Ant. 4:253 καθ᾽ ἁσδηποτοῦν αἰτίας; About the causes allowing to put away one’s wife, 𝔐𝔐 has “nakedness of something”, hence a famous dispute (summarized m.Git 9:10): Beth Shammay understand “adultery”, so 𝔊𝔊 here and Jesus’ reply in Matt 19:9; but Beth Hillel admit any trivial cause, as does Josephus here. Josephus here is opposed to 𝔊𝔊.

This sample shows that Josephus is in many ways independent of 𝔊𝔊. This is typical for the transcriptions and explanations of Hebrew words. To be sure, the demonstration is somewhat weakened by the fact that the reliable portion of the Vaticanus (B), the best ms. of 𝔊𝔊, begins only at Gen 46:28, thus skipping over many name lists; in fact, it is extant for the genealogies of 1 Chron, but with very peculiar features, so that the checking is not satisfactory. It should be noted now that the evidence collected so far does not yet prove that Josephus did translate directly from a Hebrew Bible. He may have used a previous translation, which some scholars call “Josephus’ Septuagint”. However, some mistakes and strange explanations scattered in the passages discussed above suggest at least that the supposed previous translator was a kind of private individual, whose work was not carefully checked against other translations, in the manner expounded by the Letter of Aristeas. II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊

The sample given now represents the same position of Josephus against 𝔊𝔊, but when 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔐𝔐 disagree. Beside the numerous proper names, his loose style often makes the comparison difficult, but in some instances, he cannot depend on 𝔊𝔊, neither itself nor its Hebrew source. As for determining Josephus’ ultimate Hebrew source H in these cases, the working guideline is as follows: if the contents of 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus share at least a remote relationship, we state that H and 𝔐𝔐 are identical; the sample below gives some instances. On the other hand, a conjectured H different from any known Hebrew source will be ventured only if no other explanation of any kind is available; relevant samples will be given in later sections. 17 From this very passage, GINZBERG 6:130 (n. 764), concludes that Josephus follows a Hebrew source.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

27

Gen 10:2 ‫ויון‬, 𝔊𝔊 καὶ Ιωυαν καὶ Ελισα, Ant. 1:124 Ἰαυάνου, Yavan. 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus have a list of Japhet’s seven sons, but 𝔊𝔊 adds one Elisha after Yavan, and another one as Yavan’s first-born (v. 4); it is probably corrupt. Gen 10:14 ‫כס ֻלחים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Χασλωνιιµ, Ant. 1:137 Χεσλοῖµος, Kasluhim. 𝔊𝔊 has a similar form 1 Ch 1:12 (A pl.) Χασλωνιειν, thus reading ‫ ונ‬for ‫ ;ח‬as usual, Josephus does not transcribe ‫ח‬. In Num 34:21, Kislon (‫כסלון‬, 𝔊𝔊 Χασλων) is the name of a Benjaminite. Gen 10:18 ‫אר ַודים‬, 𝔊𝔊 (τὸν) Ἀράδιον, Ant. 1:138 Ἀρουδαῖος, Arvadite. Josephus puts Ἄρουδαῖος δὲ Ἄραδον τὴν νῆσον ἔσχεν; he follows 𝔐𝔐, without altering the name according to the Greek name of the Phoenician island, as does 𝔊𝔊 here and elsewhere (see Ez 27:8). 𝔊𝔊 καὶ Αραµ καὶ Καιναν Ant. 1:143 Σηµᾷ... πέντε... παῖδες. Gen 10:22 ‫וארם‬ 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus say that Sem had five sons, but 𝔊𝔊 adds Qenan here, but not in 1 Ch 1:17. 𝔊𝔊 may be corrupt, for in the sequel (here and in 1 Ch 1:18) it adds Qenan between Arpachshad and Shela (v. 24 καὶ Αρπαξαδ ἐγἐννησεν τὸν Καιναν καὶ Καιναν ἐγέννησεν τὸν Σαλα), unlike Josephus and 𝔐𝔐. Gen 11:28 ‫)ב(אור‬, 𝔊𝔊 ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ, Ant. 1:151 Οὐρῆ, Ur of the Chaldeans. Like Josephus, Ak., Sym. et Theod. transcribe Οὔρ; 𝔊𝔊 here (“in the country”) could have crept out from a misreading ‫ ארץ‬for ‫אור‬, but it consistently gives the same rendering elsewhere (Gen 11:31, 15:7 and Neh 9:7), as a kind of pun built upon ὤρα, a normal transcription for ‫אור‬. Gen 14:1 ‫תדעל‬, 𝔊𝔊 Θαργαλ, Ant.1:173 Θάδαλος, Tidal, king of the Goiim. 𝔊𝔊 read ‫ ר( תרעל‬for ‫)ד‬, and Josephus never transcribes ‫ע‬, hence the differences. Gen 46:27 (Ex 1:5) ‫)כל הנפש בית יעקב( שבעים‬, 𝔊𝔊 “75” (= Ac 7:14), Ant. 2:176 “70”. The members of Jacob’s family who arrived with him in Egypt are 70 according to 𝔐𝔐, Sam, Jubilees 44:33 f. and Josephus here, but 75 for 𝔊𝔊, Ac and a Qumran fragment.18 In Dt 10:22, both 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 have 70. 𝔊𝔊 εἰς τὸ ὄρος Ex 3:1 ‫אל הר האלהים‬ Ant. 2:265 ἐνδιατρίβειν αὐτῷ τὸν θεόν... ‫ח ֹרבה‬ Χωρεβ οὐ τολµώντων ἐµβατεύειν... Moses came to Horeb, and 𝔐𝔐 adds “the mountain of God”. Josephus copiously explains that God dwelt there, so that the shepherds were afraid, &c. He depends on the longer reading. Ex 30:13 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 מחצית השקל‬τὸ ἥµισυ τοῦ διδράχµου Ant. 3:194 σίκλου τὸ ἥµισυ... ‫ בשקל הקדש‬κατὰ τὸ δίδραχµον τὸ ἅγιον σίκλος, δραχµὰς τἐσσαρας For 𝔊𝔊, the sheqel is worth one didrachma; unlike 𝔊𝔊, Josephus transcribes, then states that its value is four drachms. 𝔊𝔊 τὸν ἀµελῶνά σου Lev 19:19 (‫שדך )לא תזרע‬ Ant. 4:228 µὴ σύνυο ‫כלאים‬ διάφορον καὶ τρία σπείρειν. Both Dt 22:9 and 𝔊𝔊 here forbid to sow anything else specifically in a vineyard. 𝔐𝔐 here and Josephus forbid more generally to sow together two different kinds of grains in any field. 18 See Dominique BARTHÉLEMY, “Les tiqquné sopherim et la critique textuelle de l’Ancien Testament”, in George W. ANDERSON et al. (eds.), Congress Volume – Bonn 1962 (VTSup, 9; Leiden: Brill, 1963), p. 285-304.

28

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

𝔊𝔊 ὀνοµάζων δὲ Lev 24:16 ‫נוקב שם‬ Ant. 4:202) ὁ δὲ βλασφη‫יהוה‬ ὄνοµα κυρίου µῆσαι τολµήσας θεόν. 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus forbid to curse God’s name (blasphemy), but 𝔊𝔊, Philo (Vita Mosis 2:205) and 1QS 6:27 condemn any utterance of his name (tetragram). Num 31:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 רבע‬Ροβοκ Ant. 4:161 ῞Ροβέης, Reba, Madianite king. Unlike 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, 𝔊𝔊 seems to depend on a reading ‫( רבק‬see ‫)רבקה‬. The same way, Gen 14:2 𝔊𝔊 Balak comes from ‫בלק‬, against 𝔐𝔐 ‫( בלע‬and Ant. 1:171 Βαληνοί). Num 33:49 ‫אבל השטים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Βελσαττιµ, Ant. 4:176 Ἀβίλα, Abila. 𝔊𝔊 looks corrupt. Josephus follows the Hebrew, and identifies Abel-shittim with a place he knows, see War 2:252. Deut 21:12 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 וגלחה )את ראשה‬καὶ ξυήσεις (= ‫)וגלחת‬ Ant. 4:257 ξυραµένην ‫ועשה את צפרניה‬ καὶ περιονυχιεῖς (= ‫)ועשית‬ αὐτήν. For 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, the captured beautiful woman shaves her head (and cuts her nails, lit. “makes”, detail omitted by Josephus, perhaps because the meaning is not clear, as discussed in b.Yeb 48a), but according to 𝔊𝔊 and 11QT 63:13, this is done by the one who captured her.

In these cases, several variants of 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 are probably corrupt, so that the agreement of 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus does not tell us very much. More generally, it is instructive to compare this position to the opposite one, viz. when Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 (§ I above). Only samples have been given here, but if we consider all the relevant passages, the broad result is that Josephus is much closer to 𝔊𝔊 (and/or its source) than to 𝔐𝔐 for matters of content, but for the transcriptions of the proper names he stands somewhere in the middle, which suggests that 𝔊𝔊 has serious misspellings. We may add that the exact text of 𝔊𝔊 (if such an expression has a meaning) is not perfectly witnessed by the best mss, even for the content, since we saw in passing that Philo has some agreements with 𝔐𝔐 against it. Anyway, the thesis stated in the outline above begins to take shape: Josephus’ ultimate Hebrew source (H) is quite close to the Hebrew vorlage of 𝔊𝔊. This result has to be refined in several ways: 1. the position of Sam must be scrutinized; 2. H may have readings of its own; 3. Josephus’ dependence on H, directly or through a previous translation, should be clarified, too.

III – About the Position of the Samaritan In the cases considered so far, there were no significant differences between 𝔐𝔐 and Sam, though the separation between Jew and Samaritans took place around the middle of the 2nd cen. BCE (see chap II, § I.1).19 Three cases remain to be considered: 1. Josephus 19

Ant. 13:74 f. reports a serious clash (ca. 150 BCE) between Samaritans and Jews in Al-



I – THE PENTATEUCH

29

and Sam agree against 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊; 2. Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 and Sam; 3. Josephus, 𝔊𝔊 and Sam against 𝔐𝔐. III.1 Agreements of Josephus and Sam alone

There are very few instances, most of them related to variants of weak letters (‫א‬, ‫ו‬, ‫)י‬. Gen 10:23 ‫מש‬, 𝔊𝔊 Μοσοχ, Sam ‫משא‬, Ant. 1:145 Μήσας, Mash, son of Aram. With the 𝔐𝔐 form, Josephus would have transcribed Μῆσος, hence H ‫ משא‬like Sam. Indeed, at Ant. 1:220, he puts Μῆσος* (restored from a corrupt form in the mss) for ‫( מש‬Gen 25:14, 𝔊𝔊 Μασση), and there he may depend on 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊 here corresponds to 1 Ch 1:17 ‫( משך‬instead of ‫)מש‬. Gen 32:31 ‫פניאל‬, 𝔊𝔊 εἶδος θεοῦ, Sam ‫פנואל‬, Ant. 1:334 Φανουῆλος, Penuel. 𝔊𝔊 just translates 𝔐𝔐, but Sam ‫ = פנואל‬H; v. 32, 𝔊𝔊 is the same, but 𝔐𝔐 and Sam have ‫פנואל‬. Gen 46:13 ‫שמר ֹן‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ζαµβραν, Sam ‫שמרון‬, Ant. 2:178 Σαµαρών, Shimrôn. With the 𝔐𝔐 Ket form, Josephus would have put Σαµαράν (see Num 26:24 ‫שמרן‬, 𝔊𝔊 Σαµαραν), hence H ‫ = שמרון‬Sam; this form occurs in 1 Ch 7:1 𝔐𝔐 (agreeing with 𝔊𝔊 Σεµερων). Num 32:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לבני ראובן‬ Sam ‫לבני ראובן‬ Ant. 4:166 δύο φυλαὶ Γάδου ‫ולבני גד‬ ‫ולבני גד‬ τε καὶ Ῥουβήλου om. ‫ולחצי שבט מנשה‬ καὶ τῆς Μανασσίτιδος ἠµίσεια. The conquered territories in Transjordan were allocated to Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, but in the whole story 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 mention Reuben and Gad only (vv. 1, 6, 25, 29, 31); the last component does not appear before the end (v. 33), in a kind of gloss which may have been added to introduce a following passage about pieces of land allotted to Machir and Jair, sons of Manasseh. Interestingly, Sam and 4QNumb add from the beginning everywhere “and the half-tribe of Manasseh”;20 so Josephus, who mentions it at the very beginning of his account. Even if these additions are to be viewed as glosses, they should have emerged before the split between Jews and Samaritans, then removed in 𝔐𝔐 (and 𝔊𝔊). Deut 6:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = )לאות( על ידך‬ Sam ‫על ידיך‬ Ant. 4:213 ἐν βραχίοσιν ἕκαστον Josephus says that everyone must put the phylacteries on both arms: Sam gives the plural, too. In fact, Josephus states in the sequel that the phylacteries are to be put on the head and on the arm, thus witnessing another custom, with his peculiar way of smoothing away the discrepancies of his sources. Maybe he put together the two readings, one of them being a marginal gloss.

Most of these variants can be ignored: they could be mere changes introduced by copyists without external influence. But the gloss in Num 32:1, common to Sam, Josephus and a Qumran text, points to an important feature, albeit poorly witnessed (because of Josephus’ exandria about the only true Temple (Gerizim or Jerusalem); they requested king Ptolemy VI Philometor’s arbitration according to Scripture, which would imply that they agreed upon its text. Later, John Hyrcanus was careful to destroy the Gerizim temple (Ant. 13:256). 20 See DJD 12, p. 253-56; the scroll is dated from the latter half of the 1st cent. BC.

30

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

loose paraphrase): it is not a conjunctive error indicating that they belong to the same family (united by the same alterations) against a normal text represented by 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊; on the contrary, it reflects an ancient state of popular copies, containing many corruptions and glosses, while 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 betray later, scholarly revised editions. The split between (the ancestor of) Sam and Josephus’ ultimate source H occurred before his time; moreover, since the final separation between Samaritans and Jews happened much earlier, common alterations cannot have happened after it. III.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 and Sam

Again, only very few instances can be gathered.

𝔊𝔊 Ελιβηµα θυγατέρα Ανα Gen 36:2 ‫אהליבמה בת ענה‬ Ant. 1:265 Ἀλιβάµην ‫בת צבעון‬ υἱοῦ (= Sam ‫ )בן‬Σεβεγων τὴν Εὐσεβεῶνος. Esau’s wives include “Oholibama, daughter of Ana, daughter (𝔊𝔊 Sam ‘son’) of Zibeon”; in Gen 36:24-25, Ana is son of Zibeon, even for 𝔐𝔐. According to Josephus, Oholibama is directly “daughter of Zibeon”: he either skipped over from ‫ בת‬to ‫בת‬, or voluntarily omitted Ana (a woman, or an undetermined person); both cases imply a 𝔐𝔐-like text. 𝔊𝔊 καὶ λαβόντες (= Sam ‫)ויקחו‬ Gen 37:24 ‫ויק ֻחהו‬ Ant. 2:31 παραλαβὼν ὁ Ῥου‫וישלכו אתו‬ αὐτὸν ἐρριψαν βῆλος... ἠρέµα καθίµησεν. According to 𝔐𝔐 Qer, Sam and 𝔊𝔊, Joseph’s brothers caught hold of him and threw him into a well. 𝔐𝔐 Ket has a singular form, like Josephus, who ascribes the deed to Reuben (in conformity with the context). In a similar way, GenR 84:16 (Theodor, p. 1020) concludes from the defective Ket that the act was performed by one brother in the name of all, and suggests Simeon. Gen 46:13 ‫יוב‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ιασουβ, Sam ‫ישוב‬, Ant. 2:178 Ἴωβος H = 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊 and Sam agree here with Num 26:24 and 1 Chr 7:1 Yashub (Ιασουβ). Gen 47:21 ‫העביר אתו‬ Sam = 𝔊𝔊 ‫העביד אתו‬ Ant. 2:190 µετῳκίσθησαν ‫לערים‬ ‫לעבדים‬ ἄλλος ἀλλαχόσε. During the famine in Egypt, Joseph “deported the people into the towns”, according to 𝔐𝔐; 𝔊𝔊 and Sam say that he “reduced the people to serfdom”. Josephus, with “the Egyptians were transported from place to place”, follows a 𝔐𝔐like text, but immediately after, he explains “in order to assure to the king the possession of their territories”, which means that the people was reduced to serfdom. In other words, Josephus translates according to 𝔐𝔐 and explains according to 𝔊𝔊-Sam, with a slight smoothing. Thus, he had both readings, most probably the second one as a marginal gloss.

Here the evidence is clear, but scant. If we take into account the previous results, this means that due to later revisions Sam became very close to 𝔐𝔐, at least for the content that can be checked against the loose paraphrase of Josephus. But the significance of this remark depends on the real position of 𝔐𝔐, to be dealt with in the next section.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

31

Josephus’s double reading at Gen 47:21 is interesting, for the smooth wording shows that it does not come from a later revision. In other places, double readings together with a cumbersome redaction point to another hand or an unsmoothed revision, e.g. the double spelling Ῥοῦµος / Ῥεούς of the same Reu (Ant. 1:148-150, from Gen 11:18), see § IV.2. Here a new feature of Josephus’ source seems to appear, the marginal glosses, which would indicate, if further evidence can be collected, that H could be a kind of officially revised library copy, see § IV.1. III.3 Josephus (H), 𝔊𝔊 and Sam against 𝔐𝔐

The last group of passages shows 𝔐𝔐 isolated against the others.

𝔊𝔊 τῇ ἕκτῃ Gen 2:2 ‫)ביום( השביעי‬ Sam ‫השישי‬ Ant. 1:33 ἐν ἕξ ταῖς πᾶσαις. 𝔐𝔐 reads “the seventh day” (so the targums and Hex.), against Sam, 𝔊𝔊, Syr, Jubilees 2:6, Philo, Op. mundi § 89 and Josephus, hence H. Behind these variants lies a controversy about the beginning of the Sabbath: Friday evening for 𝔐𝔐, Saturday morning for the others21. Gen 10:17 ‫)ה(ערקי‬, Sam = H ‫ערוקי‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ἀρουκαῖος = Ant. 1:138, Arqites. Josephus explains: “Arucaeus had Arce (Ἄρκην) in Lebanon”; had he had a 𝔐𝔐 form, he would have harmonized with Arce (see above § II.2 Gen 10:1 ‫)אר ַודים‬. 𝔊𝔊 τὴν σἀρκα… Gen 17:14 (‫את בשר )ערלתו‬ Sam (‫את בשר )ערלתו‬ om. ‫ביום השמיני‬ τῇ ἡµέρᾳ τῇ ὀγδόῃ. 𝔐𝔐 states that the uncircumcised male (𝔊𝔊 and Sam add “the eighth day”) must be cut off from his people; for 𝔐𝔐, circumcision is not necessarily related to birth, which fits into the context (and may pave the way for proselytism). Josephus (Ant. 1:192) has a paraphrase explaining that it is to keep Abraham’s posterity from mixing with others, so for him here it is related to birth, although elsewhere he speaks freely of proselytes (Ant. 2:263, 3:318); conclusion: here he reads like 𝔊𝔊 and Sam (H). 𝔊𝔊 κριὸς εἷς Ant. 1:236 θεὸς κριὸν παρήγαγεν H ‫אחד‬ Gen 22:13 ‫)והנה איל( א ַחר‬ Josephus reads like 𝔊𝔊, Sam and TYon “And behold, one ram &c.”, and not “a ram afterwards” like 𝔐𝔐, TOnk et Sym. (καὶ ἐφάνη κριὸς µετὰ τοῦτο); 𝔐𝔐 may have a misreading ‫ ר‬for ‫ד‬. 𝔊𝔊 πᾶν ἄρσεν Ex 1:22 ‫כל הבן‬ Sam ‫כל הבן‬ Ant. 2:206) πᾶν τὸ ‫הילוד‬ ‫הילוד‬ ὃ ἐὰν τεχθῇ γεννηθὲν ἄρσεν om. ‫לעברים‬ τοῖς Ἑβραίοις ὑπὸ τῶν Ἰσραηλιτῶν. Pharaoh ordered his people to “throw into the river every boy newly born”, but all the other witnesses add “to the Israelites” (𝔊𝔊, Sam, Josephus, Ps.-Philo 9:1, targums; Ac 7:19; deest Field); thus, H = 𝔐𝔐 .

21 The Babylonian Sabbath begins on Friday evening (see Neh 13:19), but in the Creation week the Biblical day begins in the morning, see Jacob Z. LAUTERBACH, Rabbinic Essays (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1951), p. 446 f.; Étienne NODET, “Œuvre achevée le 6e jour ou le 7e (Gn 2,2)”, RB 118 (2011), p. 116-22.

32

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

𝔊𝔊 ἡ δὲ κατοίκησις Ex 12:40 ‫ומושב‬ Sam ‫ומושב‬ Ant. 2:318 κατέλιπον ‫בני ישראל‬ ‫בני ישראל‬ τῶν υἱῶν Ισραηλ Αἴγυπτον om. ‫ואבותם‬ (A adds οἱ πατέρες αὐτῶν) µετὰ ἔτη 430 ‫אשר ישבו‬ ‫אשר ישבו‬ ἣν κατῴκησαν ἢ Ἄβραµον εἰς ‫בארץ מצרים‬ ‫בארץ מצרים‬ ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ τὴν Χαναναίαν om. ‫ובארץ כנען‬ καὶ ἐν γῇ Χανααν ἐλεῖν. For 𝔐𝔐 (and targums), the Israelites spent 430 years in Egypt (which disagrees with the 400 years of Gen 15:13); with the additions of Sam, this time runs from Abraham’s arrival in Canaan, so Josephus (H); 𝔊𝔊 has the same additions, but located at various places in the mss, which suggests an original translation after 𝔐𝔐, and then marginal corrections after Sam, later misplaced by copyists. Num 14:45 ‫ עד החרמה‬Sam ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עד החרמה‬ἕως Ερµαν Ant. 4:7 ἀκόσµως διωκό(om.) ‫ וישובו‬καὶ ἀπεστράφησα µενον εἰς τὴν παρεµ(om.) ‫ אל המחנה‬εἰς τὴν παρεµβολὴν βολὴν συνέφυγε. After the Israelites’ defeat at Horma, all the witnesses but 𝔐𝔐 (and targums) add that they came back to the camp, so H = Sam (and 𝔊𝔊). Moreover, unlike 𝔊𝔊, Josephus did not view ‫ חרמה‬as a place name, and translated “disaster”. Num 25:5 ‫ ויאמר משה‬Sam ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויאמר משה‬καὶ εἶπεν M. Ant. 4:154 οἱ νέοι πάντες... ‫אל שבטי ישראל אל שפטי ישראל‬ ταῖς φυλαῖς Ι. ἀπόλλυνται... πολλοί. At Baal-Peor, “Moses told the judges (𝔐𝔐; 𝔊𝔊 & Sam ‘the tribes’) of Israel” to condemn the culprits. Josephus says only that they were slain by all the young men who wanted to imitate Pinehas’ daring deed; this statement denies any trial, thus Josephus (H) follows a 𝔊𝔊-Sam reading.

This sample, which is by no means exhaustive, shows a noticeable fact: 𝔐𝔐 has significant variants of content against all the other witnesses, which suggests that its actual shape was finalized after Josephus, or at least after the ultimate alterations and glosses of H. This confirms what was said in the introduction about the “birth” of 𝔐𝔐, and what was noted above about Sam: in spite of its heavy revisions after 𝔐𝔐, Sam retained some ancient standard readings.

IV – Josephus’ Idiosyncrasies

In the previous analyses, the Hebrew source H of Josephus has been granted an indisputable identity, but two aspects remain to be considered: first its own variants, and second whether Josephus depends on it directly or through a previous translation, which must be supposed authoritative (albeit unknown to us). These two topics may seem unrelated, but the only way to deal with the second one, beside the fact that Josephus gives many Hebrew words, is to detect careless renderings or misreadings of the Hebrew which can hardly belong to a serious, controlled translation. Behind this method, the hypothesis is that the carelessness has to be ascribed to Josephus; it may be justified by saying that had Josephus used a careless translation, more or less paraphrased, it would suffice to include it into a



I – THE PENTATEUCH

33

fabric called “Josephus and Co.” So, we begin with a sample of strange readings. IV.1 Misreadings (or alterations) of H When a variant of Josephus looks corrupt, the first cause to be supposed is an error in the Greek tradition of the copyists. Problems with Hebrew readings are on a very different level: they may be conjectured only if they clearly provide better solutions than mistakes in the Greek; sometimes combined explanations of both types seem appropriate. Gen 4:18 ‫מחויאל‬, 𝔊𝔊 A Μαιηλ, Ant. 1:63 Μαρουῆλος, H ‫מרויאל‬, Mehuyael. 𝔐𝔐 ‫ מחויאל ומחייאל‬Ket, ‫ מחויאל ומחיאל‬Qer, Sam ‫ מחיאל‬bis (= 𝔊𝔊 A bis); H is close to the 𝔊𝔊-Sam form, with a slight erasure of ‫ ח‬into ‫ ;רו‬moreover, the ‫ י‬may have disappeared (Schalit). Gen 4:24 (‫𝔊𝔊 = שבעתים יֻקּם קין )ולמלך שבעים ושבעה‬ H ‫שבע בנים י ִקם קין‬. About revenge: “Cain is avenged sevenfold, and Lamech seventysevenfold.” Josephus states (Ant. 1:63) that Lamech had seventy-seven children by his two wives, but he does not elaborate upon this impressive performance, unknown from ancient sources. However, a prosaic textual explanation may be ventured: the plain meaning of the verse can be greatly altered if in the rare word ‫שבעתים‬ the ‫ ת‬is read ‫ בנ‬because of a slight rubbing, hence ‫שבע בנים‬, and if ‫ יקם‬is spontaneously understood from ‫( קום‬hifil) instead of the root ‫ נקם‬at a rare hofal form. So, the sentence becomes “seven sons Cain will beget (put up), and Lamech seventy-seven”, hence Josephus (H). One may surmise that such an unrevised translation betrays some carelessness, and should be ascribed to Josephus him self, and not to a previous Greek translation. Gen 10:14 ‫כפת ֹרים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Χαφθοριιµ, Ant. 1:137 Χεφθῶµος, H ‫כפתו)י(ם‬, Caphtorim. Josephus depends on a reading ‫ ו‬for ‫ר‬, hence ΧΕΦΘΩΙΜΟC; then the iota was considered mute by a copyist and disappeared. But H may have had ‫( כפתום‬for ‫)כפתרם‬, for 𝔐𝔐 has many names with -im in defective script. 𝔊𝔊 τερέµινθον Gen 35:4 ‫)תחת( האלה‬ Ant. 1:342 δρῦν H ‫האלון‬ Jacob buried the foreign gods of his family under a terebinth near Sichem. Josephus puts “under the oak”, so in H ‫ ון‬was read (or guessed) for ‫ה‬, maybe due to some influence of “the holy place at Shechem, the oak (‫ )אלון‬of Moreh” (Gen 12:6). 𝔊𝔊 Γοθοµ Gen 36:11 ‫געתם‬ Ant. 2:5 Ἰόθαµος, Gatam. H ‫יעתם‬ 1 Chr 1:36 𝔊𝔊 reads Γοωθαµ. Elsewhere, Josephus puts Ἰόθαµος for ‫( יותם‬Ant. 5:234, 9:227), and Ἰόλαµος for ‫( יעלם‬Ant. 2:4). Thus, H had here -‫( יע‬short) and not -‫( יו‬long), with ‫ ג‬rubbed into ‫י‬. Gen 45:26 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 משל בכל‬ἀρχει πάσης Ant. 2:168 ἅπασαν σχεδὸν H ‫משל ככל‬ ‫ארץ מצרים‬ γῆς Αἰγύπτου [Αἰγύπτου] ἐπιµέλειαν ‫ארץ מצרים‬ Joseph “was the ruler of the whole land of Egypt”, but Josephus adds “almost”, thus depending on a reading ‫ ככל‬for ‫בכל‬. In the Aramaic square alphabet ‫ ב‬and ‫כ‬ are similar; the same variants occur in 𝔐𝔐 at 2 Sam 7:22.

34

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Num 20:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 מדבר‬εἰς τὴν ἔρηµον Ant. 4:78 ὑπέρ τινος ὄρους H ‫מהר‬ ‫צן‬ Σιν ὃ καλοῦσιν Σιν ‫צן‬ About Miriam’s burial place, Josephus turns the desert of Zin into a mountain. TYon plays upon ‫ ִצן‬, and explains ‫“ ציני טייר פרזלא‬palm trees of the Iron Mountain”; indeed, b.Erub 19a locates this mountain near Petra (Reqem, identified with Qadesh-barnea, see too Ant. 4:161); but this link between Zin and a mountain may go back to Josephus. Here he seems to depend on a misreading ‫ מהר‬for ‫ ה( מדבר‬can be read by putting together ‫ ד‬and the remainder of a ‫ ב‬rubbed into a small vertical line). Num 25:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 והמה ב ֹכים‬αὐτοὶ δὲ ἔκλαιον Ant. 4:150 ὁ λαὸς ἡσύχαζε H ‫והמה דמים‬ Josephus turns the biblical noisy sobs into silence. H may have been read ‫דמים‬ (see above ‫ § וידם‬I.3, Gen 27:38), the lower part of the letters having been rubbed out. Deut 1:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בעשתי עשר חדש‬ Ant. 4:176 τεσσαράκοντα ἐτῶν H ‫בשתי עשר חדש‬ ‫באחד לחדש‬ παρὰ τριάκονθ᾽ ἡµέρας ‫באחד לחדש‬ Moses’ speech to the Israelites is dated on the first of the eleventh month of the fortieth year, but Josephus, by saying “forty years save thirty days”, points to the beginning of the twelfth month. Josephus knew the expression ‫עשתי עשר‬ “eleven”, since earlier he gave the right meaning (3:130 f., see Ex 26:7). Thus the easiest explanation is that ‫ עשתי‬was altered enough to be read ‫שתי‬. However, this cannot have been a true variant, because it entails a chronological absurdity: Ant. 4:327 states that Moses died at the new moon of the same twelfth month, but this occurred at least some days after his speech that very day (see § 302 f.), which makes no sense.

The various kinds of oddities in this sample, as well as some others discussed in the previous sections (e.g. § II.1 Gen 4:4 ‫)מחלבהם‬ show beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no real room for an authorized Greek translation of the Pentateuch behind Josephus’ paraphrase. Thus, his actual source was H, about which some preliminary remarks can be made. First, it is altered in many places, with letters partially rubbed out in most cases (e.g. ‫ י‬instead of ‫)ג‬, but sometimes with unfortunate blots (e.g. ‫ ון‬instead of ‫ ;)ה‬second, it was written in Aramaic script, for the explanations of the misreadings do not work with paleo-Hebrew (e.g. ‫ ד‬and ‫ר‬, ‫ כ‬and ‫)ב‬. Both conclusions point to the expected fact that Josephus most probably used official Jewish library copies, which may well have been quite venerable and rather worn out. IV.2 Actual readings of H This heading is intended to sort out the special readings of H which may have belonged to library-controlled scrolls, but are unknown from other sources. To begin with, this says nothing about their being better or worse, but only that they provide a tolerable sense. Of course, this section may overlap the previous one to some extent, because subjective interpretation is involved, mainly for proper name alterations.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

35

𝔊𝔊 Τίγρις, Gen 2:14 ‫חדקל‬ Ant. 1:39 Διγλάθ, Tigris H ‫דיגלת‬ Josephus gives first the usual Greek form Τίγρις, then a transcription of ‫דיגלת‬, an Aramaic form witnessed by the targums and Pliny (HN, 6:27 diglit); but 𝔐𝔐 has ‫חדקל‬, and Josephus’ explanations of the name depend on this Hebrew form (ὀξύ “sharp” from ‫ קל‬or ‫חד‬, στενόν “thin” from ‫)דק‬. Josephus may well have had a double reading, one of them as a marginal gloss (probably ‫)דיגלת‬, and, as he does elsewere, have striven to put everything together, by taking the more convenient one in a midrashic way. The various forms of the name come from Assyro-babylonian idiglat/idignat. 𝔊𝔊 Αβελ Gen 4:2 ‫הבל‬ Ant. 1:52 Ἄβελος, Abel H ‫אבל‬ Josephus gives a translation πένθος “mourning”, which implies ‫ ;אבל‬οὐθέν “nothing” (frοm ‫ )הבל‬given by some mss, is a correction after 𝔐𝔐, maybe from a gloss, that is, an alternate reading of Josephus. The same meaning “mourning” is given by Philo, Migr. Abr. § 74, and Eusebius, Praep. ev. 11.6. Gen 7:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בא נח ושם וחם ויפת בני נח ואשת נח‬ H ‫בא נח ואשת נח‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 = ושלשת נשי‬ ‫ושלשת נשי‬ ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בניו אתם‬µετ᾿ αὐτοῦ ‫בניו אתו‬ Josephus tells us (Ant. 1:77) that Noah embarked on the Ark with the mother of his children and his son’s wives, whereas 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 name Noah’s sons. The omission indicates that either Josephus or the copyist who wrote H skipped over the words between ‫ נח‬and ‫( נח‬homoeoteleuton). But a copyist is more likely to commit this kind of mistake than a translator, because unlike the former, the latter must understand. So, it is not unreasonable to consider that H had a short reading; moreover, the omitted words, with ‫ בני נח‬instead of ‫בניו‬, look like a gloss. At the end, Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 ‫אתם‬, hence H ‫אתו‬. 𝔊𝔊 Αµαθι Gen 10:18 ‫)ה(חמתי‬ Ant. 1:138 Ἀµαθοῦς, Hamatite H ‫חמתו‬ 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 have the same forms in 1 Ch 1:16. The variance ‫ו‬/‫ י‬is not uncommon. 𝔊𝔊 Ιωβαβ Gen 10:29 ‫יובב‬ Ant. 1:147 Ἰόβηλος, Yobab H ‫יובל‬ Josephus’s form comes from an alteration of ‫ ב‬into ‫( ל‬blot). Another explanation is possible: if the word was partially rubbed out, Josephus may have tried to guess and recognized the usual term for “Jubilee”. 𝔊𝔊 Ραγαυ Gen 11:18 ‫רעו‬ Ant. 1:149-150 Ῥοῦµος, Reu H ‫ראום‬ Josephus gives two forms of this name: the first one Ῥεούς (§ 148) obviously comes from ‫ ;רעו‬the second, here, seems to point to ‫ראום‬, for he puts Ῥοῦµα (1:153) for ‫( ראומה‬Gen 22:24), or much less probably to ‫רחום‬, because ‫ ח‬after ‫ר‬ leaves something behind, e.g. Ῥοωβώθ (1:262) for ‫( רחבות‬Gen 26:22). Both forms of the name appear in the same passage, but an explanation is possible without an influence of 𝔊𝔊: the § 149-150 disturb the story (§ 151 follows smoothly § 148), thus come from a revision, probably prompted by a marginal gloss ‫ ראום‬in front of ‫רעו‬. 𝔊𝔊 µετὰ τὸ Gen 14:17 ‫אחרי‬ Ant. 1:179 adds H ‫אחרי‬ ‫שובו‬ ἀναστρέψαι αὐτόν µετὰ εἰρήνης ‫שובו שלם‬ Josephus states that Abraham, having defeated the Assyrians, “returned in peace”. This addition can be explained by an additional word ‫ שלם‬in H. The next verse has the expression ‫מלך שלם‬, which Josephus renders “king of Solyma” (explained as Jerusalem); but Philo, Leg. alleg. 3:82 and He 7:2 understand “king of peace”. In both cases the same word ‫ שלם‬may have been the place name.

36

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Gen 22:13 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )והנה איל( א ַחר‬κριὸς εἷς Ant. 1:236 θεὸς κριὸν H ‫אח ד‬ ‫ )נאחז( בסבך‬...ἐν φυτῷ σαβεκ παρήγαγεν ἐκ τἀφανοῦς ‫בסכך‬ (The first line is discussed § III.3 above). Scripture says that Abraham saw a ram “caught in a bush”, but for Josephus, God brought it “from an invisible position”; the sheltered ram was manifested; m.Abot 5:6 states it was created in the eve of the first Sabbath, to be manifested in due time (like the mouth of the earth, see above § I.3 Num 16:30). This corresponds to a reading ‫“ סכך‬shelter” (cf. ‫ )סכּה‬instead of the difficult ‫סבך‬, which is transcribed by 𝔊𝔊 and Theod., but elsewhere read ‫“ שׂבך‬net” (see 1 Kgs 7:17.20) by Ak. and Sym.). Gen 24:33 ...‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויאמר לא א ֹכל‬καὶ εἶπεν Οὐ µὴ φάγω... Ant. 1:252 H ‫ויאמר‬ ‫ויאמר ַדבּר‬ και εἶπαν Λάλησον µετὰ τὸ (om.) (‫ויאמר עבד אברהם )אנכי‬ καὶ εἶπεν... δεῖπνον ‫עבד אברהם‬ Laban’s servant offered food to Abraham’s messenger, but the latter insisted on presenting his request before eating. Josephus puts the speech “after supper”, so omits “I will eat nothing before I have said what I have to say; he (𝔊𝔊 they) said: Speak; he said etc.”; thus, he skips from ‫( ויאמר‬1) to ‫( ויאמר‬3). But this is a copyist’s error, not a translator’s; so, the omission was in H. 𝔊𝔊 Γαιφα Gen 25:4 ‫עיפה ועפר‬ Ant. 1:238 Ἠφᾶς, H ‫עיפה )ו(עפרן‬ (‫ו)חנוך‬ καὶ Αφερ Ὤφρης (‫)חנוך‬ Josephus’ “Ophren” can be somewhat explained: in ‫וחנוך‬, the initial ‫ ו‬was read as ‫ ן‬and attached to the previous word, hence ‫( עופרן‬different from ‫ עפר ֹן‬of Gen 23:8, for Ephron). Some Greek variants (εωφρην, θωφρης) came out from a dittography of C at the end of the previous word. In the sequel, Josephus adds a quotation from Alexander Polyhistor, giving a different form of both names, Ἰαφρᾶς, Ἀφέρας (1:241), but he hardly distinguishes between them; they do not depend on H, but may be derived from 𝔐𝔐, with two letters partly rubbed out between them, so that ‫ הו‬could be read ‫רי‬, hence ‫ע)י(פר יעפר‬. 𝔊𝔊 καὶ τὸ ποτήριον Gen 40:11 ‫וכוס‬ H ‫וכוס‬ ‫פרעה בידי‬ Φαραω ἐν τῇ χειρί µου ‫פרעה בידו‬ The chief butler explains his dream: “I had Pharaoh’s cup in my hand”; later on, he puts this cup into Pharaoh’s hand. Josephus’s story is different (Ant. 2:64): the king held out a cup, the butler let the must run through and gave it back to him; thus, for Josephus, Pharaoh had the cup in his own hand, hence H. 𝔊𝔊 Φουα Gen 46:13 ‫פוה‬ Ant. 2:178 Φροῦρας, Puvva H ‫פורה‬ Sam ‫ = פואה‬1 Ch 7:1 𝔐𝔐; 𝔊𝔊 may come from either form. Josephus’s Greek form can be explained in two steps: (1) H* ‫( פווה‬close to 𝔐𝔐) with an error ‫ ר‬for ‫ו‬, hence H ‫ פורה‬and the original transcription Φοῦρας; (2) a lengthening of φ into φρ before ου, witnessed elsewhere: ‫ פורה‬of Jg 7:10 becomes Φροῦρας at Ant. 5:219; ‫“ פורים‬Purim” (Est 9:26) is rendered Φρουραίαι at Ant. 11:295, etc. There may have been an influence of the usual root φρουρ-. 𝔊𝔊 Σαφων Gen 46:16 (‫צפיון )וחגי‬ Ant. 2:182 Ζοφωνίας, Ziphion H ‫צפוניה‬ 𝔐𝔐 here maybe wrong, since 𝔊𝔊 corresponds to Sam ‫ צפון‬here and Nb 26:15 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊 has quite consistently Σοφονια for 𝔐𝔐 ‫( צפניה‬2 Kgs 25:18, Jer 21:1, 29[33]:25.29, 37[44]:3, Zeph 1:1, and Zech 6:10.14; at 1 Chr 6:21, 𝔊𝔊 puts Σαφανια). Here, the ending ‫יה‬- comes probably from ‫ וח‬in the following word ‫( וחגי‬maybe a restoration above the line of rubbed, unreadable letters, then a doublet performed by the next copyist). 𝔊𝔊 (καὶ) Ρως Gen 46:21 ‫ָוראש‬ Ant. 2:180 Ἄρως, (and) Rosh H ‫ואראש‬



I – THE PENTATEUCH

37

A son (𝔊𝔊 grandson) of Benjamin was “Rosh”; 𝔊𝔊 comes from 𝔐𝔐 Ket, but 𝔐𝔐 Qer ‫ ֶו‬keeps something of a first syllable of the name; Josephus does have this syllable, hence H. Ex 15:25 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויורהו‬ἔδειξεν αὐτῷ Ant. 3:7 κατανεύσαντος H ‫ויודהו‬ ‫יהוה‬ κύριος τοῦ θεοῦ ἀποτόµαδος... ‫יהוה‬ ‫עץ‬ ξύλον διαιρεῖ... (‫וירא עץ )ויורהו חץ‬ According to 𝔐𝔐, Yhwh “taught [Moses] a piece of wood” (see TOnk and Ak. ἐφώτισεν: ‫ ויורהו‬related to ‫ ;)תורה‬for 𝔊𝔊 et Sam, “he showed” (καὶ ἔδειξεν = ‫ ;)ויראהו‬TNeof puts together both senses. Josephus has three statements: (1) Yhwh accepted the request; (2) Moses picked up a stick lying at his feet; (3) he cleft it in two, lengthwise. These unscriptural details of his may have arisen from a triplet, the result of two corrections (glosses): (1) “Yhwh agreed with him” (‫ויודהו‬, with ‫ ד‬for ‫( ;)ר‬2) “he saw a stick” (‫וירא‬, similar to 𝔊𝔊 Sam ‫“ ויראהו‬he showed him a stick”); (3) “with it he made an arrow” (‫ויורהו‬, from ‫)ירי‬. Moreover, the fact that Moses made a spear or an arrow could well witness a reading ‫“ חץ‬arrow” instead of ‫“ עץ‬wood”; this very confusion (probably due to similar pronounciations) occurs at 1 Sam 17:7 ‫ חצי‬for ‫( עצי‬Qer/Ket). Ex 16:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ברעב‬ Ant. 3:12 µηδενὶ περιτυγχάνοντες H ‫ברעב‬ om. 3:21 ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν βάλλουσι λίθους ‫עוד מעט ויסקלוני‬ In the desert of Sin, the starving Israelites complain to Moses and Aaron, then Yhwh immediately announces the manna, without any prayer of Moses. But Josephus inserts the people’s threat to stone Moses (§ 12 & 21) and the latter’s supplication to God; these two items do appear in the similar story of the Rephidim mob (Ex 17:4); thus, we may conjecture that in H all this verse (“Moses appealed to Yhwh for help. ‘How am I to deal with this people?’ he said. Any moment now they will stone me”) is added after Ex 16:3. This kind of glosses made of imported verses is current in Sam and the Qumran fragments. 𝔊𝔊 ὅρκος ἔσται Ex 22:10 ‫ש ֻבעת יהוה‬ Ant. 4:287 ἀφικόµενος H ‫שבעת יהוה‬ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἑπτὰ κριτὰς ‫*שבעת האלהים‬ ‫תהיה בין שניהם‬ ἀνὰ µέσον ὀµνύτω τὸν θεόν ‫תהיה בין שניהם‬ If someone is entrusted by the owner of an animal to keep it, and it dies or disappears, an oath by Yhwh will decide between the owner and keeper, &c. Josephus adds details: “the depositary has to come before the seven judges and swear by God” that he is not guilty. The article indicates that the judges are already known, and in Josephus’s context they cannot be else than the seven mentioned earlier (Ant. 4:214) to form the ruling body of a city. But we may remark first that Josephus’s mention here of a procedure is quite unusual, and second that such a court of seven is unknown from other sources. But all this may be easily explained by textual considerations: (1) the interpretation of Biblical ‫ האלהים‬as “judges” is classical (Ex 21:6 ‫האלהים‬, 𝔊𝔊 τὸ κριτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ “God’s court”, Syr: “the court”; see too b.Baba M. 84a; here, Philo, Spec. leg. 4:34 speaks of divine court); (2) so, the expression ‫ שבעת האלהים‬may mean “oath by God” as well as “seven judges”; (3) now we may conjecture that H had both expressions ‫( שבעת יהוה‬like 𝔐𝔐, or maybe ‫ )שבועת‬and ‫( שבעת האלהים‬like 𝔊𝔊), one of them in the margin as a gloss intending to correct the other; (4) as usual, Josephus strove to retain everything he saw in his source, by building an ad hoc set of statements. 𝔊𝔊 υἱὸς Ναυη (= ‫ )נוי‬Ant. 3:49 Ναυήκου υἱόν H ‫בן נוך‬ Ex 33:11 ‫)יהושע( בן נון‬

38

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

We follow here Schlatter’s proposal for the various forms of the name of Joshua’s father. The last letter has in all the variants a similar shape (in Aramaic alphabet), see also Num 31:8 below; if the main cause of letter alterations were rubbing out, then the larger the truer, and Josephus would have the best reading; but this is by no means certain. 𝔊𝔊 πλῆθος Ex 36:5 ‫מרבים‬ Ant. 3:106 το δὲ πλῆθος H ‫רבים‬ ‫העם להביא‬ γέρει ὁ λαός ἐπῆλθεν... ἀρκεῖν ‫העם להביא‬ 𝔐𝔐 and Sam say that the people brought more than was needed for the work of building the sanctuary, so that there was too much material; for 𝔊𝔊, too large a crowd was bringing things, so there were too many people. Josephus has the same view, hence H ‫( רבים‬bearing on the people) instead of ‫( מרבים‬modifying the verb). Lev 16:27 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = יוציא אל‬ Ant. 3:241 ἐν τοῖς προαστείοις H ‫יוציא אל‬ ‫מחוץ למהנה‬ εἰς καθαρώτατον ‫מחוץ למחנה‬ (om.) ἄγοντες χωρίον ‫אל מקום טהור‬ In the ritual of the Day of Atonement, the goat “for Yhwh” is immolated, then its remains are to be taken outside the camp and burnt. Josephus adds “in a spot that is perfectly pure”. But v. 28 states that the man performing this has to wash his clothes and body, a kind of purification, and m.Yoma 6:7 mentions the spot as a fixed place (called ‫“ בית השרפה‬the burning place”), with no hint at any purity. Josephus, therefore, depends on a source, not on an eyewitness’ memory; moreover, Lev 14:12 does have the corresponding expression ‫ אל מקום טהור‬for a similar rite of atonement. Conclusion: H had it here too, as a gloss imported from a parallel regulation. We may observe that 𝔊𝔊 and VetLat add the same detail to Num 19:3 (the Red Heifer rite). Num 10:10 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וביום‬ἐν ταῖς ἡµέραις Ant. 3:294 καὶ τοῖς σαββάτοις H ‫ובימי‬ ‫שמח ֹתכם‬ τῆς εὐφροσύνης ὑµῶν καὶ ταῖς λοιπαῖς ἡµέραις ‫שבתתכם‬ At the “day (𝔊𝔊 days) of your gladness (𝔐𝔐 plural), fixed feasts and new-moons”, the two trumpets made by Moses must be sounded over the sacrifices. But Josephus says “both on the Sabbath and other (feast) days); SifNum § 76 discusses this verse, and a saying interprets ‫ שמחתכם‬as ‫“ שבתתכם‬your Sabbaths”, because of the defective script – and the unquoted variant reading. Josephus witnesses the second reading22 in H. Moreover, it had a plural ‫ ובימי‬like 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊 Ασηρωθ Num 11:35 ‫חצרות‬ Ant. 3:295 Ἐσερµώθ H ‫חצרמות‬ The Israelites went to “Hazeroth”, but Josephus has “Hazarmaveth”. For Gen 10:26 ‫“ חצרמות‬Hazarmaveth”, Josephus had another rendering (Ἀζερµώθης), maybe from another hand. There may have been an inflence of the region still called Ḥaḍramaut, in Arabia. 𝔊𝔊 Ευιν Num 31:8 ‫אוי‬ Ant. 4:161 Ὦχος H ‫אוך‬ One of the kings of Midian was “Evi”; Josephus’ rendering is clearly unrelated to 𝔊𝔊, but H is quite close to 𝔐𝔐 (here and at Josh 13:21), with a variant ‫ ך‬for ‫י‬, which may well be genuine (see above Ex 33:11, about Joshua’s father). 𝔊𝔊 πλανώµενα Deut 22:1 ‫נדחים‬ Ant. 4:274 κατ᾽ ἐρηµίαν H ‫נדחים‬ (om.) ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ (= ‫)בדרך‬ πλανωµένοις ‫במדבר‬ 22 Which may very well be genuine, with the ancient meaning of Sabbath as “full moon” (parallel to the “new-moons” here).



I – THE PENTATEUCH

39

If someone meets beasts that stray (𝔊𝔊 adds “on the road”), he must take them back to their owner. Unlike 𝔊𝔊, both Josephus and Philo, Virt. § 96 ἐν ἐρηµίᾳ πλανώµενον specify that the beasts are straying “in the wilderness”, hence H ‫במדבר‬.

This sample shows that H had readings of its own, as well as interesting features: 1. some glosses are verses or expressions imported from elsewhere in the Pentateuch; 2. omissions by homeoteleuton occur (but the longer readings of 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 are not always better); 3. many small alterations or misreadings of names came from letters more or less rubbed out, which indicates that H was very much used; conversely, 𝔐𝔐 and the source of 𝔊𝔊 were affected by the same problem, because some readings of H seem to be more genuine; 4. H had many variants as marginal glosses, some of them being the restoration of unreadable words. This phenomenon is discernible because Josephus, instead of choosing between variants, takes everything into his paraphrase, hence doublets (and maybe a triplet, see above Ex 15:25), which sometimes involves unexpected statements, quite foreign to any tradition or reality. These kinds of facts are not unknown. The Samaritan Pentateuch and many biblical fragments from the Judean desert have glosses made of verses taken from elsewhere23 (most often from Deut). The edition of 𝔐𝔐 eliminated many glosses of this type, but it still contains alternate readings. The most obvious are the variants Qer/Ket, but they seldom occur in the Pentateuch. On the other hand, the text itself has kept alternative readings,24 most often side by side, sometimes at the end of the verse or at the middle (atnahta); they may have been overlooked by the editors, or left voluntarily for the sake of numerical codes.25 The same way, multiple translations side by side can be seen in 𝔊𝔊, e.g.: Lev 16:10 gives two translations of “Azazel”; Deut 23:18, two very different explanations of the “sacred prostitutes”, etc.

V – Conclusions Contrarily to other books, the content of the Pentateuch as a 23 See Emanuel TOV, “4QReworked Pentateuch: A Synopsis of Its Contents”, RQ 16 (1998), p. 647-53. 24 See Frank ZIMMERMANN, “The Perpetuation of Variants in the Massoretic Text”, JBL 55 (1936), p. 458-74, gives instructive instances, and remarks that 𝔊𝔊 omits some of them. Many traces of scribal editing have been collected by Michael FISHBANE, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), p. 91-108. 25 BQid 30a states that the original meaning of ‫“ סופר‬scribe” is “counter of letters”; see also François LANGLAMET, “Arithmétique des scribes et texte consonantique: Gen 46,1-7 et 1 Sam 17,1-54”, RB 97 (1990), p. 379-413.

40

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

whole is fairly stable, but the multiple ways it has been transmitted and translated offer numerous variants that allow some sorting. Josephus’ loose paraphrase excludes any restoration of a continuous text, but it provides significant clues for the history of the text and its revisions, for it is well dated and located. So, we conclude with some remarks about the position of H in comparison with other witnesses. The main relationships between H, 𝔊𝔊 (B), 𝔐𝔐 and Sam can be outlined in a simple diagram (Fig. 1), founded upon two statistical conclusions (save for proper names, the orthographical details of H remain unknown): 1. a major link between H and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 and Sam; 2. the lack of connection H-𝔐𝔐 and H-Sam against the others. It should be noted that Sam was heavily revised after 𝔐𝔐 for the content, and most of its contacts with 𝔊𝔊 are formal details (particles, grammatical peculiarities, &c.), hence the apparent closeness of 𝔐𝔐 and Sam in these conclusions; this bias has to be corrected in some way. As for the Qumran fragments, they have agreements with 𝔐𝔐, with 𝔊𝔊, with Sam or even with Josephus, and sometimes with two of them against the others; their position is difficult to assess, for they belong to various text-types. For the present study, however, they show that some strange or uncertain readings of Josephus are not necessarily idiosyncrasies, but may have an early origin. Two other characteristics of Josephus’ Pentateuch must be mentioned: the first is the appearance of 𝔊𝔊 itself on Josephus’ office shelves at so late a time, during a revision of his work (ca. 90), but in a very marginal way (§ I.2). However, the evidence is so scant that it could be ascribed to a later copyist who to doctored text. The second is the presence of double readings, suggesting that marginal glosses of H have been preserved. The instances actually detected are rare (§ III.2 and IV.2), and cannot give a clear pattern of contamination, but others could probably be unearthed. Sam

≈

H

∑

Fig. 1 – Diagram of the main links.

The first diagram summarizes textual agreements, which are simple statistical facts, but it does not involve any interpretation, either chronological or about the dependence of the witnesses on one another.



I – THE PENTATEUCH

41

The next step is to build up a stemma, which can be done in two ways only26: if true readings can be identified against alterations from internal analysis, the witnesses having the same errors belong to the same family (i.e. depend on one erroneous copy), hence chronological conclusions; but if no clear conclusion on better readings can be affirmed, external data have to be used, and chronological clues are most helpful. Here, the first way is obviously unfeasible, because the biblical texts were not just copied, but always revised and glossed. The second method is much more attractive, for chronological data are available: first, the split between Jews and Samaritans, in the second half of the 2nd cent. BCE; second, the final edition of 𝔐𝔐 was issued after the completion of Josephus’s work. Rabbinical tradition contains many discussions about verses, which look strange or even pointless if one considers only 𝔐𝔐, but meaningful if variants of 𝔊𝔊 (or their Hebrew source) are taken into account; in other words, textual problems are dealt with27 (e.g. above § I.1 Ex 25:5). Y

∑

H

≈

(Q)

Sam

Fig. 2 – General stemma of the main families.

According to these conditions, it becomes possible to interpret the diagram chronologically, by letting it hang down from the place marked with a blank circle. By definition, this point becomes the archetype Ω of the stemma (Fig. 2). The Qumran texts as a whole are given a tentative position; their “samaritanisms” are well known28, but the problem of possible “Samaritan Essenes” (involving contacts 26 See Paul MAAS, Textual Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958); Martin L. WEST, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973), adds useful considerations upon contamination. 27 See Viktor APTOWITZER, Das Schriftwort in der rabbinischen Literatur, With a Prolegomenon by Samuel LOEWINGER, New York, Ktav, 1970 (collected papers published 190615). 28 See the synthesis of Maurice BAILLET, “Le texte samaritain de l’Exode”, in André CAQUOT & Marc PHILONENKO, Hommages à André Dupont-Sommer (Paris, 1971), p. 363-6.

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between marginal groups after the split) is still wanting a final assessment29. The biblical scrolls H that Josephus used for his translation are to be granted textual authority and venerable age, maybe one century or more. They were library books, worn out, revised and glossed. The main feature of the stemma, however, concerns 𝔊𝔊, or more exactly its remote Hebrew source as described by the Letter of Aristeas: its relationship with Sam, H, the Qumran texts and Rabbinical discussions indicate that the authority of this text-type endured for a long time.30

29 Some evidence has been collected by R. PUMMER, “ΑΡΓΑΡΙΖΙΜ: A Criterion for Samaritan Provenance”, JSJ 18 (1987), p. 18-25, and Hanan ESHEL, “The Prayer of Joseph. A Papyrus from Masada and the Samaritan Temple on ΑΡΓΑΡΙΖΙΜ”, Zion 56 (1991), p. 125-36. 30 The relationship of 𝔊𝔊 with Philo’s Bible is intricate; (1) his lemmas have been altered by copyists according to some current versions of 𝔊𝔊, see the evidence discussed by Peter KATZ, Philo’s Bible. The Aberrant Text of Bible Quotations in Some Philonic Writings and Its Place in the Textual History of the Greek Bible (Cambridge: University Press, 1950); (2) here we saw en passant that more than a few interpretations of his depend on 𝔐𝔐-like readings; in some of the cases dealt with above, H agrees with 𝔊𝔊 against Philo and 𝔐𝔐, e.g. § I.3 Gen 3:24, Ex 21:29; sometimes, 𝔊𝔊 stands alone against H, 𝔐𝔐 and Philo.

CHAPTER TWO JOSHUA As an introductory remark, it must be said that when Josephus composed the preliminary sketch of the Antiquities, he was not aware of the full content of the book of Joshua, for he summarized it under one heading only, while he described the book of Judges under ten. Now, the main global feature of Josephus’ paraphrase of Joshua is its affinity with the first part of a Samaritan Chronicle, though he was certainly not prepared to accept anything from the Gerizim worshippers. So, this aspect is discussed first, before dealing with minute details as in the preceding chapter.1

I – Josephus and the Samaritan Traditions Broadly speaking, the Judean tradition holds the Samaritans, or more exactly the Gerizim worshippers, as a strange sect that of old has mixed Biblical and pagan traditions. This is the typical position of Josephus, which is usually accepted:2 for him, they “alter their attitude according to circumstances”, pretending to be either kinsmen of the Jews or aliens of another race (Ant. 9:291); they are “apostates from the Jewish nation” (Ant. 11:340; 12:257). A general reassessment of this view is in order, before considering the book of Joshua. I.1 Josephus and the Samaritans Josephus paraphrases the Biblical account of the fall of Samaria, the deportation of the population, and the settling of foreign populations in the country of the Israelites. These people brought along their own gods, but they were destroyed by lions (Josephus says “pestilence”), so that they asked the king of Assyria3 for a priest (Josephus puts “priests”) to teach them how to worship the local deity. 1 For a minute analysis of Josephus’ prose, see Christopher BEGG, Flavius Josephus: Judean Antiquities 5-7 (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2005); this author wrote numerous essays on Josephus’ Biblical paraphrase. 2 See Rita EGGER, Josephus Flavius und die Samaritaner. Eine terminologische Untersuchung zur Identitätsklärung der Samaritaner (NTOA, 4; Freiburg (CH): Universitätsverlag, 1986), p. 48-50; Reinhard PUMMER, The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus (TSAJ, 129; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2009. 3 And not the people of Jerusalem; their reference is with Jacob, not Moses (2 Kgs 17:24).

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For further details showing that his account is closer to 𝔊𝔊 than to 𝔐𝔐, see Chap. VI, § III.2, 2 Kgs 17:28. However, there is a major difference, which the following table makes clear: Ant. 9: 2 Kgs 17: (290) And they, after being instructed in the ordinance and religion of this God, worshipped him with great zeal, and were at once freed from the pestilence.

But every nation still made gods of its own and put them in the high places, which the Samaritans had made [...] They feared Yhwh and served their own gods according to the custom of the nations. These same rites have continued in 34a To this day they do according to 34b 𝔊𝔊 their customs: they fear and they use even to this day, do according to the statutes, among those who are called Kuthim in Hebrew, Samaritans in Greek. (291) When they see the Jews prosper- 35-39 which Yhwh commanded the sons ing, they call them their kinsmen as of Jacob, whom he named Israel; with descending from Joseph, whom Yhwh made a covenant and commanded them, saying: “You shall not fear other gods [...] 40 𝔊𝔊 And you shall not listen to their (i.e. your enemies’) custom, which they do”. but, when they see the Jews in trouble, they declare to be aliens of another race. 29-33

According to the 𝔐𝔐 version, it is clear that the newcomers have mixed some Yahwism with earlier pagan customs. In the sequel (Ant. 9:291 and elsewhere), Josephus scorns the opportunism of the Samaritans, who claim to be either related to the Jews as sons of Joseph, or aliens of another race, depending on the circumstances. He recognizes that they have replaced ancient Israelite tribes, but he never suggests they had any kind of non-Yahwistic worship, in contrast to 2 Kgs 17:29-33. He obviously did not know this passage, neither 2 Kgs 18:12, which repeats the 𝔐𝔐 view.4 He would have been glad to accuse them of syncretism, but he only says that they practice a kind of downgraded Judaism (Ant. 11:302-311).5 In fact, 4 The whole passage 2 Kgs 18:9-12 is probably a later rewriting of the story, in order to introduce Moses; for the relationship between the two parallel accounts, see Jean-Daniel MACCHI, Les Samaritains. Histoire d’une légende (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1994), p. 47-72. 5 The excavations at Mount Gerizim have shown that the shrine was built earlier than the



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until the Maccabean crisis (167-164 BCE), the Israelite nation had its two temples, Gerizim and Jerusalem (2 Mac 5:22). A Delos shrine of that period shows that the Samaritans considered themselves to be true Israelites.6 Being aware of the geography of Samaria, Josephus replaces Jacob with his son Joseph, that is, the latter’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh, as he explicitly says at Ant. 11:341. There may be another reason, too: according to 2 Kgs 17:34, the Samaritans were faithful to Jacob’s traditions, but not to Moses’, and Josephus avoids this question, as well as another: Why did the new settlers, when they wanted to be updated on Yahwism, ask for an exiled priest, and not for someone from Jerusalem? I.2 The Samaritan Joshua and Josephus It has been noted that Josephus’ account of the land allotment between the tribes is much shorter than the canonical one (Ant. 5:8187), and has affinities with the Samaritan book of Joshua (SJosh), that is, the first part of a Chronicle, which runs until the northern exile. This fact has been generally overlooked, because of two assumptions: first, Josephus would have done a loose paraphrase of a special form of 𝔊𝔊; second, this Chronicle as witnessed by the extant mss is the outcome of a very poor textual tradition, so that some have even surmised that it is just a Hebrew backtranslation from the Arabic, completed with various portions of 𝔐𝔐.7 It is true that the text includes some translated Muslim phrases, focuses on the Gerizim-Bethel worship, replaces Jerusalem by Jebus, mentions Tiberias and Caesarea, etc. However, some formal observations are to be noted first. Among the cantillation signs of 𝔐𝔐, the paseq, a small vertical line between words, has been recognized as earlier than the traditional Massoretic system,8 and it has been observed that for Joshua it corresponds in most cases to a variant read4th cent., with an important transformation around 200 BCE; see Yitzhak MAGEN, “The Dating of the First Phase of the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim in Light of the Archaeological Evidence”, in Oded LIPSCHITS, Gary N. KNOPPERS & Rainer ALBERTZ (eds.), Judah and the Judeans in the Fourth Century B. C. E. (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2007), p. 157212; Jan DUŠEK, Aramaic and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim and Samaria between Antiochus III and Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 6 See Michael WHITE, “The Delos Synagogue Revisited: Recent Fieldwork in the GraecoRoman Diaspora”, HTR 80 (1987), p. 133-60; Philippe BRUNEAU, “Les ‘Israélites de Délos’ et la juiverie délienne”, BCH 106 (1982), p. 465-504. 7 Opinion still held by Zev FARBER, Images of Joshua in the Bible and Their Reception (BZAW, 457; Berlin / Boston (MA): De Gruyter, 2016), p. 223, with bibliography. 8 See James KENNEDY, The Note-Line in the Hebrew Scriptures, Commonly Called paseq or pesiq (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1903), p. 19-26; Magne SÆBØ, “Some Reflections on the Use of paseq in the Book of Esther”, in Yohanan GOLDMAN et al. (eds.), Sôfer Mahîr. Essays in Honour of Adrian Schenker (VTSup, 110; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 227-238.

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ing of SJosh, sometimes closer to 𝔊𝔊. Thus, it could have been an editorial mark.9 Now we are in a position to show, step by step, that both Josephus and SJosh depend on a common source, quite different from the canonical Joshua (𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊). As a preliminary remark, we may note that as a rule Josephus lengthens (and weakens) the narratives and the speeches, so that his omissions may be significant. 1) According to Josh 1:10-18, Joshua orders the people to get prepared for crossing the Jordan, then summons the tribes of Ruben, Gad and half-Manasseh. Before this meeting, Ant. 5:2.5 says that Joshua has sent scouts to Jericho, and soon after it they come back and report to him about the situation of the Canaanites. Before the meeting, SJosh (§ B.D*) adds: “After these things, Joshua heard of the situation of the Canaanites (‫”)בדבר הכנעני‬. It is not stated that scouts have yet been sent, but Josephus introduces them at that point. Then, he lets them give a report after the meeting, combining it with Josh 2:1 (Joshua sent two spies from Shittim to explore the land), so that the report includes by anticipation the whole Rahab story (Josh 2:1-24). But such a redaction is awkward, for, at the return of the spies, Josephus concludes the episode (§ 15): “They recounted their adventures in the city; Joshua thereupon reported to Eleazar the high priest and to the elders.” This is an addition to Josh 2:24, shared by SJosh (§ C.C*). The result in Josephus’ text is a clumsy duplication of the report of the spies, who were free to explore the city (cf. § C.A*). In other words, he was guided by a SJosh-type of text, with Joshua hearing of the situation of the Canaanites, but he did not properly handle it. 2) The crossing of the Jordan river is a difficult piece of literature10 (Josh 34). The SJosh account is much shorter; among other passages, it omits Josh 4:21-24, which puts together the miracles of the Red Sea and the Jordan as a memorial, but adds a reference to the Song of Moses (Ex 15:1-19) as well as a praise of Joshua (§ F). Ant. 5:17-19 is much shorter and rationalizes the miracle, so that Josephus’ source cannot be ascertained. 3) The circumcision before the Gilgal Passover (Josh 5:2-8) is omitted by both Ant. 5:20 and SJosh. The conclusion is (Josh 5:9): “And Yhwh said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away (‫גלותי‬, ἀφεῖλον) the reproach (‫ )חרפה‬of Egypt from you.’ And he called the name of that place Gilgal (‫ )גלגל‬to this day.” The context is clearly the reinstitution of circumcision. Now, Josephus explains (5:34): “The place where Joshua put the camp was called Gilgal. The name means ‘freedom’ (ἐλευθέριον).” This is certainly wrong, all the more so that the pun is obvious in Hebrew. However, SJosh has a different wording, without the pun: “See, I have removed (‫ )נשאתי‬from you and from all your people every calamity (‫)מגפה‬. And Joshua called the name of that place Gilgal.” The context is the fear of the nations when they learned of the miracle. This 9 See Mose GASTER, “Das Buch Josua in hebräisch-samaritanischer Rezension”, ZDMG 62 (1908) 209-279 & 494-549; he observed, too, that the separations of the pericopae (‫)קיצות‬ broadly correspond to the Massoretic divisions (petuhot & setumot). 10 See François LANGLAMET, Gilgal et les récits de la traversée du Jourdain (CRB, 11; Paris / Leuven: Peeters, 1969).



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way, the meaning “freedom” may make sense without conjecturing a mistake of Josephus. But a problem still stands: Josephus introduces the name “Gilgal” and its explanation after the destruction of Jericho and the sin of Achan (Josh 6:1-7:1). After the crossing of the Jordan he only said that Joshua pitched a camp very close to Jericho and made the Passover (Ant. 5:20), without naming the place, while Josh 4:20 and SJosh put Gilgal. He may have surmised that Gilgal was farther north, as suggested by Deut 11:30. But all this does not properly explain the location of Josephus’ notice on Gilgal; it may have been a revision gloss added by the author, then wrongly inserted by himself or a copyist. 4) Before the fist attack of Ai, Joshua has sent spies, a detail ignored by Ant. 5:35 and SJosh. After the defeat of the Israelite, Achan is found guilty of theft. Ant. 5:35 and SJosh add that the trial took place before the high priest Eleazar, then omit the name of Achan’s burial place, the Valley of Achor (Josh 7:26). But SJosh gives Achan’s name as “Ilan” (‫)עילן‬, perhaps from a misreading of ‫ ;עכן‬the 𝔊𝔊 form Αχαρ, from ‫( עכר‬see 1 Chr 2:7), is not closer, though it better matches the story. 5) Of the long story of the second attack of Ai (Josh 8:1-29), SJosh gives only the first part (v. 1-7), which expounds Joshua’s tactic, and concludes that they did so and burned down everything. At Ant. 5:46-48, Josephus develops freely the same part only, out from his own military experience; he omits the anathema and Ai’s king. 6) After the cunning of the inhabitants of Gibeon, who pretended to have come from a distant country, Joshua made a covenant with them to let them live, which could not be broken when it was discovered they were neighbors (Josh 9). Ant. 5:49 and SJosh add first that before coming to Joshua the people of Gibeon sought union with neighboring towns and sent a delegation, and second that the covenant was made and confirmed before the high priest Eleazar and the elders. 7) A coalition of five kings wants to attack Gibeon, but they are defeated by Joshua, who has been called for help (Josh 10:1-27). After the victory, a poetic piece is inserted, in which Joshua prays the sun and moon to stand still until the revenge is completed (v. 12b-14); 𝔐𝔐 indicates that this is written in the Book of the Upright One (𝔊𝔊 omits). While SJosh omits it, too, Ant. 5:61 has it, but Josephus refers to a separate source of texts that is laid up in the temple of Jerusalem. Such documents, unknown to the Samaritans, may have been collected by Titus (see Introd. § I). 8) The conquest of the northern territories (Josh 11:1-23) is reported by SJosh and Ant. 5:62-67, the latter in a shorter way. Then, both omit the recapitulation of Josh 12. For both (5:69 and § Q), albeit in a different wording, the next episode is the erection of an altar on Mount Gerizim, following the precept of Deut 27:32; this is a logical place, after the conquest of the southern and northern territories, but 𝔐𝔐 puts it at Josh 8:30-35 (with “Ebal” instead of “Gerizim”), and 𝔊𝔊 after 9:2, just before the Gibeon affair; this indicates an interpolation, at some literary stage. However, SJosh (§ L) has a similar story at that 𝔐𝔐 place, but the wording is strange: “(L.A*) They set out from Gilgal and encamped at Elon Moreh, near the city of Shechem, where they set up the Tent of Meeting. (L.B*) Fire came

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forth from before Yhwh (‫ )מלפני יהוה‬and was consuming before the altar.” According to Deut 11:30, Elon Moreh lies between Gilgal and Shechem, and for the Samaritans this makes sense after the destruction of Ai and Luza, just stated (§ K.A*-B*); but between A* and B* is inserted Josh 5:30-31, with the erection of an altar of stones on Mount Gerizim, which is hard to reconcile with the context. A tolerable conclusion would be that the passage is a later Samaritan addition, stuffed with two 𝔐𝔐 verses, so that it did not belong to Josephus’ source. 9) The allotment of the land is a large section (Josh 13-21), which begins with the Transjordan tribes, then moves to Canaan, in two parts: first the main tribes, with Judah, Caleb (around Hebron, in the middle of Judah), Ephraim, Manasseh; second, after a cadastral operation throughout the remainder of the land, Benjamin, Simeon, Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Dan. Now, for the Transjordan tribes, SJosh is almost identical to 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊; but for Canaan, it gives, in only one session, shorter notices in a different order, without any survey of the land: Judah, Dan, Simeon, Benjamin, Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali; Caleb is not mentioned. Ant. 5:81-87 has short notices in one session, too, with the same order as SJosh, just putting Dan at the end, according to its later location, in the far north; the fate of that tribe is not very clear, since Judg 18:1 states that the Danites had no inheritance among the tribes of Israel. A detailed comparison of the notices of SJosh and Ant. shows that the territories are quite similar, the most striking feature being the smallness of Judah (see map). Before all the allotments, Josephus has introduced ten surveyors of the whole land of Canaan (Ant. 5:76-79), not according to Josh 18:1-10, but to Num 34:17-29, which displays almost the same order of the tribes as SJosh.11 He adds that Joshua wanted the allotments to be fixed rather by valuation than by measurement, and takes as examples the small but rich territories of Jericho and Jerusalem. In other words, Benjamin and Judah are small regions; this does not square with the large expanse of Judah according to Josh 15. 10) SJosh does not speak of the special cities of the Levites (Josh 21); Ant. 5:91 is content with a short mention according to Num 35:7 (forty-eight cities). However, both SJosh and Ant. 5:91 are accurate about the cities of refuge, Hebron, Shechem and Kedesh of Naphtali, as they are defined in Josh 20:7-9, that is, before the cities of the Levites. Num 37:8-16, like Josephus, has the opposite order, which suggests that the whole chapter Josh 21 has been inserted at the wrong place.12 11) Then, Joshua sends back the eastern tribes (Jos 22:1-9), and they build an “altar of witness” by the Jordan, hence a heated discussion (v. 10-34). Josephus (Ant. 5:96-114) paraphrases both parts, but his narrative is quite lengthy, as if he were lacking material to fill up his book (as he does for the Persian period). SJosh has the first part, but the second is replaced by a story of Joshua making Nobah, son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh, king of the eastern tribes; according to Num 32:42, Nabah is son of Machir. 11 Josephus gives the cadastral operation in a Roman way, with agrimensores, see Oswald A.W. DILKE, The Roman Land Surveyors (Las Palmas: Adolf Hakkert, 1992), p. 96-100. 12 As for the relationship of the chapter with the parallel account of 1 Chr 6:39-66, see the discussion of Trent C. BUTLER, Joshua (Waco : Word Books, 1983), p. 223-6.



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The allotments of the tribes according to Josephus and SJosh. NB. The position of Dan is not stable. The south border of Simeon is not clear, but elsewhere Josephus says it is Edom-Idumea. As for Hebron, he mentions later its allotment to Caleb (Ant. 5:126), but only according to Judg 1:20.

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12) Josh 23-24 has two final addresses to the people. The first one is ignored by both SJosh and Josephus. SJosh begins by an addition of Jos 23:1 and Jos 24:1: “A long time after Yhwh had given rest to Israel… Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem.” Then the speech itself is a shortened version of Jos 24:2-28, with a stress on Mount Gerizim and no mention of Moses. According to Ant. 5:115, Joshua, who was abiding at Shechem after the allotments, summoned the people “twenty years later”; this figure is the result of Josephus’ calculations: twenty-five years of Joshua’s reign (§ 117), minus the five years assigned to the conquest (§ 68). As for the address itself, Josephus gives only a biased summary, omitting the covenant Joshua made with the people at a Shechem shrine without referring to Moses as lawgiver.

To sum up, we cannot avoid the conclusion that SJosh, even poorly preserved, and Josephus’ paraphrase share a same broad pattern that is quite different from the outline of the canonical book, where the discrepancies between 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 are minor in comparison.13 Now, there is no hint at any ancient Greek translation of Samaritan literature, nor can we admit that Josephus would rely upon anything Samaritan. Thus, we may surmise that a special Hebrew book of Joshua lay before Josephus’ eyes, but its detailed content can hardly be restored, all the more so that we do not know to which extent additional 𝔐𝔐 verses have been inserted into SJosh. For instance, SJosh has Joshua’s vision of Josh 5:13-15, but Ant. does not; Josephus may have never seen it, or skipped over it as giving to much prominence to Joshua. But in any case, we must now check whether he owes anything to 𝔊𝔊.

II – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊

We will follow the process of inquiry used for the Pentateuch. Josephus’ paraphrase obviously has many contacts with 𝔊𝔊, but the question is to determine whether it unmistakably depends of its actual Greek wording. Otherwise, the conclusion will be that he used the Hebrew source of 𝔊𝔊, or more accurately the shorter Hebrew version of Joshua detected in the previous section. II.1 Inconclusive Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊

They are numerous, but they may depend on 𝔊𝔊’s Hebrew source. 13 The Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum of Pseudo-Philo has many omissions (the two spies story, the crossing of the Jordan, circumcision and Passover, Achan and Ai, refuge and Levitical cities), but the general pattern is different. See Daniel J. HARRINGTON, “PseudoPhilo (First Century A.D.)”, in James H. CHARLESWORTH (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (New York: Doubleday, 2 vols., 1985), II: 297-377.



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Josh 2:1 ‫בית אשה זונה‬, εἰς οἰκίαν γυναικὸς πόρνης, Ant. 5:7 τι καταγώγιον τοῦ τείχους πλησίον “an inn close to the wall”. It was customary to understand a “harlot-house” as an “inn-keeper” (see Ant. 3:256), like the targ. rendering ‫פונדקיתא‬, of Greek origin. Her house is mentioned later, at v. 15b 𝔐𝔐 “her house was in the city wall (‫)בקיר החומה‬, and she dwelt (‫ )יושבת‬in the wall”, ignored by 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus. 𝔊𝔊 Ρααβ Josh 2:1+ ‫רחב‬ Ant. 5:8 Ῥαάβη, Ῥαχάβη Matt 1:6 Ῥαχάβ, Rahab. 𝔊𝔊 τὴν πόλιν Josh 2:14 ‫הארץ‬ Ant. 5:13 µελλούσης ἁλίκεσθαι τῆς πόλεως. At stake here is the capture of Jericho, not of the whole land; thus, Josephus spontaneously understood like 𝔊𝔊 (as in v. 18). Josh 2:18 ‫תקות )חוט( השני‬ Ant. 5:13 did not have ‫חוט‬, see § III.2. 𝔊𝔊 ἐξέλιπεν τὸ µαννα Josh 5:12 ‫וישבת המן‬ Ant. 5:21 τόν τε γὰρ σῖτον ‫ממחרת באכלם‬ µετὰ τὸ βεβρωκέναι αὐτοὺς ἀκµάζοντα ἠδη τῶν ‫מעבור הארץ‬ ἐκ τοῦ σίτου τῆς γῆς Χαναναίων ἐθέριζον. According to 𝔐𝔐, the manna ceased when their ate the produce of the land. Both 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. omit ‫“ ממחרת‬the next day”, but Josephus introduces the maturity of the crop (without mentioning barley), to give a more realistic picture. In the sequel, Ant. 5:22 says that the encompassing of Jericho began “the first day of the feast”, which may refer to the feast of the Booths (feast of the Ingathering), since Josephus says that the Canaanites remained motionless in spite of the newcomers’ plunderings (see also Neh 8:17). Josh 6:26 Joshua’s imprecation; 𝔊𝔊 adds the fulfilment of 1 Kgs 16:34. Ant. 5:31 alludes to a future fulfillment of the curse upon any rebuilders of Jericho, which actually occurred during the reign of Achab, but Josephus does not mention it at the relevant place (Ant. 8:318, see Chap. V, § I.4, 1 Kgs 16:34). Thus, he did read it here, like 𝔊𝔊, but not necessarily in Greek; it may have been in a marginal gloss.14 𝔊𝔊 Αχαρ υἱὸς Χαρµι Josh 7:1 ‫עכן בן כרמי‬ Ant. 5:33 Ἄχαρος δέ τις ‫בן זבדי‬ υἱοῦ Ζαµβρι (= ‫)זמרי‬ Ζεβεδαίου παῖς. Josephus has Achar (like 1 Chr 2:7 ‫ )עכר עוכר ישראל‬against 𝔐𝔐 here “Achan”, and “Zabdi” against 𝔊𝔊 “Zimri”. As for the omission of Carmi, see § IV.2. Josh 16:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בית חורן עליון‬Βαιθωρων τὴν ἄνω καὶ Γαζαρα Ant. 5:83 ἄχρι Γαζάρων. Both 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. put Gezer in Ephraim, but Josh 16:3 𝔐𝔐 in Manasseh. According to Josh 16:10, Ephraim “did not dispossess the Canaanite living in Gezer”; Josephus did not know this verse, or neglected it.

II.2 Significant Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊

There is no case in which Josephus’ wording depends on the very Greek 𝔊𝔊, and not on a possible underlying Hebrew. 14 See Lea MAZOR, “The Origin and Evolution of the Curse upon the Rebuilder of Jericho”, Textus 14 (1988), p. 1-26.

52

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

III – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊

There are two possible circumstances: either Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 independantly derive from the same Hebrew (especially for names), or Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 agree against 𝔊𝔊 (more frequently). III.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

Josh 2:18 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 תקות )חוט( השני‬τὸ σπαρτίον τὸ κόκκινον Ant. 5:13 ἀνατείνασαν 2:21 ‫תקות השני‬ τὸ σπαρτίον τὸ κόκκινον φοινικίδας. Rahab is ordered to bind a line of scarlet (cord) at a window, but Josephus understood “red flags”; the plural indicates he read ‫ תקות‬as a plural. Moreover, he may not have had ‫( חוט‬maybe a gloss), like 𝔊𝔊. Josh 6:26 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויַשבּע יהושע‬καὶ ὥρκισεν Ἰησοῦς Ant. 5:31 ἀρὰς ἔθετο (Ἰησοῦς). After the destruction of Jericho, Joshua let the people take an oath (𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊), but for Josephus he swore himself, reading a nifal ‫ויִשּבע‬, which is not possible with 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊 Γαι Josh 7:2+ ‫העי‬ Ant. 5:35 τὴν Ἀίαν, Ai (Canaanite city). Josephus never renders initial ‫ ע‬in his transcriptions, except for usual Hellenized names, like Gaza. 𝔊𝔊 Βαιθσαν Josh 17:11+ ‫בית שאן‬ Ant. 5:83 (ἐπὶ) Βηθησάνων Beth-shean. Josh 19:22 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ופגע הגבול( בתבור‬ἐπὶ Γαιθβωρ Ant. 5:83 Ἰταβύριον ὀρος Tabor. Both Ant. and 𝔊𝔊 depend on ‫עיתבור‬, suggesting a ruin (‫)עי‬. Josephus gives the same rendering at Ant. 5:202 (Judg 4:14) and 8:37 (added to 1 Kgs 4:16).

III.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊

𝔊𝔊 αὐτὴ εἶπεν Ὡς ἂν Josh 2:14 ‫והיה בתת‬ Ant. 5:13 οἱ δὲ... ‫יהוה לנו את‬ παραδῷ κύριος ὑµῖν ὤµνυον ἐργῳ τὴν ‫הארץ‬ τὴν πόλιν ἀµοιβὴν ἀποδώσειν. For Josephus and 𝔐𝔐, the spies swore to protect (“to make kindness and truth”) Rahab, but for 𝔊𝔊 she asked for protection (with a different wording), and there is no reply. 𝔊𝔊 ἐγκέκρυπται Josh 7:21 ‫טמונים בארץ‬ Ant. 5:33 ὄρυγµα βαθὺ ποιήσας ‫בתוך האהלי‬ ἐν τῇ σκηνῇ µου ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ σκηνῇ κατώρυξεν. Achan/Achar hid the stolen Jericho items in his tent; 𝔐𝔐 adds “in the earth” (as well as 𝔊𝔊 A, a secondary variant), followed by Josephus “having dug a deep hole in his tent, buried”. SJosh omits the verse. Josh 8:26 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויהושע לא השיב ידו‬om. Ant. 5:47 Ἰησοῦς δὲ τοὺς προσλυόντας ‫עד אשר החרים‬ εἰς τὰς χεῖρας βιασάµενος φεύγειν τρέπεται. After the conquest of Ai, “Joshua did not draw back his hand... until he had utterly destroyed”; 𝔊𝔊 omits the verse, the only one that shows Joshua’s personal action (‫חרם‬, “anathema”); Josephus read it, but he softened the wholesale anathema: “Joshua broke the ranks of his adversaries, and forced them to flee.”



II – JOSHUA

53

Josh 9:17 ‫( 𝔊𝔊 )ועריהם גבעון( והכפירה‬Γαβαων καὶ) Κεφιρα Ant. 5:50 Κεφηρίτας ‫ובארות וקרית יערים‬ καὶ Βηρωθ καὶ πόλις Ιαριν Καριαθιαριµίτας. The coalition around Gibeon includes “Chephirah, Beeroth and Kiriath-jearim (𝔊𝔊 ‘Town of Iarin’)”. Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐, but omits Beeroth, here and later (Ant. 5:82; 7:46); he may have viewed the name as a noun, “wells”. 𝔊𝔊 ὁδὸν ἀναβάσεως Josh 10:10 (‫)וירדפם‬ Ant. 5:60 διὰ χωρίων ἐπι‫דרך מעלה בית־חורן‬ Ωρωνιν κλινῶν, Βήθωρα καλεῖται. Joshua pursued the five kings “by the way of the ascent of Beth-horon (𝔊𝔊 ‘Oronin’)”; Josephus, with “down the slopes of the region called Beth-horon”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐.

𝔊𝔊 om. Josh 10:13 ‫הלא היא כתובה‬ Ant. 5:61 ἐπλεόνασε, δηλοῦται διὰ τῶν ‫על ספר הישר‬ ἀνακειµένων ἐν τῷ ἱερῷ γραµµάτων. During the battle of Beth-Horon, the day got longer than usual, and 𝔐𝔐 adds a reference to the Book of Jashar (the Righteous One), while Josephus refers to “a written document laid in the temple” (see Introd. § I, and Chap. IV, § IV.2, 2 Sam 1:18 and Ant. 7:6). Josh 10:43 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וישב יהושע הגלגלה‬om. Ant. 5:62 εἰς τὸ ἐν Γαλγάλοις στρατόπεδον. 𝔊𝔊 εἴκοσι ἐννέα Ant. 5:73 τριάκοντα καὶ ἕνα. Josh 12:24 ‫)כל מלכים( שלשים ואחד‬ All the kings defeated by Joshua were 31 for 𝔐𝔐, 𝔏𝔏 and Ant., but 29 for 𝔊𝔊. Jos 24:1.25 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 שכם‬Σηλω Ant. 5:114 ἐν Σικίµοις Sichem (Joshua’s last speech). Josh 24:30 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויקברו אתו( בתמנת סרח‬Θαµναθασαχαρα Ant. 5:199 ἐν πόλει Θαµνᾶ. In Judg 2:9, Joshua’s burial place is ‫( בתמנת חרס‬with metathesis), Θαµναθαρες. 𝔊𝔊 adds that the flint knives he used for the circumcision of the Israelites (see Josh 5:2-9, ignored by Josephus and SJosh) were buried with him. At the end of the book, 𝔊𝔊 adds a verse on the Israel’s worship of idols after the death of Phinehas, son of Eleazar (see Judg 2:13).

IV – Josephus’ Idiosyncrasies All the precedent sections add up to the conclusion that, besides interpretations of unknown origin, the only Biblical source of Josephus was a Hebrew form of Joshua (H). In a number of cases, this source was special to him, because of either a misreading due to some alteration of the scroll, or a true variant. Of course, the distinction between these two categories is not clear-cut. IV.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H Josh 2:1 & 3:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 השטים‬Σαττιν Ant. 5:4 (ἀπὸ τῆς) Ἀβίλης Abila (Shittim). According to Num 33:49 the last station before Jericho is ‫ אבל השטים‬Βελσαττιµ, a place Josephus knows, and renders Ἀβίλη (Ant. 4:176). 𝔊𝔊 ἀνεβίβασεν Josh 2:6 ‫והיא העלתם‬ Ant. 5:9 ἐπὶ τοῦ τείχους... τοὺς ‫הגגה‬ αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ τὸ δῶµα κατασκόπους ἀποκρύπτει. Rahab hid up the spies “on the roof”, which is not clear. Josephus ventures “on the city wall”, for he has said that her inn was close to the wall (see § II.1 Josh 2:1).

54

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Josh 4:12 ‫ ח ֻמשים‬...‫ויעברו‬, Josephus may have misread a gloss, see § IV.2 𝔊𝔊 καὶ περιεκάθισαν Josh 10:5 ‫ויחנו‬ Ant. 5:58 στρατοπεδευσαµένους ‫על גבעון‬ τὴν Γαβαων ἐπί τινι πηγῇ τῆς πόλεως. Josephus, who introduces a spring near Gibeon, misread ‫ עין‬for ‫על‬, ‫ ל‬being corrupted into ‫ין‬. 𝔊𝔊 has “besieged”, against 𝔐𝔐 and Ant. “encamped”. Josh 11:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אל מי מרום‬ἐπὶ τοῦ ὕδατος Μαρρων Ant. 5:63 πρὸς Βηρώθῃ πόλει. All the kings arrive at the “Water of Merom”, but Josephus depends on a variant ‫ ;)עיר( בארות‬he may have guessed from erased letters. Josephus knew the Biblical place as Μηρώθ (War 2:573) or Ἀµηρώθ (Life § 188). Josh 18:9 ‫)𝔊𝔊 =( ויכתבוה לערים לשבעה חלקים על ספר‬ Ant. 5:79 ἐν ἑβδόµῳ µηνί. After the allotment of territories to Judah, Ephraim and Manasseh, Joshua gives the seven remaining tribes their parts, after a valuation. SJosh and Josephus have a thorougly different presentation, with only one distribution session for all the Canaan tribes (§ I.2, #9). Josephus alone introduces it with an overall evaluation. Then all the people are summoned the seventh month; such a dating may be the result of a misreading ‫ חדשים‬for ‫חלקים‬. But this possibility would imply that Josephus had something of the valuation of Josh 18, as a gloss located at the beginning of the allotment.

IV.2 Actual Readings of H Josh 4:12 ‫ ח ֻמשים‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעברו‬ Ant. 5:4 ὁπλίταις πενταχισµυρίοις ἀπὸ 4:13 ‫כארבעים אלף עברו‬ τῆς Ἀβίλης ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰόρδανον ἐξῄει. After a meeting with the Transjordan tribes, Josephus alone says that Joshua moved towards the Jordan with 50,000 soldiers; it seems that the figure represents these tribes, and not the whole of Israel. But in a different context, at the end of the crossing, Josh 4:12-13 has a strange similar addition, ignored by SJosh: these very tribes “passed over armed (‫ )ח ֻמשים‬before the sons of Israel... about 40,000 equipped for war (‫ )חלוצי הצבא‬passed over before Yhwh”. Again, the figure probably concerns only these tribes. Thus, Josephus may have read the notice where he puts it – its right place indeed. As for the figure itself, we may observe that in the first sentence ‫ ח ֻמשים‬is redundant; it may have been the outcome of a gloss ‫ חמשים‬in front of the words ‫ חלוצי הצבא‬in the next sentence, which Josephus understood as a correction ‫“ ח ִמשים‬fifty”, hence the figure he gives (and repeats § 93). The same way, he did not recognize ‫ ח ֻמשים‬of Ex 13:18 (see Chap. I.§ II.1). 𝔊𝔊 Αχαρ υἱὸς Χαρµι Josh 7:1 ‫עכן בן כרמי‬ Ant. 5:33 Ἄχαρος δέ τι. 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. have Achar (see § II.1), and Ant. omits Carmi, as in Josh 7:18 𝔊𝔊, which matches the sorting process (v. 16-18): to discover the thief, Joshua brought the tribe of Judah, then took the family of Zerah, and Zabdi was taken; then he brought his household man by man and found Achar/Achan. Thus, there is no room for Carmi, and Josephus’ omission may well reflect the original. At 1 Chr 2:7, Achar is son sof Carmi, but not clearly related to Zerah. 𝔊𝔊 Εσεδεκ Josh 19:10 ‫)גבול נחלתם( עד שריד‬ Ant. 5:84 Γενησαρίδος Genesar. Ant. depends on a reading ‫גן שריד‬, with ‫ גן‬for ‫עד‬, or both; 𝔏𝔏 has ἕως Σαρειδ, close to 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊 (B) may reflect ‫עד שדיך‬, with slight alterations.



II – JOSHUA

55

V – Discussion, Conclusion The only clear conclusion is that Josephus and SJosh shared a common Hebrew source, much shorter than the canonical book of Joshua (the contacts with 𝔊𝔊 or 𝔏𝔏 are negligible). But the loose paraphrase of the former, and the various “Samaritanisms” of the latter make it impossible to restore it properly. Since the Gerizim Samaritans were Israelites of old, these “Samaritanisms” may include ancient traditions, a topic that is beyond the scope of this study.15 But that source cannot be termed a mere “reworked Joshua”, for several reasons.16 The most obvious one is the twofold notice on Joshua and Caleb given in Sir 46:1-10, which mainly focuses on their common attitude in the story of the twelve scouts sent into Canaan according to Num 13. About Caleb, nothing appears beyond what is said of him in Num 14:6-24 and Deut 1:36 (“to him and his son, I will give the land on which he has set foot”).17 The allotment of Caleb’s territory (Josh 14:13-15 & 15:13-19) is ignored, as in SJosh and Josephus’ account. Ben Sirah had a shorter form of Josh. As for Joshua himself, his résumé is quite short: after a general statement on his conquering Canaan, the only specific events alluded to are Joshua’s brandishing his sword “against the cities”, let us say Jericho or Ai (Josh 8:18), and the war against the southern Canaanite coalition, with the miraculous stopping of the sun (Josh 10:11-13). There, 𝔐𝔐 mentions as a source the Book of the Upright One, while Josephus refers to a document kept in the temple (Ant. 5:61), which is mentioned again at 2 Sam 1:18 (𝔐𝔐 & 𝔊𝔊), as including David’s lamentation over Saul and Jonathan (see Introd., § I). Josephus has very few contacts with the Qumran fragments. According to 4QJosha fr. 1-2, dated between 150 and 50 BCE, Joshua built an altar immediately after crossing the Jordan, as at Ant. 5:20, which may match the precept of Deut 27:5 (without the place name); 15 As an example of Judean bias, the identity of the “chosen place” of Deut 12:5 (and 27 more times), is rejected to some future event (‫“ יבחר‬will chose”), but it is close to Ebal and Gerizim (Deut 11:29), on both sides of Shechem, and the reading ‫“( בחר‬has chosen”) should be preferred, see Adrian SCHENKER, “Le Seigneur choisira-t-il le lieu de son nom ou l’a-t-il choisi ?”, in Anssi VOITILA & Jutta M. JOKIRANTA (eds.), Scripture in Transition: Essays on the Septuagint (JSJSup, 126; Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 339-51. 16 Molly M. ZAHN, “Talking about Rewritten Texts: Some Reflections on Terminology”, in Hanne VON WEISSENBERG et al. (eds.), Changes in Scripture (BZAW 419; Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, 2011). p. 93-119. 17 See Jeremy CORLEY, “Canonical assimilation in Ben Sirah’s portrayal of Joshua and Samuel”, in Jeremy CORLEY & Harm van GROL (eds.), Rewriting Biblical History: Essays on Chronicles and Ben Sirah (Berlin / New York: W. de Gruyter, 2011) p. 57-77, who observes that the depiction of Joshua somewhat assimilates him with Moses and David.

56

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fr. 19-22 contains Josh 10:8-11, that is, just before the stopping of the sun, and no useful conclusion can be drawn. The only other manuscript of Joshua, 4QJoshb, dated around 50 BCE, is generally close to 𝔐𝔐, in spite of several contacts with 𝔊𝔊 and some unique readings; contrarily to SJosh and Josephus, it has a fragment of the allotment of the land to the Manasseh tribe (fr. 4, see Josh 17:1-5 & 11-15), but without any context, so that we cannot ascertain whether the distribution of the territory to the tribes follows the pattern of SJosh and Josephus. Other Qumran, probably non-sectarian,18 fragments allude to Joshua.19 The first is 4Q378, which has some contacts with later Rabbinic and Samaritans traditions (e.g. Joshua speaks to the whole people, but only to the Transjordan tribes according to Josh 1:12), but nothing relevant to the present study. However, 4Q379 has interesting features: it expands the curse of the re-builders of Jericho and redirects it to Jerusalem; it uses the Jubilees calendar, with the crossing of Jordan being year I; this may be related to the Sadducees, like 4QMMT.20 4Q522 names many cities conquered by Joshua, adding some, removing others, by comparison with the canonical book. Such a flexibility of the extension of the territory can be seen in other places about the tribe of Judah: the short list of the cities of Judah according to Ne 11:25-35 𝔊𝔊 is enlarged in 𝔐𝔐, and the expansion is probably to be assigned to the Hasmonean period; moreover, the list of the cities of Juda in Josh 15:13-44 has the same structure, but with many more names and an organization in districts, which may reflect a further geographical and literary development.21 Such a growth was unknown to the sources of SJosh and Josephus, who give very few names. The fragments of 5Q9, poorly preserved, display additional place names. Other texts related to the character of Joshua have been identified, even at Masada, but they seem to belong to different compositions. To sum up, the Dead Sea scrolls are not very helpful for assessing the history of the text of Joshua, but do show that the book has attracted many updatings. 18 See Carol. A. NEWSOM, “The ‘Psalms of Joshua’ from Qumran Cave 4”, JSJ 39 (1988), p. 56-73. 19 See Ariel FELDMAN, The Rewritten Joshua Scrolls from Qumran (BZAW, 438; Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, 2014); Émile PUECH, “Les manuscrits de Qumrân inspirés du livre de Josué: 4Q378, 4Q379, 4Q175, 4Q522, 5Q9 et Mas1039-211”, RQ 28 (2016), p. 45-116. 20 See Devorah DIMANT, “Between Qumran Sectarian and Non-Sectarian Texts”, in Adolfo D. ROITMAN et al. (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture (Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2011), p. 235-56; Étienne NODET, “Sadducéens, sadocides, esséniens”, RB 119 (2012), p. 186-212. 21 See Deirdre N. FULTON, Reconsidering Nehemiah’s Judah: The Case of 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 Nehemiah 11-12 (FAT II/80; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2015), p. 167-78.

CHAPTER THREE JUDGES The Samaritan Chronicle II includes a version of the book (SJudg), but without a title, because it simply follows SJosh. In fact, it does not speak of judges, but of kings, regularly appointed by the high priests of Gerizim. Thus, the Israelites had always a ruler, and there is no hint to the typical passage of Judg 2:11-19: “The Israelites did evil in the sight of Yhwh, worshipping the Baals and the Ashtaroth… they could no longer withstand their enemies… Yhwh raised up judges, who saved them… but whenever the judge died, they turned back.” For SJudg there was no apostasy before the last king (Samson), when the priest Eli caused a split and eventually moved to Shiloh, a new sanctuary, where he attracted many Israelites. This was the starting point of the deviant Judean story of Samuel, Saul, David and his heirs. The Damascus Document displays a different view of the period (CD 5:3-5): after the death of Joshua, Eleazar and the elders, the Israelites worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth, for the Torah was kept hidden in the Ark of the Covenant, until the priest Zadok opened it and gave the written Torah to David – and to Israel.1 Thus, Zadok became the eponym ancestor of the Sadducees, who strove to enforce Scripture (see Introd. § II). The migration of the Danites (Judg 18) and the story of the Ephraim Levite’s concubine with the subsequent destruction of Benjamin (Judg 19-20) are the last episodes of the book, but Josephus relates them at the beginning of the period, albeit in the reverse order. He ignores the first story of Micah: his recruiting a Levite (Judg 17). The book of Ruth is included in this chapter, according to Josephus’ paraphrase order; in fact, this is clearly suggested by the first verse (1:1): “And in the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land.” However, Josephus did not include it in his preliminary outline, and at the end of the story he apologizes for relating it: though it is not connected with the history of the judges, it provides a short genealogy of David. 1 Joseph M. BAUMGARTEN & Daniel R. SCHWARTZ, “The Damascus Document”, in James H. CHARLESWORTH et al. (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls II (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1995), p. 18-21.

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I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊

I.1 Inconclusive agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊

𝔊𝔊 ἀφηγούµενος Judg 1:1 ‫( תחילה‬...‫)מי יעלה‬ Ant. 5:120 τῇ Ἰούδα φυλῇ 1:2 ‫יהודה יעלה‬ Ιουδας ἀναβήσεται παρασχεῖν τὴν ἡγεµονίαν. According to 𝔐𝔐, Yhwh says “Judah shall go up”, in reply to “Who is to go up first” for the campaign against the Canaanites; thus, Judah is to be the first, opening the way, while for 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus the tribe is granted a leadership, but this can be viewed for both as a spontaneous interpretation. 𝔊𝔊 adds καὶ Judg 3:30 ‫ותשקט הארץ‬ Ant. 5:197 (Ἰούδης) H adds ‫שמונים שנה‬ ἔκρινεν αὐτοὺς τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐτεσιν ‫וישפט‬ Αωδ ἕως ὀγδοήκοντα ‫אתם אהוד‬ οὗ ἀπέθανεν κατασχών ‫עד מותו‬ According to 𝔐𝔐, “the land had rest for eighty years” after Ehud’s victory; 𝔊𝔊 adds that “he judged the Israelites till his death”, suggesting that he ruled all these years, hence Josephus’ unlikely conclusion, that Ehud was “holding power for eighty years”, which imply that the beginning of the verse could not be properly read. This does not imply that Josephus saw 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊 adds ὅτι οὐκ οἶδα τὴν Judg 4:8 ‫אם לא תלכי‬ Ant. 5:202 τοῦ θεοῦ ‫עמי לא אלך‬ ἡµέραν ἐν ᾗ εὐοδοῖ κύριος προειρηκότος καὶ τὸν ἄγγελον µετ᾿ ἐµοῦ νίκην ἀποσηµήναντος. After Barak’s refusal to march against the Canaanites without Deborah, 𝔊𝔊 adds his explanation: “For I do not know the day when the Lord makes the angel favorable to me;” the day of victory is mentioned at 4:14. Josephus seems to have read such a sentence, for he mentions God’s having displayed previous signs: “God having foretold and betokened victory.” This addition could be a rendering of (H?) ‫כי לא ידעתי את היום אשר יצליח יהוה עמי‬. 𝔊𝔊-B ἐν τῷ κροτάφῳ αὐτοῦ Judg 4:21 ‫)ותתקע את‬ Ant. 5:208 διὰ τοῦ στό𝔊𝔊-A ἐν τῇ γνάθῳ αὐτοῦ ‫היתד( ברקתו‬ µατος κατὰ τοῦ χελυνίου. Jael drove an iron peg into Sisera’ temple (𝔊𝔊-B with Ak.), or his jaw (𝔊𝔊-A with 𝔏𝔏 and Theod.); there are indeed two homonymous roots ‫רקק‬, meaning “spit” and “be thin”, hence the two renderings, Josephus following the second: “Through his mouth and jaw.” Judg 9:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויאספו כל( בעלי שכם‬οἱ ἄνδρες Σικιµων Ant. 5:235 τοῦ πλήθους παντός. According to 𝔐𝔐, “all the prominent men” of Shechem were inclined to follow Abimelech (9:4), then they convened and made him king. 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus understood “all the men”, and the latter added a festival, but this does not imply a Hebrew variant ‫אנשי שכם‬. Judg 9:48 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׂוכת עצים‬-A φορτίον ξύλων, B κλάδον ξύλου A. 5:249 φακέλους ὕλης. Τhe word ‫ שׂוכה‬can be connected to two roots: either ‫“ שׂוכה( שׂכה‬bunch of firewood”), like 𝔊𝔊-A, 𝔏𝔏 and Josephus; or ‫“ שׂוכּה( שׂכך‬branch”), like 𝔊𝔊-B and Mishnaic Hebrew. Judg 14:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וירדהו אל( כפיו‬-A στόµα αὐτοῦ, Β χεῖρας A. 5:288 τρία µέλιτος κηρία.



III – JUDGES

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𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-B say that from the carcass of the lion he had killed, Samson scratched honey “into his hands”, but 𝔊𝔊-A and 𝔏𝔏 have “into his mouth” (from ‫)פיו‬. Apparently, Ant. does not depend on the latter form, but a precision is given, “three honeycombs”, where τρία, which is repeated § 292, should be held as an error for κηρία, followed by a marginal correction poorly inserted. So, if “three” is irrelevant, what is left is very similar to the 𝔏𝔏 addition τὸ κηρίον τοῦ µέλιτος “the honeycomb” (from ‫ ;)וירד את הדבש אל פיו‬such may have been Josephus’ source, but he has reworked the whole story according to the wedding customs he knew. 𝔊𝔊-A 𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῷ φοβεῖσθαι Judg 14:11 ‫)ויהי( כראותם‬ Ant. 5:289 διὰ δέος τῆς ‫אותו‬ αὐτοὺς αὐτόν ἰσχύος οῦ νεανίσκου. At Samson’s wedding feast, “the people saw him”, according to 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-B, but for 𝔊𝔊-A and Ant. “they feared him”, from a variant ‫ כיראתם‬instead of ‫כראותם‬, maybe from a ‫ ו‬or ‫ י‬hovering over a short form ‫כראתם‬. Judg 14:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מהאכל יצא‬-Α, Β Τί βρωτὸν ἐξῆλθεν Ant. 5:290 φησὶν ὅτι τὸ πάµ‫ַמ ֲא ָכל‬ ἐκ βιβρώσκοντος βορον γεγεννήκοι βοράν. Samson’s riddle runs “from the eater came out food”, but Josephus introduces an “omnivorous eater”, from a dittography ‫מהאכל כל‬. 𝔊𝔊-B understood differently the same letters: ‫מה אכל יצא ֵמא ֹכל‬. Judg 14:15 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויהי ביום( השביעי‬τῇ τετάρτῃ Ant. 5:291 τῶν δ᾽ ἐπὶ τρεῖς ἡµέρας οὐ δυναµένων... παρακαλούντων τὴν κόρην. They could not solve Samson’s riddle in three days, and on the “seventh” (𝔐𝔐) day they asked his wife; 𝔊𝔊 has “fourth” (‫)הרביעי‬, as well as Syr and VetLat, which sounds smoother; the difference lies on the change of one letter (‫ ש‬and ‫)ר‬. Josephus says only that after three days they urged the girl, most probably agreeing with 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊-Α νυµφαγωγῷ Judg 14:20 (‫)ותהי אשת שמשון‬ Ant. 5:294 τῷ αὐτοῦ φίλῳ (‫ל ֵמ ֵר ֵעהו )אשר ֵרעה לו‬ Β ἑνὶ τῶν φίλων νυµφοστόλῳ γεγονότι. According to 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-B, Samson’s wife was given to his companion, but 𝔊𝔊-A and Josephus introduce (independantly) a more specific sense “leader of the bride to the groom’s house”, reading a piel ‫( ל ְמרעהו‬like TYon ‫)שושביניה‬, according to the piel ‫ ֵרעה‬at the end of the verse. Judg 15:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 הוא בא‬-Β ἦλθον ἕως Σιαγόνος· Ant. 5:300 γενοµένων H ‫ויבאו‬ ‫עד‬ Α αὐτὸς ἦλθεν κατά τι χωρίον, ὃ Σια‫עד‬ ‫לחי‬ ἕως Σιαγόνος γὼν καλεῖται νῦν ‫לחי‬ The people of Judah were to deliver bound Samson to the Philistines and, according to 𝔊𝔊-B and Josephus, they came to Lehi (Jawbone), but 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-A state that he came himself. In the sequel, the Judah people disappear, so that both versions make sense. 𝔊𝔊-Β εὗρεν σιαγόνα Judg 15:15 ‫וימצא‬ Ant. 5:300 ἁρπασάµενος H ‫וימצא‬ ‫לחי חמור‬ ὄνου ἐκρεριµµένην ὄνου σιαγόνα ‫לחי חמור‬ ‫טריה‬ A adds ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ παρὰ ποσὶν οὖσαν ‫טרוח בדרך‬ Samson found a “fresh donkey jawbone”; the feminine ‫“ טריה‬fresh” of 𝔐𝔐 is awkward, since ‫ לחי‬is masculine, and some tried to understand “of three days”, from τρία (GenR 98:16), but the Greek verb of 𝔊𝔊 (“cast out”) suggests ‫ טרוח‬or maybe ‫טריח‬, with a slight difference ‫ ח‬for ‫ה‬. Josephus says “seizing a donkey jawbone that lay at his feet”; thus, he read the addition “on the way” witnessed by 𝔊𝔊-A.

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Judg 16:3 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 על פני‬ἐπὶ προσώπου Χεβρων Ant. 5:305 εἰς τὸ ὑπὲρ Ἑβ- H + ‫וישם‬ ‫חברון‬ καὶ ἔθηκεν αὐτὰ ἐκεῖ ρῶνος ὄρος κατατίθησιν ‫אותם שם‬ Samson took the gate items of Gaza and carried them to a mountain “opposite Hebron”; 𝔊𝔊 adds “and put them there”, as does Josephus. Judg 16:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בעבתים‬-B, A-𝔏𝔏 ἐν ἑπτὰ καλωδίοις = Ant. 5:311 H ‫בשבע עבתים‬ Only 𝔊𝔊-A, 𝔏𝔏 and Josephus give the number of the ropes to be used to bind Samson (second attempt). But for the third attempt (weaving seven locks of his hair, v. 13), 𝔐𝔐 does not give any number, and perhaps ‫“ שבע‬seven” was a marginal gloss inserted at the wrong place. Judg 16:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצחק‬-B; A 𝔏𝔏 ἐνέπαιζον Ant. 5:311 ὅπως ἐνυH ‫ויצחקו‬ ‫לפניהם‬ αὐτῷ βρίσωσιν αὑτῷ ‫בו‬ The Gaza people called Samson out his prison, and “he made sport before them” (𝔐𝔐), but for 𝔊𝔊-A, 𝔏𝔏 and Josephus “they mocked him”. B adds καὶ ἐρράπιζον αὐτόν “they struck him”, with a rare verb. Judg 19:18 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 ואת בית יהוה )אני ה ֹלך‬τὸν οἶκόν µου Ant. 5:142 πρὸς αὑτόν H ‫ואת ביתי‬ According to 𝔐𝔐, the Levite explains that he is heading to the temple of Yhwh (at Shiloh), but for 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus, he is going back home.

I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊

In no circumstance, it has seemed necessary to admit a direct influence of 𝔊𝔊 or 𝔏𝔏 upon Josephus. I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐

𝔊𝔊 ἐν τῇ πόλει αὐτοῦ Ant. 5:270 ἐν πατρίδι Σεβέῃ H ‫בצפיה עירו‬ Judg 12:7 ‫בערי‬ See § III.2. 𝔊𝔊 Αβιµελεχ Ruth 1:2 ‫ֱאלימלך‬ Ant. 5:318 Ἀβιµέλεχος H ‫אבימלך‬ Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, is Abimelech for 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus (like Gedeon’s son, 5:233); a little spot can transform ‫ ב‬into ‫ל‬, but a slight erasure can cause the opposite result.

II – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊 II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

Judg 1:19 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 כי רכב ברזל להם‬ὅτι Ρηχαβ διεστείλατο αὐτήν Ant. 5:128 ἁρµατῶν. Some enemies could not be defeated, because they had “iron chariots”; so Josephus, while 𝔊𝔊 misunderstood ‫ רכב‬as a name, “Rechab” (cf. 2 Sam 4:2). 𝔊𝔊 διεστείλατο “gave orders” can hardly be reconciled with ‫“ ברזל‬iron”. 𝔊𝔊 Ενακ Judg 1:20 ‫)שלשה בני( הענק‬ Ant. 5:125 τὸ τῶν Γιγάντων ἔτι γένος. These “sons of Anak” around Hebron are mentioned at Num 13:22 ‫ענק‬, 𝔊𝔊 transcribing Εναχ and Ant. 3:305 translating Γίγαντες; Josephus did not follow 𝔊𝔊. See Chap. I, § I.1 Gen 14:5.



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61

Judg 1:23 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויתירו בית‬καὶ παρενέβαλον οἶκος Ant. 5:130 ἡ δὲ Ἐφραίµου πο‫יוסף בבית אל‬ Ισραηλ κατὰ Βαιθηλ λιορκοῦσα... προσεκαρτέρουν. Josephus introduces a lengthy siege of Bethel, understanding ‫ ויתירו‬as a hifil of ‫“ יתר‬remain over”, since the hifil ‫ התיר‬from ‫“ תור‬explore, spy” never occurs elsewhere, and the hifil of ‫“ נתר‬undo, release” cannot be relevant; he may have read ‫ויותירו‬, but not necessarily. He renders the “house of Joseph” as “Ephraim”, which makes sense, since Manasseh is mentioned v. 23; 𝔊𝔊 “house of Israel” lies farther. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 οἱ ἀλλόφυλοι Judg 3:3 ‫פלשׁתים‬ Ant. 5:63 οἱ Παλαιστῖνοι. From Gen to Josh, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes “Philistines” with Φυλιστιιµ, but from this point on, it always renders “aliens”, contraryly to Josephus’ “Palestinians”. 𝔊𝔊 Αωδ (υἱὸν Γηρα) Judg 3:15 (‫אהוד )בן גרא‬ Ant. 5:188 Ἰούδης, Ehud. Both 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus say that Ehud was left-handed (‫)אטר יד ימיני‬, against 𝔊𝔊 ἄνδρα ἀµφοτεροδέξιον “ambidextrous”; see too § II.2 (Judg 20:16). 𝔊𝔊 Ιαηλ γυναικὸς Judg 4:17 ‫יעל אשת‬ Ant. 5:207 παρά τινα τῶν ‫חבר הקיני‬ Χαβερ τοῦ Κιναίου Κενελίδων γυναῖκα Ἰάλην. Josephus does not depend on 𝔊𝔊 for the names “Kenite” and “Jael”. 𝔊𝔊-B καὶ αὐτὸς ἐξεστὼς Judg 4:21 ‫והוא נרדם‬ Ant. 5:208 διεφθορὼς ἤδη ‫ויעף‬ ἐσκοτώθη εἰς ὕπνον τρέπεται. Both 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus say that when Sisera arrived at Jael’s tent, he was “asleep and exhausted”; 𝔊𝔊-B renders “being confused, he was worried”, where the second verb is deemed to be connected with a root ‫“ עוף‬worried”. 𝔊𝔊-A has a very different wording καὶ αὐτὸς ἀπεσκάρισεν ἀνὰ µέσον τῶν γονάτων αὐτῆς καὶ ἐξέψυξεν “and he was convulsed between her knees and gasped”, which interprets 𝔐𝔐 and adds “her knees”. 𝔊𝔊 Εφραθα Judg 6:11 ‫עפרה‬ Ant. 5:229 εἰς Ἐφρὰν τὴν ἑαυτοῦ πατρίδα. Ophrah was Gideon’s native place, as correctly stated by Josephus, but 𝔊𝔊 makes a confusion with Ephrata (‫אפרתה‬, Gen 35,16) as elsewhere (cf. Josh 18:23, &c.). 𝔊𝔊 ἰδοὺ ἡ χιλιάς µου Judg 6:15 ‫הנה אלפי‬ Ant. 5:214 τήν τε γὰρ φυλὴν... ‫הדל במנשה‬ ταπεινοτέρα ἐν Μανασση πλήθους ὑστερεῖν. According to 𝔐𝔐, Gideon says: “my family is the poorest in Manasseh”, against 𝔊𝔊 “my thousand”; following 𝔐𝔐, Josephus rightly understood that Gideon’s clan was not numerous. 𝔊𝔊 Φαρα... Judg 7:10 ‫ֻפרה נערו‬ Ant. 5:219 Φρουρὰν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ θεράποντα. Josephus does not follow 𝔊𝔊, and there is a phonetical attraction of the word φρουρά “guard” (which occurs in 𝔊𝔊 as a rendering of 𝔐𝔐 ‫)נציבים‬, as for the feast of Purim, Est 9:26, see Chap. I, § IV.2, Gen 46:13. 𝔊𝔊 µαγὶς Judg 7:13 (Qer ‫צלול )צליל‬ Ant. 5:219 µᾶζαν ἐδόκει ‫לחם שערים‬ ἄρτου κριθίνου κριθίνην... ἄβρωτον. The “barley bread” is well known, but the first word of 𝔐𝔐 is a hapax, as well as 𝔊𝔊 µαγίς “cake”; TYon understood ‫צלוית אש‬, from ‫“ צלי‬roast”. Josephus conveys the same meaning as 𝔊𝔊, but with a different word. 𝔊𝔊 Ζεβεε καὶ Σαλµανα Judg 8:5 ‫זבח וצלמנע‬ Ant. 5:228 Ζεβὴν καὶ Ζαρµουνήν. Contrarily to 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊, for Josephus Oreb and Zeeb are kings of Midian, whereas Zebah and Zalmuna are the last remaining chiefs. 𝔊𝔊 (ἐν) Μασσηφα Judg 11:11 ‫מצפה‬ Ant. 5:261 (ἐν) Μασφαθῇ, Mizpah.

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Judg 12:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 אבצן מבית לחם‬-A Εσεβων, B Αβαισαν Ant. 5:271 Ἀψάνης, Ibzan. Josephus adds “of the tribe of Judah”; it cannot be Bethlehem of Zebulun (Josh 19:15), for the next judge is Elon the Zebulunite. 𝔊𝔊-A Φρααθων, B Φαραθωµ Ant. 5:273 ἐν Φαραθῷ. Judg 12:15 ‫)ויקבר( בפרעתון‬ 𝔊𝔊 Μανωε Ant. 5:276 Μανώχης, Manoah, Samson’s father. Judg 13:2 ‫מנוח‬ Contrarily to his usual practice, Josephus here transcribes ‫( ח‬but he may have read a corrupt form ‫)מנוך‬ 𝔊𝔊 Ηταµ Judg 15:8 ‫עיטם‬ Ant. 5:297 Αἰτάν, Etam (rock). Judg 21:14 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בסלע רמון‬ἐν τῇ πέτρᾳ Ρεµµων Ant. 5:166 ἐπὶ πέτρας τινὸς Ῥοᾶς. 𝔊𝔊 transcribes the name of the refuge of the last Benjaminites, but Josephus accurately translates “pomegranate” (see Num 13:23; Deut 8:8). Ruth 2:23 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ותדבק( בנערות )בעז‬τοῖς κορασίοις Ant. 5:327 ταῖς... θεραπαινίσιν. Ruth stayed by Boaz’s “maids”, which 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus render differently.

II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊

𝔊𝔊 καὶ οὐκ ἐκληρονόµησεν Judg 1:18 ‫וילכד יהודה‬ Ant. 5:177 τῆς Ἰούδα ‫את עזה‬ Ιουδας τὴν Γάζαν φυλῆς τὴν Ἀσκἀλωνα ‫ואת אשקלון‬ καὶ τὴν Ἀσκαλῶνα καὶ Ἀκκαρῶνα ‫ואת עקרון‬ καὶ τὴν Ακκαρων παρεσπάσαντο. In the story of Dan, Josephus adds to Judg 1:34 that the Canaanites had wrested cities from Judah and forced the Danite to flee; this implies that Judah had taken these cities previously, in agreement with 𝔐𝔐 here (“Juda captured Gaza, etc.”), whereas 𝔊𝔊 states that Judah did not. 𝔊𝔊 Συρίας ποταµῶν Judg 3:8 ‫)מלך( ארם נהרים‬ Ant. 5:180 τῶν Ἀσσυρίων. The Israelites are invaded by Cushan-rishataim, king of Mesopotamia; as for the name of the country, 𝔊𝔊, which renders elsewere Μεσοποταµία, gives here a meaningless translation “Syria of the rivers”; Josephus read like 𝔐𝔐, introducing his knowledge of Assyria (see War 1:13). Judg 3:12 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 עגלון )מלך מואב‬Εγλωµ Ant. 5:186 Ἐγλῶν Eglon, king of Moab. Judg 8:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 = )וימת גדעון( בשׂיבה טובה‬-A B ἐν πόλει αὐτοῦ Ant. 5:232 γηραιός. Gideon died “in a good old age” (𝔐𝔐), correctly rendered by Josephus and 𝔊𝔊-A ἐν πολιᾷ ἀγαθῇ, while 𝔊𝔊-B reflects ‫בעירו‬. Judg 9:26 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויבטחו בו )בעלי שכם‬-A ἐπεποίθησαν, B ἤλπισαν Ant. 5:241 δέονται. According to 𝔐𝔐, 𝔊𝔊-B and Josephus, Gaal came to Shechem, and “the people put their trust in him”, but for 𝔊𝔊-A they had put it previouly, maybe from a reading ‫ובטחו‬. 𝔊𝔊 τριάκοντα καὶ δύο υἱοί Ant. 5:254 παῖδας τριάκοντα. Judg 10:4 ‫שלשים בנים‬ For the number of Jair’s son, Josephus follows 𝔐𝔐. See also § II.1. Judg 10:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )וימת יאיר ויקבר( בקמון‬Ραµµω, Ραµνων Ant. 5:254 Καµών, Kamon. 𝔊𝔊 had first a misreading (‫ ק‬erased into ‫ )ר‬for Jair’s burial place, and later came copyist hesitations. 𝔊𝔊 Τωβ Ant. 5:260 διέτριβεν ἐν τῇ Γαλαδίτιδι. Judg 11:3 ‫ וישב בארץ( טוב‬...‫)יפתח‬



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The land’s name “Tob” can be understood as a noun “kindness” (so TYon ‫)טבא‬. Jephthah has been introduced as a Gileadite (11:1), and after being cast away by his brothers (11:2), Josephus puts him back in his native land, instead of “Tob”, and adds that he was welcoming everyone from everywhere, while 11:4 says these newcomers were “worthless fellows”; this shows that Josephus understood ‫ ארץ טוב‬as a “land of kindness”. Judg 11:33 ‫𝔊𝔊 )עד בואך( מנית‬-Α Σεµωιθ, Β Αρνων Ant. 5:263 Μανιάθης, Minnith. 𝔊𝔊-A has read ‫ מוית‬instead of ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;מנית‬has Μενειθ, akin to Ant. Judg 15:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישב‬-Α κατῴκει παρὰ τῷ χειµάρρῳ Ant. 5:297 Αἰτὰν ‫בסעיף‬ ἐν τῷ σπηλαίῳ Ηταµ κατῴκει, ‫סלע עיטם‬ B ἐκάθισεν ἐν τρυµαλιᾷ τῆς πέτρας Ηταµ πέτρα δ᾽ἐστι. 𝔊𝔊-A “(Samson) dwelt by the brook in the cave Etam” (phrase similar to Isa 2:21 ‫ ;)בס ִעפי הסלעים‬B “he sat in a hole of the rock Etam”. Ant. is closer to 𝔐𝔐 and B, but it ignores ‫סעיף‬. Judg 20:16 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )בחור( אטר יד ימיני‬ἀµφοτεροδέξιοι Ant. 5:156 ταῖς λαιαῖς τῶν χειρῶν. For 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, the army of Benjamin includes picked men who are “weak at the right hand”, that is, “left-handed”; for 𝔊𝔊, they are “ambidextrous”, like Ehud, see § II.1 (Judg 3:15). 𝔊𝔊 Βοος Ruth 2:1 ‫בעז‬ Ant. 5:323 Βοώζης Boaz, Naomi’s relative. 𝔊𝔊 Ρουθ ἔδωκεν αὐτῇ Ruth 2:18 ‫ותתן לה‬ Ant. 5:326 ἐτετηρήκει δ᾽ αὐτῇ καὶ ‫את אשר הותרה‬ ἃ κατέλιπεν ἡ Ναάµις ἀποµοίρας βρωµάτων. Ruth came back to Naomi, and “she gave her what she left” from her previous meal; 𝔐𝔐 is ambiguous, but 𝔊𝔊 understood “Ruth gave”, while Josephus introduced the food that the neighbors gave Naomi, so that “Naomi gave” some leftover.

II.3 Hebrew Explanations Judg 1:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אדני בזק‬Αδωνιβεζεκ Ant. 5:121 Ἀδωνιζεβέκῳ, Ζεβεκηνῶν κύριος. Josphus adds a translation “leader of the Zebekenians” and explains the meaning of adoni; for the altered name, see § III.2. The name appears at Josh 10:1 𝔊𝔊 for the king of Jerusalem (𝔐𝔐 ‫)אדני צדק‬. Judg 4:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 = דברה‬ Ant. 5:200 adds µέλισσαν δὲ σηµαίνει τοὔνοµα 4:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = ברק‬5:201 adds βάρακος δ᾽ ἐστι ἀστραπὴ κατὰ τὴν Ἑβραίων γλῶσσαν. Josephus adds accurate translations to the transcriptions: “bee” for Deborah, and “lightning” for Barak. Judg 13:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שמשון‬ Ant. 5:285 Σαµψῶνα καλοῦσιν, ἰσχυρὸν δ᾽ ἀποσηµαἰνει. That ‫“ שמשון‬Samson” would mean “strong” is not accurate, but it may have been a colloquial diminutive of ‫“ שמש‬little sun”; or else, a common interpretation, maybe in Aramaic, for we read in the next verse ‫“ ותחל רוח יהוה לפעמו‬the spirit of Yhwh began to stir him”, and TYon adds ‫ גבורא‬after ‫רוח‬, hence “the spirit of strength of Yhwh”. 𝔊𝔊 Νωεµιν, Ruth 1:20 (‫)אל תקראנה לי‬ Ant. 5:323 σηµαίνει δὲ καθ᾽ Ἑβραἰων ‫נעמי )קראן לי( מרא‬ Πικράν ναάµις µὲν εὐτυχίαν, µαρὰ δὲ ὀδύνην. 𝔊𝔊 transcribes “Naomi” and translates “Mara”, without transcription; Josephus’ renderings, “happiness” and “grief”, do not depend on 𝔊𝔊.

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Ruth 4:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ותקראנה‬ Ant. 5:336 adds ὠβήδης γὰρ κατὰ διάλεκτον ‫שמו עובד‬ τὴν Ἑβραίων ἀποσηµαίνει δουλεύων. The women named Ruth’s son Obed; Josephus adds a translation, “servant”.

III – Josephus’ Idiosyncrasies III.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H Judg 1:16 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ובני קיני‬υἱοὶ Ιωβαβ τοῦ Κιναίου Ant. 5:127 Ἰοθόρου τοῦ Μαδιανίτου ‫ חתן משה‬πενθεροῦ Μωυσῆ ἀπογονοῖς, Μωυσέως γὰρ ἦν γαµβρός. 𝔐𝔐 does not give the name of Moses’ father-in-law, unlike Judg 4:11 ‫חבב‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ιωβαβ, “Hobab”; however, according to Exod 18:1 Moses’ father-in law was Jethro-Reuel, and Num 10:29 states that Hobab, the guide of the Israelites in the wilderness, was the latter’s son, hence Josephus’ correction (which appears here in 𝔊𝔊-B, too, but with a different phrasing). 𝔊𝔊 καὶ ἔσωσεν Judg 3:31 ‫ויּ ֹשע‬ Ant. 5:197 ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ H* ‫ויּ ֹשע‬ ‫את ישראל‬ τὸν Ισραηλ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἔτει ‫את ישראל‬ 4:1 ‫ואהוד מת‬ (om.) καρέστρεψε τὸν βίον ‫ואחד מת‬ After Ehud, the notice on Shamgar is very short, and Josephus adds that “he died in the first year of his rule”. At the beginning of the next notice (next verse), on Deborah, 𝔐𝔐 has a misplaced addition “and Ehud was dead”, awkwardly skipping over Shamgar. If we conjecture that it was a gloss poorly inserted, we can slightly alter it in order to meet Josephus’ addition, by changing ‫ ואהוד‬into ‫ואחד‬, and viewing a two-word gloss, or maybe two one-word glosses. 𝔊𝔊 Ιωας, καὶ Γεδεων... Ant. 5:213 Γεδεὼν ὁ Ἰάσου. Judg 6:11 ‫ וגדעון בנו‬...‫יואש‬ Josephus, who may have read ‫יאש‬, adds from his own that Gideon son of Jehoash was “one of the foremost of the tribe of Manasseh”. Judg 6:17-7:3 is omitted by Ant. 5:214, but some features of Gideon’s sacrifice appear in the story of Manoah’s, see below Judg 13:19. Judg 7:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כל בני קדם‬ Ant. 5:224 τὸ τῶν πολεµιων στρατόπεδον, νεµηθέντες ‫כארבה לרב‬ κατὰ τὰ ἔθνη, ὑφ᾽ ἑνὶ κύκλῳ πάντες ἦσαν. Ιn 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, the magnitude of the enemy camp is indicated before the Midianite’s dream, but Josephus puts it after Gideon’s launching the attack. Without conjecturing a source, it is better to surmise that the author had skipped over the verse; then, revising the text, he paraphrased it as a marginal gloss, between two columns of the scroll; eventually, the correction was inserted at the wrong place. Judg 8:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ופילגשו אשר בשכם ילדה לו‬ Ant. 5:233 νόθος δὲ εἷς ἐκ 9:41 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וישב אבימלך( בארומה‬-A Αριµα, B Αρηµα παλλακῆς Δρούµας. According to Judg 8:31, Gideon had a bastard named Abimelech, born to a concubine living in Shechem. In the sequel, Abimelech strove to rule Shechem, but failed against the party of Gideon’s legitimate sons; he eventually took refuge at Arumah (9:41). Now, Josephus omits Shechem and adds the concubine’s name, Drumah. The genealogy of this name can be conjectured as follows: Drumah is a slight Greek uncial error for Arumah (Δ for A); “Arumah” (called “TerumahTormah” at 9:31) may look like the native place of Abimelech, so that the con-



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65

cubine may or should have lived there; hence, a gloss ‫ ארומה‬was put in front of ‫ שכם‬of 8:31 in the Biblical scroll; Josephus read it and mistakenly took it as her name. In any case, he did not see the 𝔊𝔊 forms of Arumah. Judg 9:22 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = וישר אבימלך על ישראל שלש שנים‬Ant. 5:240 µετ᾽ οὐ πολὺ τῆς ἑορτῆς. Josephus ignores the verse, with the tree-year reign of Abimelech, and gives him a very short tenure, for the discord happens “not long after the festival” when he was established (5:235). Judg 10:4 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 רכבים על שלשים עירים‬ἐπὶ τριάκοντα δύο πώλους Ant. 5:254 ἱππεύειν ‫ ושלשים עירים להם‬τριάκοντα καὶ δύο πόλεις αὐτοῖς ἀρίστους. Here, Josephus clearly follows 𝔐𝔐 and not 𝔊𝔊 (see § II.2 on the number of Jair’s sons). Now, ‫ עירים‬means either “donkeys” or “cities” (like ‫)עירות‬, hence a pun that is somewhat reflected in 𝔊𝔊 πώλους / πόλεις. Josephus says that Jair’s sons were “excellent horsemen”; thus, he missed the first meaning “donkeys” and undestood that the sons rode “over, against” (‫ )על‬the cities. Judg 11:11 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וישימו העם אותו‬ἔθηκαν... ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς Ant. 5:260 εἰς ἀεὶ παρέχειν ‫ עליהם לראש ולקצין‬εἰς κεφαλὴν καὶ εἰς ἀρχηγόν αὐτῷ τὴν ἡγεµονίαν. The people made Jephthah “head and leader” over them, with a redundancy; they had requested him to be their “leader” (‫קצין‬, 11:6). Josephus adds “forever”, which may correspond to ‫ ;לאין קץ‬he may have misread ‫ קצאין‬or ‫ קץ אין‬for ‫קצין‬. Judg 11:37 (Qer ‫ 𝔊𝔊 רעיתי )רעותי‬αἱ συνεταιρίδες µου Ant. 5:265 µετὰ τῶν πολιτῶν. Jephthah’s daughter wants to bewail her virginity with “my companions”, but Josephus has “with her fellow-citizens”; he may have read ‫רעי‬, hence an unexpected meaning, or else been absent-minded, for in the previous sentence he added that she had to die in return for her father’s victory and “the freedom of the fellow-citizens”, with the same word πολιτῶν. Judg 12:13 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עבדון בן הלל‬Α (Ισραηλ) Λαβδων υἱὸς Σελληµ Ant. 5:273 Ἀβδὼν Β (Ισραηλ) Αβδων υἱὸς Ελλην Ἤλωνος παῖς. 𝔊𝔊-A has two dittographies (Λ and Σ), but is close to 𝔏𝔏 Εληµ; Ant. must be false, for Elon, the previous judge, is a Zebulunite, and cannot be the father of Abdon, an Ephraimite (Judg 12:15). The error may be due to Josephus’ sloppiness. Judg 12:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = רכבים על שבעים עיָ ִרם‬ Ant. 5:274 πᾶσιν ἱππάζειν ἀρίστοις. Abdon and his sons and grandsons rode on seventy “donkeys”, but the word may also mean “cities”, see above Judg 10:4; here, too, Josephus adds that they were “excellent horsemen”, and he may have understood the verse “riding all over seventy cities”, and deduced the quality of the horsemen. Judg 13:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקח מנוח את גדי‬ Ant. 5:283 προσέταξεν ἐπὶ τῆς πέτρας ἀποθέ‫העזים ואת המנחה‬ σθαι τούς τε ἄρτους καὶ τὰ κρέα χωρὶς τῶν ἀγ‫ויעל על הצור ליהוה‬ γείων, ἅπτεται τῇ ῥάβδῳ τῶν κρεῶν... ἑκαίετο. Manoah took the kid and the grain, and offered them to God (and then the angel ascended in the flame); but Josephus says that the angel ordered him to put the offerings on the stone without the vessels, then let them burn by touching them, and eventually ascended to heaven with the smoke. This wording, which contradicts the verse, has affinities with Gideon’s sacrifice (not reported by Josephus, see above Judg 6:17): he was ordered to put the offerings on the stone, then “the angel of Yhwh put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up” (Judg 6:20-21).

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In 13:19, the phrase ‫ ויעל על הצור‬may mean that Manoah put the offerings on the stone; if we restore the angel’s order (‫קח את הבשר ואת המנחה והנח אל הסלע הלז‬ “take the meat and the offering and lay upon this stone”), then Josephus must have read in the sequel, instead of ‫ ליהוה‬at the end of 13:19, something like ‫וישלח‬ ‫מלאך יהוה את קצה המשענת אשר בידו ויגע בבשר ובמנחה ותעל האש מן הצור‬. It seems that in H Gideon’s sacrifice was missing, but that the error was somewhat corrected in a marginal gloss, which was later inserted at the wrong place. Judg 15:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויבקע אלהים‬-Α ἤνοιξεν ὁ θεὸς τὸ τραῦµα Ant. 5:303 ἐπικλασθεὶς ‫את המכתש‬ B ἔρρηξεν ὁ θεὸς ὁ θεὸς πηγὴν κατά (‫)אשר בלחי‬ τὸν λάκκον τινος πέτρας ἀνίησιν. Samson was thirsty, and God gave him water by “splitting the hollow”, which is not clear; the word ‫ מכתש‬was not well known (from ‫“ כתש‬pound, crush”, see Prov 27:22), and the 𝔊𝔊 translators were at a loss: A ventured “wound” (normally ‫)פצע‬, and B “cistern” (normally ‫)בור‬. Josephus renders “a spring from a rock”, either a guess from the context, or a reminiscence of the miracle of the spring at Rephidim (see Ant. 3:35). 𝔊𝔊 ἐὰν δήσωσίν µε Judg 16:7 ‫אם יאסרני‬ Ant. 5:308 εἰ κλήµασιν ἑπτὰ ‫בשבעה יתרים לחים‬ ἐν ἑπτὰ νευραῖς ὑγραῖς... δεθείη ἀµπελίνοις ἀσθεν‫וחליתי והייתי כאחד האדם‬ ...ὡς εἷς τῶν ἀνθρώπων έστερος ἂν πάντων ἔσοιτο. Samson tells Dalila “if they bind me with seven fresh cords... I will be like any man”. Ant. sounds different “if he were bound by seven vine-shoots... he would be weaker than all”; for “vine-shoots” Josephus read or guessed ‫ זמרים‬instead of ‫( יתרים‬a rare word); for “weaker than all” he may have read ‫ כאחר‬insead of ‫כאחד‬, hence “like the last of a man”. Judg 18:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ורחקים המה מצד ֹנים‬ Ant. 5:178 Σιδῶνος πόλεως ὁδὸν ἡµέρας µιᾶς. The Danites project to move to Laish, close to the eastern source of the Jordan (Paneion), for the place is quiet and the inhabitants are “far from the Sidonians”. Josephus adds that the distance is “one day march”, which cannot be accepted, for as the crow flies it is at least 50 km; but he knew the region, so that here he must have been driven astray by his source. Now, he mentions Sidon, and not the Sidonians, in spite of his habit to name the inhabitants instead of the cities; moreover, the word ‫ צידנים‬lacks a ‫ ו‬before ‫נ‬. Thus, a simple explanation emerges: a ‫ ו‬was added above the word as a correction, and he understood it to be inserted after ‫ני‬, hence ‫ מצידניום‬or ‫“ מצידן יום‬from Sidon one day”. 𝔊𝔊 Μασσηφα Judg 20:1 (‫מצפה )אל יהוה‬ Ant. 5:150 Σιλοῦν πρὸ τῆς σκηνῆς. After the crime of Gibeah, the tribes of Israel gathered at Mizpah. The text somewhat suggests that the tabernacle is there, but according to Ant. 5:68, in keeping with Josh 18:1, Joshua had erected it at Shiloh; Josephus, with “at Shiloh, before the tabernacle”, harmonizes.

III.2 Actual readings of H 𝔊𝔊 Βεζεκ Ant. 5:121 Ζεβέκης, Bezek (Canaanite city) Judg 1:4 ‫בזק‬ H ‫זבק‬ Judg 1:7 (‫ = 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = שבעים )מלכים‬Ant. 5:123 δυοῖν καὶ ἑβδοµήκοντα H ‫שבעים ושנים‬ H and 𝔏𝔏 may be the result of an error ‫ שבים‬for ‫שבעים‬, which generated a marginal corrections ‫שבעים‬, which were eventually added up. Judg 1:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימת שם‬ Ant. 5:123 τελευτήσαντα θάπτουσιν H ‫וימת ויקבר שם‬



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Josephus narrative is not consistant: Bezek is buried in Jerusalem before the capture of the city (5:124); thus, he was compelled by his source. Judg 3:9 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עתניאל בן קנז‬Γοθονιηλ υἱὸς Κενεζ Ant. 5:182 Κενίαζος H ‫קנז בן עתנאל‬ For the first judge “Othniel son of Kenaz”, the summary of the book (s4) has διὰ Κενίζου τοῦ Ἀενιήλου (for Ἀθνιήλου) παιδός, which cannot be related to the 𝔊𝔊 form; thus, Josephus read the names in the reverse order, maybe with ‫קניז‬. SJudg has ‫נתנאל בן קנז‬. Judg 6:7-10 ‫ ולא שמעתם בקולי‬...‫ וישלח יהוה איש נביא‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויהי כי זעקו בני ישראל‬ H om. Between a report on the Madianite oppression (Judg 6:1-6, ending with a cry for help ‫)ויזעקו בני ישראל‬, and the sending of an angel to Gideon (v. 11), this passage introduces the mission of an unnamed prophet, who brings along a word of Yhwh, ending with a reproach of unfaithfulness (“you have not listened to my voice”). In spite of the repetition of a previous phrase, it has no clear connection with the context and Gideon’s mission. Josephus (Ant. 5:212) does not allude to the prophet and his words; this could be of no consequence, but the same omission occurs in 4QJudga fr. 1:5, with nothing suggesting a void, and it has been deemed to reflect a more original text, prior to a late Dtr insertion introducing a prophet.2 Thus, Josephus reflects an earlier form of the text. Judg 12:6 (‫𝔊𝔊 = ארבעים )ושנים אלף‬ Ant. 5:269 περὶ (δισχιλίους...) H ‫כארבעים‬ In a battle against the Ephraimites, Jephthah slew 42,000 men, but Josephus says “some 42,000”, from a variant (cf. Judg 8:10 ‫)כחמשת עשר אלף‬. 𝔊𝔊 ἐν τῇ πόλει αὐτοῦ Ant. 5:270 ἐν πατρίδι Σεβέῃ Judg 12:7 ‫בערי‬ ‫בצפיה עירו‬ Jephthah was buried “in the cities of Gilead”; 𝔊𝔊 read ‫“ בעירו‬in his city”, which is not named; so did Josephus, but he adds a name, Sebee, which has an affiniy with 𝔏𝔏 σεφ, σεφε. Now, some time before Jephthah’s death, the men of Ephraim “crossed to Zaphon” (‫ )צפונה‬and met him there, seemingly his dwelling place (his birthplace has not been named); thus, the name of “his city” can be restored ‫ צפון‬or ‫( צפיה‬Mez). Judg 15:6 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )וישרפו‬-B; 𝔏𝔏-A τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ πα- Ant. 5:296 τὴν... H (‫)וישרפו‬ ‫אותה ואת‬ τρὸς αὐτῆς καὶ αὐτὴν γυναῖκα καὶ τοὺς ‫אותה ואת‬ ‫אביה‬ καὶ τὸν πατέρα αὐτῆς συγγενεῖς ζῶντας ‫בית אביה‬ 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-B: the Philistines burned Samson’s wife and her father; for Josephus, they burned her and her kinsfolk alive, from a reading ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;בית אביה‬and 𝔊𝔊-A stand in between, with the translation of 𝔐𝔐 preceded by an addition τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῆς καί “the house of her father and”, hence a kind of doublet. 𝔊𝔊-A Δαλιλα, B Δαλιδα Ant. 5:306 Δαλάλη, Δαδάλη H ‫דללה‬ Judg 16:4 ‫דלילה‬ For the name Delilah, the Greek mss (𝔊𝔊 and Ant.) have hesitations Δ /Λ. Judg 16:14 𝔊𝔊 A and 𝔏𝔏 add καὶ οὐκ Ant. 5:312 ὡς οὐδὲ τοὐτου γε- H + ‫ולא‬ ἐγνώ σθη ἡ ἰσχὺς αὐτοῦ νοµένου ἀληθες εὑρίσκετο ‫נודע כחו‬ The 𝔊𝔊 A-𝔏𝔏 addition reproduces the end of v. 9, and Ant. has it. 𝔊𝔊 Σαραα Judg 16:31 (‫)בין( צרעה )ובין אשתאל‬ Ant. 5:317 ἐν Σαρασᾶ H ‫צרצה‬ Samson was buried “between Zorah and Eshtaol”, but Josephus read ‫ צרצה‬instead of ‫ ;צרעה‬2 Chr 11:10 mentions Zorah as a city of Judah, but at Ant. 8:246, 2 See DJD 14, p. 162-3; Julio TREBOLLE BARRERA, “Textual Variants in 4QJudg.a and the Textual and Editorial History of the Book of Judges”, RQ 14 (1989), p. 229-45.

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Josephus transcribes Σαράµ, and it is not clear whether he viewed it as the same place. Judg 19:2 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 ותזנה )עליו פילגשו‬ὠργίσθη Ant. 5:137 καταλιποῦσα H ‫ותזנח‬ 𝔐𝔐 tells us that the Levite’s concubine played the harlot against him, but 𝔊𝔊 hesitates: A-𝔏𝔏 ὠργίσθη “she got angry” (maybe from a guess ‫)ותרגז‬, Β ἐπορεύθη “she walked away”, close to Ant. Thus, Josephus read ‫“ ותזנח‬she left” (easily mistaken with ‫)ותזנה‬, which probably is the original, since in the sequel the Levite did not denounce her to her father. Judg 19:2 ‫ אל בית לחם‬...‫ 𝔊𝔊 = ותלך‬Ant. 5:137 πρὸς τοὺς γονεῖς H (?) ‫ותהי שם‬ ‫ותהי שם ימים‬ παραγίνεται ‫ימים ארבעה חדשים‬ ‫ארבעה חדשים‬ µηνὶ τετάρτῳ ‫ אל בית לחם‬...‫ותלך‬ The Levite’s concubine walked away and turned back to her father’s at Bethlehem; according to 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, she stayed there four months before the Levite moved after her. Josephus states that she was with the Levite till the fourth month, before reaching Bethlehem; thus, he may either have had the verse in the reverse order “she was there four months, then went to Bethlehem” (H), or else reworked the story for more consistency. Judg 19:30 ‫𝔊𝔊 = והיה‬-B; A and 𝔏𝔏 add ἐνετείλατο Ant. 5:149 ἐντειλάµενος H ‫ויצו‬ τοῖς ἀνδράσιν, τοῖς κοµίζουσι ‫לאנשים‬ ‫כל הראה‬ οἷς ἐξαπέστειλεν, ‫השלוחים‬ λέγων ‫לאמר‬ ‫ואמר‬ Τάδε ἐρεῖτε λέγειν ‫כה תאמרו‬ πρὸς πάντα ‫לכל איש‬ ‫לא נהיתה‬ ἄνδρα Ισραηλ ‫ישראל‬ ‫ולא נראתה‬ Εἰ γέγονεν κατὰ τοὺς αἰτίους ‫אם נהיה‬ ‫כזאת‬ τὸ ῥῆµα τοῦτο ‫כזאת‬ ‫למיום‬ ἀπὸ τῆς ἡµέρας ‫למיום‬ ‫עלות‬ ἀναβάσεως ‫עלות‬ According to 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-B, the Levite divided his wife’s corpse into twelve pieces and sent them to the tribes, “so that all who saw it would say: Nothing like this has happened and been seen from the day of the coming up” of the Israelites from Egypt; 𝔊𝔊-A and 𝔏𝔏 have this and add another, longer version of the same instruction: “And he ordered the men he sent, saying: Thus you shall say to every man of Israel: If it came to pass like this thing since the day of the coming up, etc.” Josephus mentions the order given to the envoys, which means that he did read the second version (the Levite’s speech), but most probably not the first. Ruth 4:18-21 David’s genealogy, down from Perez (without Elimelech) H omits. In concluding Ruth’s story, Josephus mentions only Obed, Jesse’s father; he marvels that king David sprang from such common ancestors (Ant. 5:337), which could hardly be said of a genealogy attached to Perez, Judah’s son.

IV – Conclusions The content of Josephus’ paraphrase deviates from the Bible in some details and in two major points. The first concerns the order of the episodes in Judg, for he exchanges beginning and end: he puts the story of the Levite of Benjamin close to the very beginning of the



III – JUDGES

69

period, after an outline of Judg 1-2 (Ant. 5:136-174), and then a shortened account of Dan’s migration northwards (Ant. 5:177-178). In the summary, he only mentions the Levite episode, with the sin of Israel, and explains that it caused the victorious invasion of the Assyrians. This is an allusion to the deeds of “Cushan-richataim, king of Mesopotamia (Judg 3:8 ‫ארם נהרים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Συρίας ποταµῶν)”, which was the very first of Israel’s subjugations to foreign dominion. One may comment that in the text of Ant., the connection is broken, because Dan’s move is inserted before that invasion. It seems that the summary points to a different form of the beginning of Judg. As for Dan’s migration, Judg 18:2 gives it a strange cause: “In those days, the Danite tribe was seeking for itself a legal place (‫נחלה‬, 𝔊𝔊 κληρονοµίαν) to dwell in.” This refers to Judg 1:34: “The Amorites pressed the sons of Dan.” Josephus thinks otherwise (Ant. 5:176): the Israelites had devoted themselves to husbandry, and the Canaanites managed to take back from Judah their former cities of Ashkelon and Ekron, so that the Danites could not resist and were squeezed and forced to flee. Such a narrative makes good sense: the first part is an echo of Judg 3:1, that God had left some nations in Canaan, in order to test the Israelites, who had no experience of war; the second part builds upon Judg 1:18 𝔐𝔐, which says that Judah had captured those cities, as well as Gaza (contrarily to 𝔊𝔊, see § II.2). To sum up, we can discern three stages in Josephus’ work: first, the shortened account which is reflected in the summary, without Dan; second, the discovery of a floating story of Dan’s move; third, a clear knowledge of Judg 1-16, in which he strove to attach Dan’s story to Judg 1:18, and the Levite’s to Judg 3:8. The good side of his presentation is that it leaves sufficient room for the restoration of Benjamin before the events of the next book: Samuel “judged Israel all the days of his life, but all the cities he visited were in Benjamin (1 Sam 7:15); Saul, the first king, was a Benjaminite (9:1). The bad side is that the position the Danites in the far north can hardly be reconciled with the story of the last judge, Samson of Dan, which takes place between Judah and the Philistine territories, that is, in the region first allotted to Dan. Josephus was bound by his sources, and he did not know Judg as it actually stands. Another outstanding point is that for Josephus, who was very sensitive to genealogy, David was a commoner. At Ant. 5:337, he ignores David’s remote ancestors, from Judah’s son Perez (Ruth 4:1821); when he introduces David’s father as “Jesse the Bethlehemite” (1 Sam 16:1), he adds only Obed, Jesse’s father (Ant. 6:157); at Ant. 7:95, he stresses David’s humble origins, after 2 Sam 7:18. David’s complete genealogy is given at 1 Chr 2:3-12. Thus, we may wonder whether Josephus knew the genealogical lists of 1 Chr.

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As for lesser details, some double readings or poorly inserted corrections have been detected (§ III.1); this indicates that Josephus’ source had glosses, as we saw for the Pentateuch. There are some contacts with 𝔊𝔊-A and B, but no pattern emerges; the 𝔏𝔏 variants, often close to 𝔊𝔊-A, do offer some interesting affinities with Ant., but they are scattered, so that they hardly allow clear conclusions. Some contacts with the very few Qumran fragments of Judg are significant (§ III.2), but they tell nothing about the overall shape of the book The language of Josephus’ source(s) was certainly Hebrew: explanations of words (§ II.3); many contacts with 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 (§ III.2); Josephus’ agreements with 𝔊𝔊 are easily explained through a common Hebrew vorlage.

CHAPTER FOUR SAMUEL Broadly speaking, 1-2 Chronicles, after nine chapters of genealogies, runs in parallel to 2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, but many portions of the latter have no parallel in the former. The composition of the summaries of books 5-10 of the Antiquities shows that the main sources of Josephus were 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, with complements from 1-2 Chronicles, mainly entire passages. Thus, the following analysis is divided into four parts: this chapter deals with the passages of 1-2 Samuel which have no significant parallels, and the next one will consider 1 Chronicles either alone or with parallels in 1-2 Samuel. Then chapters VI and VII will deal similarly with 12 Kings and 1-2 Chronicles.

I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

As in the previous chapters, the starting point is to look for any dependence of Josephus on 𝔊𝔊 and/or 𝔏𝔏 that cannot be easily explained by an underlining Hebrew. I.1 Inconclusive Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

In most circumstances, 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus express differently the same content, but sometimes they have the same rendering of the Hebrew. This does not imply a dependence, for the context prompts a similar wording. The cases are very numerous, and here is a sample. 𝔊𝔊 & Ant. 6:18 Αµιναδαβ 1 Sam 7:1+ ‫𝔏𝔏 = אבינדב‬ Abinadab (cf. Ant. 6:161). These variant readings occur elsewhere, e.g. 2 Sam 6:2, 1 Chr 13:7. 1 Sam 9:17 (‫𝔊𝔊 זה יעצר )בעמי‬-(𝔏𝔏) οὗτος ἄρξει Ant. 6:50 τὸν ἄρξειν µέλλοντα. God tells Samuel “this one shall restrain (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘rule’) over my people”; 𝔏𝔏 has κατάρξει, which may be a kind of correction according to 𝔐𝔐. Josephus is content with “rule”, and agrees with 𝔊𝔊, but the context requires this meaning. 1 Sam 10:3 ‫ גדיים‬3 ‫𝔊𝔊 אחד נשׂא‬-𝔏𝔏 τρία αἰγίδια, Ant. 6:55 τὸν πρῶτον τρεῖς ‫ ככרות לחם‬3 ‫ואחד נשׂא‬ τρία ἀγγεῖα ἄρτων, ἄρτους, τὸν δεύτερον ἔριφον, ‫ואחד נשׂא נבל־יין‬ ἀσκὸν οἴνου ὁ τρίτος ἀσκὸν οἴνου φέρων. Saul is to meet three men, “one carrying 3 kids, and one carrying 3 loaves (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘vessels’) of bread, and another carrying a jug (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘leather bag’) of wine”; in

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spite of the identity of the third phrase, Ant. is different: “The first 3 loaves, the second one kid, the third a leather bag of wine.” Josephus’ source may have been different, but the change of order rather suggests a faulty redaction followed by a correction poorly inserted. 1 Sam 10:19 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = התיצבו‬κατάστητε κατὰ τὰ σκῆπτρα Ant. 6:61 τάχθητε πάντες ‫לשבטיכם ולאלפיכם‬ ὑµῶν κατὰ τὰς φυλὰς ὑµῶν κατὰ φυλάς τε καὶ σκῆπτρα. In order to cast lots in order to elect a king, Samuel invites the Israelites: “Present yourselves by your tribes and clans”; 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus use the same words, but in the reverse order. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐπηρώτησεν 1 Sam 10:22 ‫וישאלו‬ Ant. 6:64 ὁ προφήτης ‫עוד ביהוה‬ Σαµουηλ ἔτι ἐν κυρίῳ ἱκετεύει τὸν θεόν. Saul, chosen as king, has disappeared, “and they (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Samuel’) inquired further of Yhwh”; Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

1 Sam 22:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויַנְ ֵחם‬-𝔏𝔏 παρεκάλεσεν (= ‫ )ויִנַ ֵחם‬Ant. 6:248 τὸν βασιλέα τοὺς γο(‫( )את־פני מלך מואב‬κατῴκουν µετ᾿ αὐτοῦ) νεῖς προσδεξάµενον παρεκάλει. Back in Judah, David came to his parents, “and brought them to (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘urged’) the king of Moab, and they lived with him”. The difference results from the two possible interpretations of Ket ‫וינחם‬. 1 Sam 22:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 יושׁב תחת־האשׁל‬-𝔏𝔏 ὑπὸ τὴν ἄρουραν Ant. 6:251 καθίσας ἐπ᾽ Ἀρούρης. Saul was “sitting under the tamarisk (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘field’)”; the word ‫ אשׁל‬has both meanings, but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus render it the same way, the latter as a place name; see too 6:377 and 1 Sam 31:13. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ τῆς παρεµβολῆς 2 Sam 1:2 ‫מן־המחנה‬ Ant. 7:1 διασωθεὶς ἐκ τῆς µάχης ‫מעם שׁאול‬ τοῦ λαοῦ Σαουλ τῆς πρὸς Παλαιστίνους. The slayer of Saul came out “from the camp, from (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the camp of the people of’ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏) Saul”; 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 vocalized ‫ עם‬differently, and Josephus, with “having escaped from the battle with the Philistines”, stays in between. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τῇ σάλπιγγι Ant. 7:17 τῇ σάλπιγγι σηµάνας. 2 Sam 2:28 ‫)ויתקע יואב( בשׁופר‬ To end up the battle, “Joab blew the shofar (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘trumpet’)”; according to Num 10:9, the trumpet should be used for the war, and the shofar, or ram horn, for the feasts (Lev 25:9). 2 Sam 13:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 ושׁממה‬-𝔏𝔏 χηρεύουσα (𝔏𝔏 adds ἐκψύχουσα) Ant. 7:172 χηρεύουσα. After being raped, Thamar dwelt with her brother Absalom, “and was desolate (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘as a widow’; 𝔏𝔏 adds ‘fainting’, another translation of ‫𝔊𝔊 ;”)שׁממה‬𝔏𝔏 and Ant. are plausible interpretations of the vague ‫ושׁממה‬, and an underlying Hebrew ‫ אלמנה‬is unlikely. 2 Sam 18:5 (‫𝔊𝔊 לאט־לי )לאבשׁלום‬-𝔏𝔏 φείσασθέ µοι Ant. 7:235 φείσασθαι Ἀψαλώµου. David urges his men: “Act gently for me with (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘spare me’)” Absalom; the 𝔐𝔐 phrase is unusual, but the context implies the meaning “spare”, which 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus render with a usual verb. A variant like ‫ תחשׂכו לי‬is only a remote possibility.

I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

In several cases, some agreements do not seem fortuitous, typically when a word currently used by Josephus is a hapax in 𝔊𝔊, with a



IV – SAMUEL

73

very specific meaning. This entails the possibility that in difficult Hebrew passages 𝔊𝔊 borrowed from Ant., not the other way around; however, this was certainly not done in a systematic way. Some instances are very clear, and they attract others that may seem uncertain or less convincing. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἔπνιγεν αὐτόν 1 Sam 16:14 ‫וּ ִב ֲע ַתתּוּ‬ Ant. 6:166 δαιµόνια αὐτῷ 𝔏𝔏 adds συνεῖχεν (‫)רוּ ַח־ ָר ָעה‬ πνιγµοὺς ἐπιφέροντα. Saul is back home, “and an evil spirit terrified (𝔊𝔊 ‘suffocated’) him”; 𝔊𝔊 uses the verb only in the passage, and 𝔏𝔏 adds a redundant “constrained”, closer to ‫;בעת‬ this may have been a correction, which should have replaced ἔπνιγεν. Josephus renders “demons caused him suffocations”, with πνιγµός (unknown to 𝔊𝔊, but akin to the related verb), which he never uses elsewhere, though the verb occurs 4 times in his works. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 κνηµῖδες χαλκαῖ 1 Sam 17:6 ‫ומצחת נחשת‬ Ant. 6:171 κνηµῖδας χαλκέας. For Goliath’s “bronze greaves”, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus use the same rare word, hapax in both. 𝔊𝔊 οὐχί, ἀλλ᾿ ἢ 1 Sam 17:43 (‫)הכלב אנכי‬ Ant. 6:186 οὐχὶ τοιοῦτον ἀλλὰ om. 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏 χείρω κυνός καὶ χείρω κυνὸς αὐτὸν νοµίζειν. Goliath asks David: “Am I a dog?”; 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus introduce David’s reply: “No, but worse than a dog”; the word χείρων “worse”, frequent in Josephus’ works, never appears elsewhere in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, and we may suspect that the 𝔊𝔊 addition was borrowed from Josephus, who probably added his own expansion of Scripture, as he frequently does (a Hebrew vorlage could be ‫לא אך רע מכלב‬, but this is unlikely). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 υἱὲ κορασίων (= ‫)נערות‬ 1 Sam 20:30 ‫בן־נע ַות‬ Ant. 6:237 βλασφηµῶν ‫ה ַמרדוּת‬ αὐτοµολούντων (= ‫ )המורדות‬ἐξ αὐτοµόλων γεγενηµένον. Saul insults Jonathan: “Son of a woman perverse of ribellion (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSamb ‘of ribellious girls’)”; Josephus, with “accusing him of being the offspring of rebels”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊. The 𝔐𝔐 form is difficult: ‫ נעות‬is probably a misspelling for ‫נערת‬. Now, the 𝔊𝔊 wording draws attention, for the usual rendering of ‫ מרד‬is ἀφιστάναι, while the normal meaning of αὐτοµολέω is “change one’s mind, change side”, hence αὐτόµολος “deserter” used by Josephus, which gives a tolerable meaning. So, we may suspect an influence of Josephus on 𝔊𝔊, in order to improve a difficult phrase. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐγώ εἰµι αἴτιος 1 Sam 22:22 (‫סבתי )בכל־נפשׁ‬ Ant. 6:270 αὑτὸν ᾐτιᾶτο. David says to Abiathar: “I have surrounded (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘am the cause of’) everyone”, meaning “everyone’s death”; Josephus, with “he accused himself”, is close to 𝔊𝔊, which indeed matches a later meaning of ‫“ סב‬to cause”. However, this meaning of αἴτιος “instigator, author”, never occurs elsewhere in 𝔊𝔊, while it is common by Josephus (scores of occurrences, with αἰτιάοµαι, too), and we may wonder whether 𝔊𝔊 borrowed from him. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 6:296 πονηρὸς τοῖς ἐπιτηδεύµασιν, 1 Sam 25:3 ‫ורע מעללים‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὁ ἄνθρωπος κυνικός (Qer ‫והוא כלבו )כלבי‬ Ant. ἐκ κυνικῆς ἀσκήσεως. Nabal was “evil in his dealings, and he was like his heart (Ket; Qer and 4QSama1 ‘Calebite’ or ‘Cynic’)”; for the first part, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. give identical 1

According to the restoration of DJD 17, p. 87.

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translations, but the words are quite common; in the second part, Nabal could be a Calebite, for according to 1 Chr 2:42-49, the territory of the Caleb clan included Ziph and Maon, but the word κυνικός for Nabal’s description is a hapax in both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus, which excludes the possible meaning “Calebite”. “Cynic” should mean something for Josephus, and we may surmise that 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 borrowed it, instead of taking a more Biblical “Calebite”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 6:313 καὶ τὸν φακὸν τοῦ ὕδατος 1 Sam 26:11 ‫ואת־צפחת המים‬ Saul was asleep in the camp, and David told Abishai to take his spear “and the jar (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘lentil’) of water” and let us go, but he did it himself; the phrase ‫צפחת‬ ‫ המים‬occurs three times in the passage, with the same 𝔊𝔊 rendering; elsewhere, ‫ צפחת‬is translated καψάκης “jug”; here, the “lentil” is a lentil-shaped flask, a current piece of pottery in ancient times, easier for a soldier to be carried along than a jug; the normal word for a flask would have been ‫פך‬. In other words, the common interpretation of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus is satisfactory, but since Josephus had a military experience, it can be surmised that his rendering was borrowed by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; moreover, he distinguishes between φακός and φακῆ “dish of lentils”, unlike 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 λαβὲ σεαυτῷ τὴν 2 Sam 2:21 ‫וקח־לך‬ Ant. 7:15 ἑνὸς τῶν στρατιωτῶν ‫את־ח ִלצתו‬ πανοπλίαν αὐτοῦ ἀφέµενος τὴν πανοπλίαν. Abner said to Asahel to go to a fallen man: “Take for yourself his spoil (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘complete armor’)”; ‫ חליצה‬is a rare word in 𝔐𝔐 (“spoil”, see Judg 14:19), and the rendering of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. “panoply” is more accurate, but the word never occurs elsewhere in the 𝔊𝔊 translations, whereas Josephus frequently uses it. So, we may suspect that 𝔊𝔊 borrowed from him. 2 Sam 6:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 חלת לחם‬-𝔏𝔏 κολλυρίδα ἄρτου Ant. 7:86 κολλυρίδα ἄρτου ‫ואשׁפר אחד‬ καὶ ἐσχαρίτην καὶ ἐσχαρίτην καὶ ‫ואשׁישׁה אחת‬ καὶ λάγανον ἀπὸ τηγάνου λάγανον τηγανιστὸν καὶ µερίδα θύµατος. David distributed to all the people “a cake of bread, and a cake of dates (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘something baked’), and a cake of raisin (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a fried cake’); ‫ אשׁפר‬is a hapax, of uncertain meaning (“portion”); ‫ אשׁישׁה‬is quite rare, and means “raisin cake”; on the Greek side, ἐσχαρίτην is a hapax in both 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus, and the other words are rare. Josephus has the same list as 𝔊𝔊, and adds “a portion of the sacrifice”, for just before he has mentioned “peace-offerings” (‫)שלמים‬, which have to be eaten by all. So, the translation of the items has been a guesswork, and we must conclude that 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. depend on one another, and we can suspect that Josephus was the source. The parallel 1 Chr 16:3 provides an additional clue: 𝔐𝔐 is similar ‫ככר־לחם ואשׁפר ואשׁישׁה‬, but the 𝔊𝔊 rendering is different ἄρτον ἕνα ἀρτοκοπικὸν καὶ ἀµορίτην “one loaf of baker and a cake”. 2 Sam 18:17 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׁליכו אתו‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς χάσµα µέγα ἐν τῷ δρυµῷ Ant. 7:241 εἰς χάσµα ‫ביער אל־הפחת הגדול‬ εἰς τὸν βόθυνον τὸν µέγαν βαθὺ ῥίψαντες. They took Absalom’s body “and cast it in the forest, into the great pit (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘into a great cavern in the wood, into the great pit’)”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has a double translation: “the great pit”, with the article, represents the original translation, while the “great cavern” is a correction poorly inserted (before the “wood”), with the hapax χάσµα “chasm” (a feature greater than ‫ ;)פחת‬this is the very word used here (and elsewhere) by Josephus, and again we may suspect that Ant. was the source of the correction.



IV – SAMUEL

75

I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐

The occurrences of 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐 standing alone against 𝔊𝔊, 1 Chr and Josephus are put here, and not in the next chapter; in these cases, 𝔐𝔐 is generally shorter or more difficult, and 4QSam when extant agrees with the majority, too.

𝔊𝔊 κατὰ τὴν ἀθυµίαν 1 Sam 1:6 ‫וכעסתה‬ Ant. 5:341 ἡ Ἄννα θεασαµένη ‫צרתה‬ τῆς θλίψεως αὐτῆς, τοὺς τῆς ἑτέρας παῖδας... ‫גם כעס‬ καὶ ἠθύµει διὰ τοῦτο εἰς δάκρυά τε προύπεσε. Hannah’s “rival would provoke her bitterly”, according to the 𝔐𝔐 vocalization (piel) and Vulg., but ‫ צרתה‬may mean “tribulation”, too, hence 𝔊𝔊 “according to the discouragement of her tribulation, she was discouraged by that”; Josephus, who mentions her sadness at the sight of the other wife’s children, follows from afar, without the wife’s provoking. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 συναθροίζονται ἀλλόφυ1 Sam 4:1 om. Ant. 5:352 Παλαιστῖνοι om. λοι εἰς πόλεµον ἐπὶ Ισραηλ στρατεύσαντες ἐπὶ ‫ויצא ישראל‬ καὶ ἐξῆλθεν Ισραηλ τοὺς Ἰσραηλίτας. For 𝔐𝔐, Israël launches a war, but for 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus it is a reply to an attack of the Philistines (always named “foreigners” in 𝔊𝔊); the underlying Hebrew could be ‫( ויקבצו פלשתים להלחם בישראל‬cf. 1 Sam 28:1). 1 Sam 6:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 לכהנים‬-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς ἱερεῖς Ant. 6:8-10 τὸ µέν πρῶτον ἐδόκει a) τὴν κιβωτὸν ἀποπέµπειν, ‫ולקסמים‬ καὶ τοὺς µάντεις b) ἦσαν... λέγοντες τὸ µὲν µὴ ποιεῖν, µέτ᾽ ἀποπέµπειν... µήτε κατέχειν... om. καὶ τοὺς ἐπαοιδοὺς c) ἀναθεῖναι τῷ θεῷ χαριστήριον. The Ark was dangerous for the Philistines, and they called “for the priests and the diviners”; 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 add “and the augurs”, as well as 4QSama ‫ולמעוננים‬.2 Josephus mentions the leaders as a group, without distinction, then introduces a non-Biblical discussion between three parties: a) to return the Ark; b) to keep it anyway; c) to prepare an offering and let the Ark be guided by its god, if any, as in 1 Sam. These three parties suggest that Josephus’ source did have three classes of authorities (not two), like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπελεύσεσθε 1 Sam 6:8 (‫)ושלחתם אתו‬ Ant. 6:11 καταλιπεῖν ‫והלך‬ (Α ἀπελεύσεται = 𝔐𝔐) αὐταῖς ἐπιτρέψαντας. The Philistines’ plan is “to send the cart (carrying the Ark) and let it go”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: “to send the cart and go” (from ‫)והלכתם‬, which agrees with Josephus’ “returning, they should leave them”. 1 Sam 6:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 )הלכו הֹלך( וגעוֹ‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκοπίων Ant. 6:11 ὀξυτέραν ποιῶνται τὴν πορείαν. The cows drawing the cart with the Ark were “lowing as they went”, longing for their calves, but both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus say they were toiling to shorten their way; they depend on a reading ‫יגעוּ‬. 1 Sam 6:14 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 = ו ַתעמ ֹד שם‬ἔστησαν ἐκεῖ, παρ᾿ Ant. 6:15 τιθέασιν ἐπί τινος ‫ושם אבן גדולה‬ αὐτῇ λίθον µέγαν πέτρας... ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ. 2 The beginning of the line (VI:8) is missing, but its length has prompted the editors to view the word as a 4th class, the third being restored ‫חרטומים‬, see DJD 17, p. 51-53.

76

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

The cart came into the field “and stood there and there was a large stone”, but 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus “they set (the items), etc.”, from a reading ‫ ויעמידו‬instead of ‫ותעמד‬, or maybe from a vocalization ‫)העגלה( ו ֻתע ַמד‬. 1 Sam 6:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 מי יוכל‬-𝔏𝔏 τίς δυνήσεται διελ- Ant. 6:16 οὐκ ὀντας ἀξίους ἅψασθαι ‫לעמד לפני יהוה‬ θεῖν ἐνώπιον κυρίου τῆς κιβωτοῦ... προσελθόντας. The Beth-shemesh people wonder “Who can stand before Yhwh”, but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has “Who can pass through (from ‫”)יעבר‬, which implies a transgression, and Josephus likewise says “touching”, that is, committing a ritual one. 1 Sam 8:12 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 שרי אלפים ושרי חמשים‬and Ant. 6:40 χιλιάρχους καὶ ἑκατοντάρχους. The king’s army will include “commanders of thousands and hundreds”, but 𝔐𝔐 maintains “…and commanders of fifties”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὰ βουκόλια (= ‫)בקריכם‬ 1 Sam 8:16 ‫ואת בחוריכם‬ Ant. 6:41 κτῆσιν. Josephus ignores 𝔐𝔐, see § II.2. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὡσεὶ ἑβδοµήκοντα 1 Sam 9:22 (‫כשלשים )איש‬ Ant. 6:52 ἑβδοµήκοντα. The number of Samuel’s guests (see § II.2) is 30 (𝔐𝔐) or 70 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant.). Between ‫ שלשים‬and ‫שבעים‬, it is hard to decide paleographically which one is corrupt, but on the assumption that Josephus does not depend on 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, the latter should be preferred.3 1 Sam 9:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 וידבר עם שאול‬-𝔏𝔏 διέστρωσαν (= ‫ )ויֵּרבד‬τῷ Σαουλ Ant. 6:52 παρὰ τῷ ‫ויש ִכּמו‬ καὶ ἐκοιµήθη (= ‫)וישכבו‬ προφήτῃ κατεκοιµήθη. 𝔐𝔐 is difficult: Samuel “spoke with Saul” on the roof “and they arose early”: this is awkward, for in the sequel Samuel urges Saul to get up. Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, which is much smoother: “They set up a bed (exchange of ‫ר‬/‫ )ד‬for Saul and he slept (‫ ב‬against ‫”)מ‬. 1 Sam 10:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 כי משחך‬-𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ σὺ σώσεις αὐτὸν ἐκ Ant. 6:54 κεχειροτονηµέ‫יהוה על נחלתו לנגיד‬ χειρὸς ἐχθρῶν αὐτοῦ κυκλόθεν νος ἐπὶ Παλαιστίνους. After “Yhwh anointed you a ruler over his inheritance”, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds some glosses, and among them “and you will save it from the hands of its foes all around”, from ‫והושעת אתו מיד אויביו סביב‬. Josephus, with “chosen to combat the Philistines”, had this addition, which recalls a previous saying of Yhwh (1 Sam 9:16) “and he will save my people from the hand of the Philistines”; but Josephus ignored it in his paraphrase there (Ant. 6:50), so that he may have read a marginal gloss of this kind in his source, between two columns, and he inserted it at the wrong place. Another explanation is possible, see § III.1, 1 Sam 8:5. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὡς µετὰ µῆνα 1 Sam 10:27 ‫)ויהי( כמחריש‬ Ant. 6:68 µηνὶ δ᾽ ὕστερον. After being elected, Saul “was like silent”, according to 𝔐𝔐, but all the others, including 4QSama, witness ‫“ ויהי כמו חדש‬and it was after about one month”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἔχρισεν Σαµουηλ ἐκεῖ 1 Sam 11:15 ‫וימלכו שם‬ Ant. 6:83 χρίει... δεύτερον ‫את שאול‬ τὸν Σαουλ εἰς βασιλέα ἀναγορεύει βασιλέα. The people went to Gilgal “and there they made Saul king”, while Josephus (adding “a second time”) broadly agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 “and Samuel anointed Saul to make him king”, from ‫( וימשח שמואל שם את שאול למלך‬cf. 2 Sam 2:4 ‫וימשחו שם את‬ ‫)דוד למלך‬. 3 In 4QSama, most of the line is missing, but the editors restore according to 𝔏𝔏, see DJD 17, p. 62.



IV – SAMUEL

77

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εφουδ 1 Sam 14:18 ‫ארון האלהים‬ Ant. 6:115 τὴν ἀρχιερατικὴν στολήν. Saul orders the high priest to bring “the Ark of God (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 & Ant. ‘the priestly garment’, from ‫ ;”)אפוד‬Josephus, who translates correctly, has already described the ephod, which bears the hoshen, at Ant. 3:162-168. 1 Sam 14:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 בית און‬-𝔏𝔏 Βαιθων; adds καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς... Ant. 6:116 γενοµένων ὡς ὡς δέκα χιλιάδες ἀνδρῶν µυρίων τῶν Ἑβραίων. After the battle of Beth-aven, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds a note on Saul’s 10,000 troops and the places of the war; Josephus knew it, but reworked the complicated topography. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 οὗ ἂν ἐστράφη 1 Sam 14:47 ‫ובכל אשר‬ Ant. 6:129 βασιλεύει εὐτυχῶς, ‫יפנה ירשיע‬ ἐσῴζετο (= ‫)י ָוּשיע‬ πολεµήσας χειροῦται. Saul fought against his enemies, “and wherever he turned, he condemned (𝔊𝔊 ‘was saved’)”; the 𝔐𝔐 reading is somewhat strange, and most probably is a corruption of the one reflected by 𝔊𝔊.4 Josephus, with “reigns happily; having made war, he subdues”, is close to 𝔊𝔊.

1 Sam 14:47 ‫𝔊𝔊 במלכי צובה‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς βασιλέα Σουβα Ant. 6:129 τὸν βασιλέα τῆς Ὠβᾶς. Josephus’ “the king of Zobah”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊 and 4QSama. See too § III.2. 1 Sam 15:4 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויפקדם( בטלאים‬ἐν Γαλγαλοις A. 6:134 ἐξαριθµήσας ἐν Γαλγάλοις. Saul numbered his troops “at Telaim”, but 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus have “at Gilgal”; ‫ טלאים‬may mean “lambs” (cf. Isa 40:11), and one can understand “numbered according to the lambs they brought along for the sacrifices” (Rashi, following TYon). 1 Sam 15:5 (‫𝔊𝔊 וירב )בנחל‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐνήδρευσεν Ant. 6:135 λόχους περὶ τὸν χείµαρρον. On his way against Amalek, Saul “struggled (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘set ambushes’) in the valley”; in fact, ‫ וירב‬is a misspelling for ‫ויארב‬, correctly rendered by the other witnesses. 1 Sam 15:5 (‫𝔊𝔊 עיר )עמלק‬-𝔏𝔏 τῶν πόλεων Ant. 6:136 ταῖς πόλεσι τῶν Ἀµαληκιτων. With “cities of Amalek”, Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊 (from a metathesis ‫)ערי עמלק‬. 1 Sam 15:9 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וכל המלאכה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἠτιµωµένον καὶ ἐξουδεAnt. 6:139 τι µὴ σπουδῆς ‫נמבזה ונמס אתה החרימו‬ νωµένον (𝔏𝔏 ἀπεγνωσµένον) ἄξιον ἦν ὥστε κτήσασθαι. The Israelites are to plunder Amalek’s valuable goods, “and you will utterly distroy every work…(?)”; the overall meaning “worthless” for these items is clear, but the words ‫ נמבזה ונמס‬make no sense; they are restored (‫נבזה ונמאס)ת‬, according to 𝔊𝔊 “despicable and worthless”; here, the rule lectio difficilior potior can hardly apply, for it is difficillima. Josephus had a correct reading, like 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 διαιρεθήσεται (= ‫)יחצה‬ 1 Sam 15:29 ‫נצח‬ Ant. 6:153 τοῦ στρέφειν τὴν ‫ישראל‬ Ισραηλ εἰς δύο (= ‫)לשנים‬ γνώµην ἀνθρωπίνου πάθους ‫לא ישקר‬ καὶ οὐκ ἀποστρέψει (= ‫)ישוב‬ ὄντος, οὐχὶ θείας ἰσχύος. 𝔐𝔐 “the Glory of Israel will not lie” and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 “Israel will be divided into two, and he will not turn away”;5 Josephus renders “changing one’s mind is a human weakness, not a divine strength”: he certainly read the second part like 𝔊𝔊, and ignored the first, or maybe had it like 𝔐𝔐. 1 Sam 15:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישתחו שאול‬-𝔏𝔏 προσεκύνησεν Ant. 6:154 Σαµουῆλος προσκυνεῖ. 4 5

And restored like this in 4QSama, see DJD 17, p. 75-76. 4QSama has only one word to be read, ‫ישוב‬, but the editors restore the line according to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, see DJD 17, p. 78.

78

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Saul recalls Samuel, for he wants to pray God, then Samuel comes back “and worshipped”; such is he plain meaning of 𝔊𝔊, as understood by Josephus and confirmed by 4QSama, but 𝔐𝔐 maintains “and Saul worshipped”. 1 Sam 15:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר אגג( אכן‬-𝔏𝔏 Εἰ οὕτως (= ‫)אי כן‬ Ant. 6:155 πυνθανοµένου ‫סר מר המות‬ πικρὸς ὁ θάνατος; πῶς εἴη πικρὸς ὁ θάνατος. According to 𝔐𝔐, Agag awkwardly said to Samuel: “Surely the bitterness of death is past”. But for 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus, Agag asks: “Is death that bitter?” The difference is resolved in two points: first, a missing letter in ‫ ;אכן‬second, ‫ סר‬being a misspelling of ‫מר‬, was later maintained with the correction.6 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἔσφαξεν 1 Sam 15:33 ‫וישסף‬ Ant. 6:155 κελεύει αὐτὸν ἀποθανεῖν. What did Samuel to Agag at Gilgal? The context implies that he put him to death, as 𝔊𝔊 understood (𝔏𝔏 adds a transcription σασειφ), but the 𝔐𝔐 verb is unknown, a feature which may be connected with Agag’s awkward statement (see the previous note). Josephus’ strange wording (“orders him to die”) seems to avoid saying that Samuel did kill. 1 Sam 17:4 (‫𝔊𝔊 שׁשׁ )אמות‬-𝔏𝔏 τεσσάρων Ant. 6:171 πηχῶν τεσσάρων καὶ σπιθαµῆς. Goliath’s height was “six (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, 4QSama and Ant. ‘four’) cubits and one span”. The normal cubit is 45 cm, and the span is half a cubit; thus, his height would be 2.93 m for 𝔐𝔐, and 2.03 for the others. 1 Sam 17:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 אל יפל‬-𝔏𝔏 µὴ δὴ συµπεσέτω Ant. 6:179 µὴ ταπεινὸν ‫לב אדם‬ ἡ καρδία τοῦ κυρίου µου (= ‫)אדני‬ ἔστω τὸ φρόνηµα. David tells Saul: “Let no man’s (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘my lord’s’) heart collapse”; Josephus, with “Let not your spirit been downcast”, agrees with the Greek. According to 17:11, Saul was afraid of Goliath, and we may surmise that ‫ אדם‬of 𝔐𝔐 is a slight corruption of ‫ ם( אדני‬for ‫)ני‬. 1 Sam 17:52 ‫𝔊𝔊 עד בואך גיא‬-𝔏𝔏 ἕως εἰσόδου Γεθ (= ‫ )גת‬Ant. 6:191 ἄχρι Γίττης ὁρίων ‫ועד שערי עקרון‬ τῆς πύλης Ἀσκαλῶνος καὶ τῶν πυλῶν Ἀσκἀλωνος. The Israelites pursued the Philistine “as far as your coming to the valley (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Gath’) and to the gates of Ekron (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Ascalon’)”. 1 Sam 17:55-18:5 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏, om. 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 6:193 (presentation of David by Abner; covenant between David and Jonathan, Saul’s son). 1 Sam 18:10-11 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏, om. 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 6:194 (Saul hurls twice a spear to David). 1 Sam 18:17-19 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏, om. 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 6:196 (Saul offers David his elder daughter Merab, but she is given to Adriel). 1 Sam 18:30 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏, om. 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 6:205 (David’s victories over the Philistines). 1 Sam 19:13 (‫𝔊𝔊 כביר העזים )שׂמה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἧπαρ (= ‫ )כביד‬τῶν αἰγῶν Ant. 6:217 ἧπαρ αἰγός. Michal let David out and “put a pillow (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus ‘liver’) of goats at the bed’s head”. 𝔊𝔊 ἐθυµώθη ὀργῇ (= ‫)ויחר אף‬ 1 Sam 19:22 ‫𝔏𝔏 = וילך‬ Ant. 6:222 ὀργισθεὶς Σαουλ καὶ ἐπορεύθη αὐτὸς ἐξόρµησεν. Saul, who has sent three groups of soldiers to Naioth to fetch David with no result, comes himself; 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus add that he was furious. 6

See CAQUOT, p. 174.



IV – SAMUEL

79

1 Sam 20:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 מה־תאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 Τί ἐπιθυµεῖ (= ‫)מה תאוה‬ Ant. 6:226 ἐπηρώτα τίνος ‫ נפשׁך ואעשׂה־לך‬ἡ ψυχή σου καὶ τί ποιήσω σοι; έξ αὐτοῦ βούλεται τυχεῖν. Jonathan asks David: “What your soul says (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘desires’), I will do for you.” Josephus, with “he asked him what he wanted to receive from him”, implies David’s desire, as in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. The phrase ‫ תאוה נפש‬occurs 11 times in 𝔐𝔐, while ‫ תאמר נפש‬is unknown elsewhere, so we may suspect that 𝔐𝔐 has a misspelling ‫מר‬ for ‫וה‬. 1 Sam 20:14-15 ‫𝔊𝔊 ולא אמות‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐὰν θανάτῳ ἀποθάνω Ant. 6:232 κἂν ἀποθανεῖν µοι ‫ולא־תכרת את חסדך‬ οὐκ ἐξαρεῖς ἔλεός σου γένεται τὰ τέκνα µου σῷζε. David asks Jonathan to invoke God’s grace “so that I may not die (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 “should I do die, from ‫)לוּא מות אמות‬, you shall not cut off your love” for my house. The 𝔐𝔐 wording conveys an awkward meaning, and Josephus, with “should death be for me, save my children”, is close to 𝔊𝔊. 1 Sam 20:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויקם יהונתן‬-𝔏𝔏 προέφθασεν τὸν Ιωνα- Ant. 6:235 Ἰωνάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν ‫וישׁב אבנר מצד שׁאול‬ θαν καὶ ἐκάθισεν Αβεννηρ Ἀβενήρου ἐκ τῶν ἑτέρον. For the meal, Saul sat on his seat, “and Jonathan rose up (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘he received’, from ‫)ויקדם‬, and Abner sat down by the side of Saul”. For 𝔐𝔐, Jonathan did not get seated, while according to Josephus, Jonathan and Abner sat by both sides of Saul; so, he understood that Saul welcomed Jonathan, a possible meaning with the source of 𝔊𝔊 and its additional ‫ד‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀνεπήδησεν (= ‫)ויחפז‬ 1 Sam 20:34 ‫ויקם‬ Ant. 6:239 ἐπεδήσας ‫יהונתן מעם השׁלחן‬ Ιωναθαν ἀπὸ τῆς τραπέζης ἀπὸ τοῦ δείπνου. When Jonathan learned of Saul’s hatred toward David, “he stood (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sprang’) up from the table”, and Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊. For ‫ויקם‬, 4QSamb has ‫“ ויפחז‬he was reckless”, a rare verb. The only other occurrence of ἀναπηδάω in 𝔊𝔊 is at 1 Sam 25:9, for 𝔐𝔐 ‫וינוחו‬, where we can suspect a misspelling for ‫ויפחז‬, but the meaning is not very good, and here, the rendering of both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus would rather depend on ‫“( ויחפז‬sprang”) with a metathesis. We cannot exclude that 𝔊𝔊 may depend on Josephus, that is, on his misreading (or guess). 1 Sam 21:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = דאג האדמי‬Δωηκ ὁ Σύρος (= ‫)הארמי‬ Ant. 6:244 Σύρος Δοήγος, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 νέµων τὰς ἡµιόνους ‫אביר הרעים‬ ἡµιόνους νέµων. Doeg the Edomite (𝔊𝔊 and Ant. “the Syrian”), a servant of Saul’s, was “the chief of the shepherds (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘pasturing the mules’)”; the phrase νέµων ἡµιόνους may reflect ‫( רועה העירים‬rather than ‫)פרדים‬, but it never occurs elsewhere in 𝔊𝔊, nor in Josephus either; another possibility is that Josephus misread ‫אביר הרעים‬, and later was followed by 𝔊𝔊.

1 Sam 21:11+ ‫ 𝔏𝔏 אל אכישׁ‬πρὸς Ἀκχοῦν 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 6:245 πρὸς Ἀγχοῦν, “Achish”. The versions reflect a Hebrew ‫ ;אכוש‬4QSama probably had ‫( אכיש‬which is destroyed here, but can be read at 27:10 and 28:1). 1 Sam 22:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 יער חרת‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν πόλει Σαριχ (= ‫ )עיר סריח‬Ant. 6:249 εἰς Σάριν πόλιν. Back to Juda, David goes to “the forest of Hereth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘the city of Sarich’)”; the metathesis ‫יער‬/‫ עיר‬might be a key to bridge the difference between ‫ חרת‬and Σαριχ, written in the reverse order (the same way, the place of Joshua’s grave has two names in symetry, ‫ סרח‬and ‫ ;)חרס‬under Σαριχ, it is better to restore ‫ סריח‬than ‫סריך‬, for Josephus generally does not transcribe ‫ ח‬in proper names.

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𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἄρχων (= ‫ )שׂר‬παντὸς 1 Sam 22:14 ‫סר אל‬ Ant. 6:256 πιστὸν δοῦλον, ‫משׁמעתך‬ παραγγέλµατός σου χιλίαρχον. Ahimelech explains to Saul why he has helped David: “He turns aside to your guard (or ‘obedience’; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘is the head of your command’)”; Josephus, with “faithful servant, chiliarch”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊, but implies the two meanings of ‫ ;משׁמעת‬or else, he may have read ‫“ משמרת‬guard” (as in 22:23). 1 Sam 23:7 (‫𝔊𝔊 נכּר )אתו אלהים בידי‬-𝔏𝔏 πέπρακεν (= ‫ )מכר‬Ant. 6:273 ὁ θεὸς ὑπέθετο. When David was in Keilah, Saül said: “God has alienated (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sold’, from ‫ )מכר‬him into my hands”; Josephus has “God has delivered him”, close to 𝔊𝔊. (Judg 4:9 displays a similar meaning of ‫מכר‬: ‫“ ביד אשה ימכר יהוה את סיסרא‬Yhwh will deliver Sisera into the hand of a woman”.) 1 Sam 23:15 ‫שׁה‬ ָ ‫𝔊𝔊 זִיף ַבּח ֹ ְר‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῇ Καινῇ Ζιφ Ant. 6:275 Καινὴν τῆς Ζιφήνης. David moved to “Ziph, at Horshah (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘at the New Ziph’, from ‫”)חדשה‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκάθισεν ἐν τoῖς 1 Sam 24:1 ‫וישׁב‬ Ant. 6:282 διαφυγὼν εἰς ‫במצדות עין־גדי‬ στενοῖς Εγγαδδι τὰ στενὰ τῆς Ἐγγηδηνῆς. David “stayed by the strongholds (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘narrow passes’) of Engedi”. 𝔊𝔊 consistently renders ‫ מצדות‬with the plural στενά (see 23:14.19); it may be the result of a misreading ‫( מצרות‬otherwise unattested, but see below 1 Sam 24:23), connected with ‫“ צר‬narrow”. 1 Sam 24:8 (‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁסּע )דוד את־אנשׁיו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔπεισεν Ant. 6:284 οὐκ ἐµὲ δεῖ τοιοῦτον. Having an opportunity to kill Saul, David “tore apart (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘persuaded’) his men”, who urged him to get rid of Saul; in direct speech, Josephus lets David rebuke his servants, saying: “I must not be like him”; so, he convinced them. The verb ‫ שׁסע‬is unexpected here, but the context prompts an obvious meaning. However, we could consider a correction ‫וישׁמּע‬, a rare piel meaning “he summoned”, since we read a similar phrase at 23:8 ‫“ וישׁמּע שׁאול את־כל־העם‬And Saul summoned all the people”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὸν ἐχθρὸν 1 Sam 24:20 (‫)וכי־ימצא אישׁ‬ Ant. 6:290 τοὺς ἐχθροὺς (‫את־איבו )ושׁלחו בדרך טובה‬ αὐτοῦ ἐν θλίψει ἐν ἐρηµίᾳ λαβόντες σῴζειν. Saul recalls a custom: “If a man finds his enemy (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘in trouble’, from ‫)בצרה‬, he will let him go away on a good road”; 4QSama reads like 𝔐𝔐. Josephus, with “save the enemies taken in a lonely place”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀνέβησαν εἰς τὴν 1 Sam 24:23 ‫עלו‬ Ant. 6:291 εἰς τὴν Μασ‫על־המצודה‬ Μεσσαρα (= ‫ )מצרה‬στενήν θηρῶν ἀνέβη στενήν. David and his men “went up to the stronghold (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the narrow pass Messara’)”; Ant. agrees with 𝔊𝔊 (CC and CΘ are close in uncials). As for the rendering στενά for ‫מצדות‬, see § I.3, 1 Sam 24:1. Here, both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus have a transcription followed by a translation of the same ‫מצרה‬, and this feature occurs at 1 Sam 23:14.19 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 1 Sam 25:39 (‫𝔊𝔊 )את־עבדו‬-𝔏𝔏 περιεποιήσατο ἐκ Ant. 6:307 δοῦναι δίκην αὐτῷ ‫חשׂך מרעה‬ χειρὸς κακῶν (‫)מיד רעה‬ καθαρὰν ἔχοντι τὴν δεξίαν. After Nabal’s death, David is grateful to God, who “has kept back his servant from evil (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘from the hand of evil’ or ‘from evil hand’)”; Josephus, with “has given him revenge, keeping his hand clean”, is close to 𝔊𝔊. 1 Sam 26:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויקם דוד‬adds λάθρᾳ, 𝔏𝔏 λαθραίως Ant. 6:311 διαλαθὼν τοὺς ἰδίους.



IV – SAMUEL

81

When Saul was coming against him, “David arose (𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 add ‘secretly’)”; Josephus has “hidden from his people”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Τίς εἶ σὺ 1 Sam 26:14 ‫מי אתה‬ Ant. 6:314 τίς ὁ ‫קראת אל־המלך‬ ὁ καλῶν µε; καλέσας αὐτόν. Abner asked: “Who are you, who called the king (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘called me’)”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ τίνα ἐπέθεσθε 1 Sam 27:10 ‫אל־פשׁטתם‬ Ant. 6:314 τίσιν ἐπιτιθέµενος. Achish asks David: “Have you not7 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘on whom have you’, from ‫על‬ ‫ מי‬given by 4QSama, or maybe ‫ )אל מי‬made a raid?” In his reply, David uses ‫על‬ to detail the targets of his raids. 1 Sam 29:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 ולכו‬-𝔏𝔏 adds οὗ κατέστησα ὑµᾶς ἐκεῖ Αnt. 6:355 εἰς ὃν ἔδοκά σοι καὶ λόγον λοιµὸν µὴ θῇς κτλ. τόπον µηδέν ὑπονοῶν ἄτοπον. Achish says to David and his men: “Go back”, but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. add with different wordings “where I appointed you, and do not take in your heart any evil word”. The Hebrew could be ‫ולכו אל אשר הפקדתי אתכם שם ודבר רע אל תשים בלבך‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπελθεῖν καὶ 1 Sam 29:11 ‫ללכת‬ Αnt. 6:355 φύλασσέ µοι τὴν χώ‫בבקר לשׁוב‬ φυλάσσειν (= ‫)ולשמור‬ ραν, µή τινες τῶν πολεµίων. According to Achish’ order, David arose “to go in the morning and return to (𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 ‘and guard’) Philistine territory”. Ant. agrees with 𝔊𝔊. 2 Sam 2:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויע ִברהו‬εἰς Μαναεµ, 𝔏𝔏 om. Αnt. 7:9 ἐπείχθης εἰς τὴν παρεµβολήν, ‫𝔊𝔊 מחנים‬-𝔏𝔏 adds ἐκ τῆς παρεµβολῆς πρὸς τοὺς πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου. According to 𝔐𝔐 and 4QSama, Abner took the surviving son of Saul “and brought him (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘from the camp’, from ‫ )מהמחנה‬over to Mahanaim (𝔏𝔏 om.)”. Josephus, with “hastened to the camp” and “brought him over to the people across the Jordan” (that is, to Mahanaim, as said in the sequel, 7:10, Ishbosheth’s capital), is close to 𝔊𝔊 (‫)ויעבירהו מהמחנה אל מחנים‬. 2 Sam 3:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 כלאב לאביגיל‬-𝔏𝔏 Δαλουια Αβιγαιας Αnt. 7:31 Ἀβιγαίας Δαλουίηλος. David’s second son was “Chileab (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Daluiah’,8 from ‫ )דלויה‬by Abigail”; Josephus’ Daluiel suggests a Hebrew form ‫דלויאל‬, a theophoric variant of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, by changing the name of God; the parallel 1 Chr 3:1 has ‫דניאל‬. As for 𝔐𝔐 ‫כלאב‬, there seems to be a dittography of ‫ לאב‬with a possible cryptic meaning “as if he were of the father (David)”, on the assumption that Abigail was already pregnant by Nabal (see b.Ber 4a). 2 Sam 3:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 מבור ה ִסרה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀπὸ τοῦ φρέατος (= ‫ )מבאר‬Σειραµ Αnt. 7:34 Βησηρᾶ. Joab’s messengers found Abner at “the cistern (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘well’) of Sirah”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. independantly reflect the same reading; some 𝔏𝔏 mss have Σειρα. 2 Sam 3:30 (‫𝔊𝔊 הרגו )לאבנר‬-𝔏𝔏 διεπαρετηροῦντο Αnt. 7:36 ἐνεδρευθεὶς ὑπὸ Ἰωάβου. Joab and his brother “killed (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘laid wait continually to’, from ‫ )ארבו‬Abner”; the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 verb is a hapax, with the meaning of the more frequent ἐνεδρεύω to render ‫“ ארב‬ambush”, and used by Josephus, hence a common source ‫;ארבו‬ moreover, the 𝔐𝔐 phrasing -‫ הרגו ל‬with ‫ ל‬for the object is not normal in Biblical 7 8

With IBN EZRA, since no spoils are mentioned; others take ‫ אל‬as ‫( אן‬for ‫“ )לאן‬where”. In 4QSama only the first two letters can be read, and according to DJD 17, p. 109, the space available allows a restoration ‫ דליה‬or ‫דליהו‬, a theophoric name close to ‫ דניאל‬of 1 Chr 3:1 (for ‫)דליאל‬, but far away from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. here.

82

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Hebrew, so that it could be a misreading for -‫ארבו ל‬. However, 4QSama has two letters ‫ [עו‬for ‫הרגו‬, which suggests ‫“ נגעו ל‬touched him”, a correct phrase.9 2 Sam 4:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 באו עד־תוך הבית‬-𝔏𝔏 ἡ θυρωρὸς τοῦ οἴκου Αnt. 7:48 µήτε τὴν θυρωρὸν ‫לקחי חטים‬ ἐκάθαιρεν πυροὺς καὶ ἐγρηγορυῖαν, εἰς ὕπνον (‫)ויכהו‬ ἐνύσταξεν καὶ ἐκάθευδεν καταπεσοῦσαν. Τhe murder of Ish-boshet begins: “And behold, wheat takers came to the middle of the house, and they struck him”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: “The porter of the house winnowed wheat, and she slumbered and slept”. θυρωρός for a female porter is a hapax in both 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus, which suggests a Hebrew source; the whole source of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 can be restored ‫שוערת הבית דשה חטים ותרדם ותישן‬. Josephus had a source of this kind. (NB. The 𝔐𝔐 text is inconsistent, for the context suggests that these “wheat takers” were the murders, who fled immediately; this contradicts v. 7, which reports the actual murder.) 2 Sam 6:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 וי ֹסף עוד‬-𝔏𝔏 συνήγαγεν (= ‫ )ויאסף‬ἔτι Αnt. 7:78 µεταπέµψασθαι ‫דוד את־כל־בחור‬ Δαυιδ πάντα νεανίαν τοὺς ἐν ἀκµῇ τῆς ἠλικίας. Before fetching the Ark, “David added (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. ‘gathered’) again all the chosen men (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. ‘young men’)”; in the present context of 2 Sam, Josephus’ notice sounds mistaken, but it would make sense after the passage on David’s consultation of the prominent people as given in 1 Chr 13:1-6, which might have been in an earlier form of 2 Sam. 1 Chr 15:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויזבחו שבעה פרים‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:85 ἑπτὰ χορῶν 2 Sam 6:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׁשׁה צעדים ויזבח שור‬-𝔏𝔏 ἑπτὰ χοροί (= ‫)מח ֹלּות‬ προσαγώντων. When the Ark moved towards Jerusalem, the bearers “went 6 paces (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘with them 7 bands’, from ‫ מח ֹלּות‬or ‫)חבלים‬, and sacrificed an ox”; for 1 Chr, “they sacrificed 7 bulls”. Like 2 Sam 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus has the bands, but omits any sacrifices. The parallel 1 Chr 15:26 is different, see Chap. V, § I.10 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀνεκρούετο ἐν ὀργά2 Sam 6:14 ‫מכרכר‬ Αnt. 7:85 ἐν κινύρᾳ παί‫בכל־עז‬ νοις (= ‫ )בכלי‬ἡρµοσµένοις ζοντος καὶ κροτοῦντος. Coming with the Ark, David was “dancing with all might (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sounding with tuned instruments’)”; for Josephus, he was “playing the harp and clapping”, which is close to 𝔊𝔊. The parallel 1 Chr 15:27 is different, see Chap. V, § I. 2 Sam 6:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 ותאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 εὐλόγησεν αὐτὸν καὶ εἶπεν Αnt. 7:87 αὐτῷ κατηύχετο. When David was back home, his wife “said” to him that his conduct was disgracefull; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has “she blessed him and said” (from ‫)ותברך אתו ותאמר‬, certainly a euphemism for “cursed”. However, Josephus reports and develops this blessing literally, before her reproaches. 2 Sam 6:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 והייתי שׁפל‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔσοµαι ἀχρεῖος ἐν Αnt. 7:88 µηδένα τοῦ δόξαι ταῖς (‫ בעיני )ועם־האמהות‬ὀφθαλµοῖς σου (= ‫ )בעיניך‬θραπαινίσιν αἰσχρὸν καὶ αὐτῇ. In his reply to his wife Michal, David said: “I will be humble in my own (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘in your’) eyes and with the maids.” Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “Without caring whether he would seem discraceful to the maid-servants or herself”. 9 See 10

DJD 17, p. 115. 4QSama lacks many words, but it can be restored by combining 2 Sam 𝔊𝔊 and 1 Chr, hence here ‫ שבעה מחלות‬or ‫שבעה חבלים‬, where ‫ חבל‬may mean “group” (cf. 1 Sam 10:10); see DJD 17, p. 128 for another view.



IV – SAMUEL

83

2 Sam 8:3 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויך דוד את־הדדעזר‬-𝔏𝔏 πορευοµένου αὐτοῦ Αnt. 7:99 ἐστράτευσε ‫בלכתו להשׁיב ידו‬ ἐπιστῆσαι τὴν χεῖρα ἐπὶ Ἀρδράσαρον πα‫בנהר פרת‬ αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν Εὐφράτην ρὰ τὸν Εὐφράτην. After striking Moab, “David smote Hadadezer who was on his way to restore (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘to establish’, from ‫להציב‬,11 as in 1 Chr 18:3) his rule at the Euphrates”; for 𝔐𝔐, David wants to stop Hadadezer’s reconquest; but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is somewhat ambiguous about whom is “on his way”. For Josephus, David wants to conquer, a possible meaning with ‫להציב‬, and in the sequel, the Arameans of Damascus come to help Hadadezer. 2 Sam 8:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויביאם‬-𝔏𝔏 adds ἔλαβεν αὐτὰ ΣουΑnt. 7:105 ἃς ὕστερον Σούσακος ‫ירושׁלם‬ σακιµ ἐν ἡµέραις Ροβοαµ στρατεύσας ἐπὶ Ῥοβοάµον ἔλαβε. After defeating Hadad, David “brought the spoils to Jerusalem”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. add “Susakim (Shishak) took them, when he went up to Jerusalem in the days of Rehoboam son of Solomon”, summarizing 1 Kgs 14:25-26 (see Chap. V, § V). The parallel 1 Chr 18:7 does not have the addition.12 2 Sam 8:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 נחשׁת‬-𝔏𝔏 & 1 Chr 18:8 add ἐν αὐτῷ Αnt. 7:106 ἐξ οὗ Σολόµων ‫הרבה מאד‬ ἐποίησεν Σαλωµων τὴν θάλασσαν θάλασσαν ἐποίησε. David took “very much brass”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, 1 Chr and Αnt. add: “with that Solomon made the Sea and other furniture”. In 1 Chr, 𝔊𝔊 closely follows 𝔐𝔐, but here 𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏, before the addition, has some slight differences, and we cannot ascertain the exact source of Josephus, all the more so that 4QSama is lacking here. 2 Sam 8:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 יורם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιεδδουραν; 1 Chr 18:10 ‫ הדורם‬Ιδουραµ Αnt. 7:107 Ἀδώραµον. For Thou’s son Joram-Hadoram, Josephus agrees with all but 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐. Both forms are probably variants of a theophoric name ‫הדדרם‬, as the double -δδ- of 𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 suggests. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκοιµήθη µετ᾿ αὐτῆς, 2 Sam 12:24 ‫וישׁכב‬ Αnt. 7:158 συνελθών... ἔγκυον ‫עמה ותלד‬ συνέλαβεν καὶ ἔτεκεν ἐποίησε, καὶ γενόµενον ἄρρεν. David comforted Bethsheba, “and he lay with her (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and she conceived’, from ‫ )ותהר‬and she gave birth”; Josephus, with “made her pregnant, and a male child having been, etc.”, is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀδελφὴ καλὴ 2 Sam 13:1 ‫אחות יפה‬ Αnt. 7:162 τὸ κάλλος εὐπρεπής, ὡς τῷ εἴδει σφόδρα ἁπάσας ὑπερβάλλειν τὰς γυναῖκας. Absalom had “a beautiful sister (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a sister of very beautiful appearance’, from ‫יפת מראה מאד‬, cf. 2 Sam 14:27 and Gen 12:14; at 2 Sam 14:27, 4QSamc reads ‫ ;”)יפת מראה מאודה‬Josephus, with “of such striking beauty that she surpasssed, etc.”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.13 2 Sam 13:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויחר לו מאד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐθυµώθη σφόδρα, οὐκ ἐλύπησεν Αµνων

Αnt. 7:173 Δαβίδης ἤχθετο, φίλων Ἀµνῶνα σφόδρα κτλ.

11 The word is missing in 4QSama, but in DJD 17, p. 132, it is restored according to 𝔐𝔐 without any discussion, maybe as a lectio difficilior. 12 The restoration of the verse is given and discussed in DJD 17, p. 134; the addition is viewed there as a gloss. 13 From ‫ ויהי אחרי־כן ולאבשׁלום בן־דוד אחות יפה ושׁמה תמר‬on line 5, 4QSama has only the end ‫[מר‬, and the restoration proposed has ‫יפת מראה‬, invoking space consideration and 𝔊𝔊, see DJD 17, p. 145; but we suggest to follow it further, with the addition of ‫מאד‬.

84

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

When David heard of Amnon’s deed “he was very angry”, and all the witnesses but 𝔐𝔐 add “and he did not grieve the spirit of Amnon his son for he loved him, for he was his first-born”, from ‫ולא עצב את רוח אמנון בנו כי אהבו כי בכורו הוא‬.14 2 Sam 13:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁלח‬-𝔏𝔏 adds ἐποίησεν Αβεσσαλωµ Αnt. 7:174 παρεκάλει τὸν ‫ את כל־בני המלך‬πότον κατὰ τὸν πότον τοῦ βασιλέως πατέρα ἐφ᾽ ἑστίασιν. Urged by Absalom, David “sent with him Amnon and all the king’s sons (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSama add ‘and Absalom made a banquet like the banquet of the king’ from ‫;”)ויעש אבשלום משתה כמשתה המלך‬15 Josephus, with “he invited his father to the banquet, but David declined”, read the longer form, and understood that the shape of banquet was as if the king were present. 2 Sam 13:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 את כל הנערים‬-𝔏𝔏 πάντα τὰ παιδάρια Αnt. 7:178 περὶ τῶν ἄλλων µὴ ‫ בני־המלך המיתו‬τοὺς υἱοὺς τ. β. ἐθανάτωσεν πιστεύειν ὡς τεθνᾶσιν. Jonadab said to David: Do not say “all the young men, the king’s sons, they have put to death”, which is ambiguous; in the context, παιδάρια of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 are the servants who killed the king’s sons, but 𝔐𝔐 can be unexpectedly understood “the king’s son have put to death all the servants”; close to 𝔊𝔊, Josephus understood “all the king’s sons died”, which can be obtained just by moving ‫ את כל‬after ‫הנערים‬. Indeed, 4QSama does have ‫הנערים כל בני המלך‬, without ‫את‬,16 thus agreeing with him. 2 Sam 13:39 ‫𝔊𝔊 ותכל דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκόπασεν τὸ πνεῦµα Αnt. 7:181 τὰ τῆς ὀργῆς ὑπὸ (‫ המלך )לצאת אל־אבשׁלום‬τοῦ βασιλέως (𝔏𝔏 adds Δαυιδ) τοῦ χρόνου λελωφήκει. Some time after Absalom’s flight, “David (𝔊𝔊 ‘the spirit of’, 𝔏𝔏 combines) the king ceased to go to after Absalom”; the feminine ‫ ותכל‬is awkward, and 4QSama has ‫ רוח‬instead of ‫( דוד‬a slight graphic confusion), which agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. Josephus’ periphrase “in the course of time his anger signs receded”, depends on the same reading. The difficult 𝔐𝔐 form can be understood “desire toward Absalom”; this does not match the context, with Joab’s stratagem, but Josephus has felt this meaning, for he said just before that David wanted Absalom to be with him. 2 Sam 14:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 עשׂיתי‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐποίησά σοι (= ‫ )לך‬κατὰ Αnt. 7:186 ἐπιτυχεῖν τοῦ προ‫את־הדבר הזה‬ τὸν λόγον σου τοῦτον, κειµένου κατὰ νοῦν, Ἀψά(‫ולך השׁב )אבשלום‬ πορεύου (= ‫ )לך‬ἐπίστρεψον λωµον ἄγειν ἐκέλευσεν. After Joab’s stratagem, David said: “I did (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘for you’) this thing (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘of yours’), and (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.) go, bring back Absalom”;17 in the background of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, the two ‫לך‬, of different meanings, may be a doublet. Josephus, who renders “David told him he had gained his end, and ordered to bring Absalom”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 14 As restored in 4QSama, see DJD 17, p. 149. The shorter 𝔐𝔐 form may be the result of haplography (by homoioteleuton), since the next sentence (13:22) begins with the same ‫ולא‬. 15 In 4QSama, some letters were conserved, but the line length allowed the restoration, with an example at 1 Sam 25:36 ‫והנה־לו משׁתה בביתו כמשׁתה המלך‬, see DJD 17, p. 150. The shorter 𝔐𝔐 form may be the result of haplography (by homoioteleuton), from ‫ המלך‬to ‫המלך‬. 16 In 4QSama, at the end of the poorly preserved previous line, ‫ את‬is restored as ‫המלך כי‬, following 𝔊𝔊, see DJD 17, p. 151, hence ‫אל־יאמר אדני המלך כי הנערים כל בני המלך המיתו‬, giving a good sense. 17 4QSamc has only ‫[זה ולך והשב‬, and the beginning of the sentence is restored according to 𝔐𝔐, see DJD 17, p. 236.



IV – SAMUEL

85

2 Sam 14:27 (‫𝔊𝔊 )תמר‬-𝔏𝔏 adds γυνὴ τῷ Ροβοαµ, Αnt. 7:190 ἣν Ῥοβόαµος λαµβά‫יפת מראה‬ τίκτει αὐτῷ τὸν Αβια νει, παιδίον ἐξ αὐτῆς Ἀβίας. After a mention of Absalom’s children, including a daughter, Thamar, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. add that “she becomes the wife of Rehoboam, son of Solomon, and bears to him Abijah”; this notice contradicts 2 Sam 18:18, that Absalom was childless; at 7:243, Josephus tried to bridge the gap (see § II.1). 2 Sam 14:30 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויצתו‬-𝔏𝔏 παραγίνονται οἱ δοῦλοι Ιωαβ Ant. 7:191 ἐπυρπόλησεν, ‫ את־החלקה באשׁ‬διερρηχότες τὰ ἱµάτια αὐτῶν κτλ. τὸ δὲ πραχθὲν µαθών. Absalom orders his servants, “and they set (Joab’s) field on fire” (𝔐𝔐); at v. 31 Joab comes to Absalom, as if he were a witness, but the missing link is given by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSamc: “Joab’s servants come to him with their clothes rent, and they said to him: The servants of Absalom have set the field on fire (from a Hebrew ending with ‫ ;”)את־החלקה באשׁ‬we can suspect in 𝔐𝔐 a haplography by homoioteleuton from ‫ באשׁ‬to ‫באשׁ‬. Josephus has “he set fire to the adjacent field; then hearing of the deed, he came to Absalom”, which implies that his servants had reported to him, as in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Sam 15:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁלח )אבשׁלום‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀπέστειλεν Ant. 7:197 παρῆν Δαβίδου σύµβου(‫את־אחיתפל הגילני מעירו‬ καὶ ἐκάλεσεν λος ὁ Γελµωναῖος Ἀχιτόφελος. From Hebron, “Absalom sent (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSamc add ‘and called’) Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city”;18 for 𝔐𝔐, it is not said where Ahithophel was sent, while for the others he was summoned to Hebron; the same way, Josephus says he was with Absalom, i.e. he came to Hebron. 2 Sam 15:16 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויעזב‬-𝔏𝔏 δέκα γυναῖκας Ant. 7:199 καταλιπὼν τὰ βασίλεια ‫את עשׂר נשׁים פלגשׁים‬ τῶν παλλακῶν αὐτοῦ φυλάσσειν δέκα παλλακίσιν. When David fled from Jerusalem, “he left the ten women concubines (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘ten women from his concubines’) to keep the house”; Josephus, with “leaving the palace in the keeping of ten concubines”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, implying that he had more than ten. 2 Sam 15:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 ודוד הגיד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀνηγγέλη Δαυιδ λέAnt. 7:202 ἀγγέλλεται ὁ Ἀχιτό‫לאמר אחיתפל בקשׁרים‬ γοντες Καὶ Αχιτοφελ φελος συνὼν τῷ Ἀψαλώµῳ. David was leaving Jerusalem, “and David announced (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSama ‘it was announced to David’, close to Ant.), saying:19 Ahithophel is with the conspirators (Ant. ‘with Absalom’)”. The 𝔐𝔐 phrasing suggests a kind of divination with David. 2 Sam 15:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 חושׁי‬-𝔏𝔏 Χουσι, ἑταῖρος Δαυιδ Αnt. 7:203 φίλος καὶ βέβαιος Χουσίς. According to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus, Hushai was “David’s companion”. 2 Sam 18:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר יואב( ַלכּושׁי‬-𝔏𝔏 τῷ Χουσι Αnt. 7:246 καλέσας τὸν Χουσίν. To announce Absalom’s death, “Joab said to the Cushite (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Hushai’)”; for Josephus, this Hushai is not an Ethiopian, but the same as David’s companion (see prev. note); he was supposed to have been sent to Absalom to defeat Ahithophel’s counsel (2 Sam 15:34). 2 Sam 19:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 ורעה לך‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐπίγνωθι (= ‫ )ודעה‬σεαυτῷ Αnt. 7:256 πικρότερον καὶ (‫זאת )מכל־הרעה‬ καὶ κακόν (= ‫ )ורעה‬σοι τοῦτο ἀληθὲς ποιήσω τὸ πένθος. 18 4QSamc has ‫וישלח‬, then ‫ויקרא‬, which appears as a correction above the line, but not ‫( אבשלום‬unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏), see DJD 17, p. 265. 19 4QSama has only ]‫[לדוי‬, hence a restoration according to 𝔊𝔊 ‫ולדויד הוגד לאמר‬, see DJD 17, p. 157.

86

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Joab warns David: “(𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘know for yourself’) and this evil for you will be worse than all the evil”; the variants ‫דעה‬-‫ רעה‬have generated the doublet of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; 4QSama has only ‫דעה לך‬, which is better. For Josephus, Joab tells David that he will persuade the people to revolt, and “make your sorrow more bitter and real”; this clear threat indicates that Josephus read at least ‫ דעה לך‬like 4QSama, and possibly a doublet like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

2 Sam 19:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 בן־שׁאול‬-𝔏𝔏 υἱὸς Ιωναθαν υἱοῦ Σαουλ Αnt. 7:267 Σαούλου υἱωνός. Mephibosheth “son (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘of Jonathan son’; Ant. ‘grandson’) of Saul” came to David. There are confusions between Mephibosheth and Ishbosheth, son of Saul, for the latter is sometimes called Mepibosheth, too (see § III.2, 2 Sam 3:7). 2 Sam 19:27 (‫𝔊𝔊 )כי־אמר עבדך‬-𝔏𝔏 αὐτῷ ἐπίσαξόν (= ‫ )חבשׁה‬Αnt. 7:268 Σιβᾶ κελευ‫אחבשׁה־לי החמור‬ µοι τὴν ὄνον σθεὶς παρασκευάσαι. Mephiboshet tries to apologize for not having been with David: “For your servant said: I will saddle (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘said to him: saddle’) for me a donkey”; the servant is Ziba, of whom Josephus says, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, that he had been “ordered to prepare for the departure”. 2 Sam 19:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וכלכלתי( אתך‬-𝔏𝔏 τὸ γῆράς σου (= ‫ )שיבתך‬Αnt. 7:272 γηρωκοµήσειν. David rewards Barzillai for his help “and I will support you (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘your old age’)”. For Josephus, David promises him “to honor his old age”, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Sam 20:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 וכל־העם‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς Αnt. 7:288 ὑπορύσσειν ἐκέλευσε (‫משׁחיתם )להפיל החומה‬ ἐνοοῦσαν (= ‫)משכילים‬ τὰ τείχη καὶ καταβάλλειν. The siege was prepared, and “all the people who were with Joab were destroying (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘intending’) to topple the wall”; for Josephus, Joab “ordered to undermine and topple the walls”, following 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, for this was not actually done. 2 Sam 20:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 מן־העיר‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ τοῦ τείχους (= ‫ )הקיר‬Αnt. 7:289 ἀναβὰν ἐπὶ τὸ τεῖχος. At Abel Beth-maakah, a wise woman adresses Joab “from the city (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘from the wall’, which makes more sense)”. 2 Sam 20:25 ‫( ושׁוא‬Qer) ‫( ושׁיא‬Ket) 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Σουσα Αnt. 7:293 Σουσὰν γραµµατέα. David appointed “Sheva-Sheya (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Sousa’, from ‫”)שׁושׁא‬, as his scribe; Josephus has already mentioned this scribe as Seisa, see Chap. V, § III.1, 1 Chr 18:16. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δύο υἱοὺς 2 Sam 23:20 ‫שׁני אריאל‬ Αnt. 7:315 προκληθεὶς ὑπ᾽ ‫מואב‬ Αριηλ τοῦ Μωαβ ἀδελφῶν ἐν τῇ Μωαβίτιδι. Benaiah killed “the two (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘sons of’) Ariel at Moab”; Josephus says that “he had been challenged by two brothers in Moab”, that is, the sons of the same unnamed father. 2 Sam 24:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 מהבקר‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀπὸ πρωίθεν ἕως Αnt. 7:326 ἀρξαµένης ἕωθεν τῆς ‫ועד־עת מועד‬ ὥρας ἀρίστου (= ‫)סועד‬ νόσου ἕως ὥρας ἀρίστου. God sent a pestilence upon Israel “from the morning to the appointed time (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘till lunch time’)”. 2 Sam 24:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׁבע שבעים אלף‬-𝔏𝔏 ἑβδοµήκοντα χιλιάδες Ant. 7:326 µυριάδες ἑπτά. There was a pestilence, and “seventy-seven (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Ant., and 1 Chr 21:14 ‘seventy’) thousand men died”; the phrasing in 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐 is not normal, and probably the result of a dittography of ‫שׁבע‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ορνα 2 Sam 24:18 ‫ארונה‬, 1 Chr 21:18 ‫ארנן‬ Αnt. 7:329 εἰς ἅλω Ὀροννᾶ.



IV – SAMUEL

87

For “Arauna the Jebusite”, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has consistently “Orna” (2 Sam and 1 Chr), confirmed by 4QSama ‫ארנא‬, and Josephus agrees. 1 Chr 𝔐𝔐 is probably wrong.

I.4 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 and/or 𝔊𝔊

These contacts are significant, and sometimes the variants they imply have been used to restore several lacunae of 4QSama. 1 Sam 5:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 נ ֹפל‬-𝔏𝔏 πεπτωκὼς ἐπὶ πρόσωπον Ant. 6:2 ἔκειτο γὰρ ἐπ᾽ αὐτῆς ‫לפניו ארצה‬ αὐτοῦ (𝔏𝔏 adds ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν) ἀποπεπτωκὼς τῆς βάσεως. The Ashdodites found Dagon “fallen on its face to the ground (𝔊𝔊 om., 𝔏𝔏 corrects)” before the Ark; Josephus explains that it “lay fallen from its pedestal”, to wit, “on the ground”, like 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏. Moreover, at the end of the verse, 𝔊𝔊 only adds a sentence that is almost identical to v. 6a “and the hand of Yhwh was heavy on the Ashdodites”. 1 Sam 5:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וישׁמּם ויך‬ἐπήγαγεν αὐτοῖς, 𝔏𝔏 ἐξέζεσεν αὐτοῖς Ant. 6:3 ἀπέθνῃσκον (Ket) ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אתם בעפלים‬εἰς τὰς ναῦς, 𝔏𝔏 εἰς τὰς ἕδρας γὰρ ὑπὸ δυσεντερίας, (Qer ‫𝔊𝔊 )בטחרים‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ µέσον τῆς χώρας αὐτῆς µυῶν πλῆθος ἀνελ(om.) ἀνεφύησαν µύες θὸν ἐκ τῆς γῆς. When the Ark was by the Ashdodites, God “ravaged them and smote them with tumors (Ket) or hemorrhoids (Qer)”. Qer was retained in various ways: Ak. and 𝔏𝔏 (and 𝔊𝔊 5:3) εἰς τὰς ἕδρας “buttocks”; hence too κατὰ τῶν κρυπτῶν of Sym. and Vulg.; Josephus’ “died from dysentery” displays a similar meaning, but independantly; as for 𝔊𝔊, it has a twofold translation (“brought upon them”, from ‫שׂמם‬ ִ ‫וי‬, like 𝔏𝔏; and then a strange “burst them forth into the ships”, from ‫)?אניות‬. Against 𝔐𝔐, however, 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 add a swarm of mice or rats, like Josephus. All considered together, Josephus agrees with 𝔏𝔏.

1 Sam 7:2 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויִּנַּהו )כל בית‬ἐπέβλεψεν Ant. 6:19 (τοῦ λαοῦ) ἐπ᾽εὐχὰς (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ישראל אחרי יהוה‬ἐπέστρεψεν... ἐν εἰρήνῃ καὶ θυσίας τραπέντος. When the Ark was at Kiryat-jearim, “all the people of Israel lamented after Yhwh”, but for 𝔊𝔊 the people “looked upon” (from ‫ ?ויבטו‬a graphic distorsion), while 𝔏𝔏 has “returned in peace” (from ‫)וישבו בשלום‬, quite close to Josephus, for whom the people turned to worshipping. 𝔊𝔊 ἀνήγαγον 1 Sam 8:8 ‫)מיום( העלתי‬ Ant. 6:38 ἀφ᾿ ἧς ἡµέρας ἐξήγαγεν 𝔏𝔏 ἐξήγαγον (‫)אתם ממצרים‬ αὐτοὺς ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτου. God complains that the Israelites have forsaken him since “the very day of my bringing them up from Egypt”, but 𝔏𝔏 and Josephus have “bringing them forth”, suggesting a reading ‫מיום הוציאי‬, which frequently occurs elsewere. 1 Sam 8:12 (‫)ולעשות כלי מלחמתו‬ Ant. 6:40 (ποιήσουσι δὲ τεχνίτας (‫)וכלי רכבו‬ ὁπλοποιοὺς καὶ ἁρµατοποιούς) ‫𝔐𝔐 = ולחרש חרישו‬-𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὀργάνων τέκτονας ‫ ולקצר קצירו‬om. 𝔊𝔊 γεωργούς τε καὶ ἀγρων ἐπιµελητάς ‫ ולבצר בצירו‬om. 𝔐𝔐 σκαπανεῖς ἀµπέλων Τhree trades are indicated: the king’s plowing, his gathering, his grape harvesting; 𝔏𝔏 omits the second and 𝔐𝔐 the third; 4QSama has only a portion of the first ]‫[ש חר‬, and the line length allows room for one more only, the second (like 𝔐𝔐) or the third (like 𝔏𝔏). Josephus mentions first the “makers of weapons and chariots”, then “husbandmen and field workers and vineyard diggers”; this reasonably matches the three trades of 𝔏𝔏, but another category is left in between,

88

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“craftsmen of tools, blacksmiths”; in fact, there is a homonym ‫חרש‬, which means “blacksmith”, and Josephus has alluded to this meaning, or maybe retained it as the first trade, if we consider “husbandmen and field workers” as representing the second. 1 Sam 10:3 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = עד אלון תבור‬ἕως τῆς δρυὸς ἐκλεκτῆς Ant. 6:55 καταλήψῃ τρεῖς ‫𝔊𝔊 = שלשה אנשים עלים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀνθρώπους ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ πο‫𝔊𝔊 = אל האלהים בית אל‬-𝔏𝔏 πρὸς θεὸν εἰς Βαιθηλ ρευοµένους εἰς Βέθηλα. Samuel tells Saul to go “to the oak of Thabor”, and he will be met by “three men going up to God at Bethel”; 𝔏𝔏 has “the oak of choice” (‫ בחור‬instead of ‫)תבור‬, and Josephus agrees, with “on the way”, without mentioning “Thabor”. 1 Sam 15:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויחזק‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκράτησεν (𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ ἀπεAnt. 6:152 κατασχεῖν βου(‫)בכנף מעילו‬ σχεῖν) Σαουλ καὶ διέρλόµενος, ἐλλαµβάνεται τῆς ‫ויקּ ַרע‬ ρηξεν αὐτό (= ‫)ויקרעו‬ διπλοίδος, διασχίζει τὸ ἱµάτιον. When Samuel turned to go, “Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and he rent it)”; the 𝔏𝔏 addition translates ‫ויאחז‬, a graphic variant of ‫ויחזק‬. Both readings may be independant corrections of a corrupt form ‫( ויחז‬for another missing ‫א‬, see § I.4, 1 Sam 15:5 ‫)וירב‬. Josephus, with “seeking to detain Samuel” and “he rent the garment”, is closer to 𝔊𝔊, but he witnesses the two verbs, like 𝔏𝔏, with probably one of them as a marginal gloss. 1 Sam 16:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וּ ָבא ֶתם ִא ִתּי‬εὐφράνθητε µετ᾿ ἐµοῦ σήµερον Ant. 6:158 καλεῖ ἐπὶ (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ) ַבּזָּ ַבח‬ἀνακλήθητε εἰς τὴν θυσίαν τὰ ἱερεῖα. Samuel speaks to the Bethlehem people: “And you will come with me to the sacrifice”; 𝔊𝔊 has “Rejoice with me today”,20 and 𝔏𝔏 (with a minor correction ἀνακλίθητε) “Recline for the sacrifice meal”, from ‫( וסבתם‬see 16:11); the same way, Josephus has a “summons to a sacred meal”. 1 Sam 20:19 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )וישׁבת אצל‬τὸ εργαβ ἐκεῖνο (‫ )הארגב הלז‬Ant. 6:232 εἴς τινα τόπον ‫ 𝔏𝔏 האבן האזל‬τὸν λίθον ἐκεῖνον (‫)האבן הלז‬ ἀπελθεῖν τοῦ πεδίου. Jonathan tells David to hide and stay by “the stone Ezel (𝔊𝔊 ‘that Argob’; 𝔏𝔏 ‘that stone’)”; the name is not clear, for ‫ האזל‬may be a misreading for ‫הלז‬. Josephus is content to say that David knew the place; he may have read or guessed as 𝔏𝔏. Instead of ‫ הארגב‬of 𝔊𝔊, ‫“ הרגב‬the clod” may be considered by omitting ‫א‬, see § I.3, 1 Sam 20:41. (Argob is a region, see Deut 3:4, which can hardly be relevant here.) 1 Sam 23:25 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 במדבר מעון‬ἐν Μααν, 𝔏𝔏 ἐπηκόῳ Ant. 6:280 ἐπὶ τὴν µεγάλην πέ‫𝔊𝔊 בערבה אל ימין הישׁימון‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ δεξιῶν Ιεσσαιµουν τραν ἐν τῇ Σίµωνος ἐρήµῳ. David and his men were “in the wilderness of Maon, in the steppe, on the right side of Jeshimon”; 𝔊𝔊 transcribes, but 𝔏𝔏 has “attentive”, maybe from ‫( שמעון‬cf. Field), a combination of ‫ מעון‬and ‫ישׁימון‬, which is reflected in Ant.; another possibility is ‫שמע‬, see next note. As for the “large rock” of Josephus, it is mentioned in the following verse ‫“ וירד הסלע וישׁב במדבר מעון‬David came down to the rock and stayed in the wilderness of Maon”. 1 Sam 25:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואישׁ במעון‬-𝔏𝔏 ἦν ἄνθρωπος Ant. 6:295 ἦν τις τῶν Ζιφη(‫)ומעשׂהו בכרמל‬ ἐν τῇ Μααν (𝔏𝔏 ἐρήµῳ) νῶν ἐκ πόλεως Ἐµµᾶν. “There was a man in Maon (𝔏𝔏 ‘in the wilderness’), his business in Carmel”; the “wilderness” comes from v. 1: “David arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran (𝔊𝔊 ‘Maan’; 𝔏𝔏 ‘attentive’, see previous note)”; here, Josephus provides a 20

DJD 17, p. 226-7, restores ‫ ושמחו אתי היום‬according to 𝔊𝔊.



IV – SAMUEL

89

clue: Ἐµµᾶν after πόλεως should be restored Σεµµᾶν (haplography of σ after πόλεως), from ‫שמע‬, hence the translation of 𝔏𝔏, replacing Maon-Maan at v. 1, and keeping the “wilderness” here at v. 2. 1 Sam 26:4 (‫𝔊𝔊 )בא שׁאול‬-𝔏𝔏 ἕτοιµος Ant. 6:310 ἐπὶ τόπῳ H ‫בא שׁאול‬ ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אל־נכון‬ἐκ Κεiλα; 𝔏𝔏 εἰς Σεκελαγ Σίκελλα λεγοµένῳ ‫אל נכון צקלג‬ David learns that “Saul has come surely (or ‘ready’, cf. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; then 𝔊𝔊 adds ‘from Keilah’, which recalls David’s hiding place (1 Sam 23:7); 𝔏𝔏 adds ‘to Ziklag’)”. Josephus agrees with 𝔏𝔏, although the topography of the passage is not clear. 1 Sam 29:5 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ; 𝔊𝔊 = )יענו־לו( במחלות‬χορεύουσαι Ant. 6:354 ᾄδουσιν αἱ παρθένοι. The Philistine commanders remember David: “They sang for him in dances (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘the maiden-singers sang for him’, from ‫”)המחללות‬. 2 Sam 3:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 רצפה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ρεσφα θυγάAnt. 7:23 ὡς συνέλθοι H ‫רצפה‬ ‫ בת־איה‬τηρ Ιαλ (𝔏𝔏 Σιβα + καὶ Σαούλου παλλακῇ ‫בת סיבה‬ Αβνηρ ἔλαβε αὐτήν) Ῥαισφᾶ Σιβάτου θυγατρἰ ‫ואבנר לקח אותה‬ Saul’s concubine was “Rizpah, daughter of Aiah (𝔊𝔊 ‘Ial’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘Siba’ and adds ‘and Abner took her’)”; Josephus, with “accused of intimacy with Saul’s concubine, Rizpah daughter of Sibah”, has a clear contact with 𝔏𝔏 “Sibah”, and we may surmise that he read the addition, too, though it may be deduced from the sequel “Ish-bosheth said: Why have you gone in to my father’s concubine?” 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀγγέλους πρὸς Δαυιδ 2 Sam 3:12 (‫)וישׁלח אבנר‬ Ant. 7:24 πέµψας εἰς Γι‫מלאכים אל־דוד תחתיו‬ εἰς Θαιλαµ (𝔏𝔏 Χεβρων) βρῶνα παρὰ Δαβίδην. Eager to make peace, “Abner sent messengers to David in his place (𝔊𝔊 ‘to Thailam’, from a misreading of ‫‘ 𝔏𝔏 ;תחתיו‬to Hebron’)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔏𝔏. Because of the strange place name “Thailam”, 𝔊𝔊 adds a gloss οὗ ἦν παραχρῆµα “where he was immediately”, where the last word could be an orphan rendering of ‫( תחתו‬Ket; see too Job 40:12), but not of ‫פתאם‬. 2 Sam 9:11 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ומפיבשׁת אכל‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης Αnt. 7:116 συνεστιώµενος ‫על־שׁלחני‬ Δαυιδ (𝔏𝔏 τοῦ βασιλέως) τῷ βασιλεῖ, ὡς υἱὸς αὐτοῦ. David’s order is carried out: “Mephibosheth ate at my (𝔊𝔊 ‘David’s, 𝔏𝔏 ‘the king’s’) table”; Josephus is closer to 𝔏𝔏. 2 Sam 10:15 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וירא ארם‬εἶδεν Συρία Αnt. 7:127 τὸ πταῖσµα τοὺς (‫ 𝔏𝔏 )כי נגף לפני ישׂראל‬υἱοὶ Αµµων εἶδον ὅτι Αραµ Ἀµµανίτας οὐκ ἔπεισεν. Abishai had defeated the Ammonites “and the Arameans saw that they (𝔏𝔏 ‘the sons of Ammon saw that the Arameans’) had been smitten by Israel”; the 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 sentence may make sense if “they” refers to the Ammonites. 𝔏𝔏 made a correction according to a source, since Josephus says to the same effect: “Their defeat did not persuade the Ammonites.” 2 Sam 12:16 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 𝔊𝔊 = ולן ושׁכב‬adds ἐν σάκκῳ Αnt. 7:154 ἐπὶ σάκκου κατὰ γῆς. David “slept and lay (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. add ‘in sackcloth’)” on the ground.21 𝔏𝔏 Ιωναθαν 2 Sam 13:3+(‫ 𝔊𝔊 = יונדב )בן־שׁמעה‬ Αnt. 7:164 Ἰωνάθῃ σγγενεῖ. Like 𝔏𝔏 and Ant., 4QSama has ‫ יהונתן בן שמעיה‬for the name of Amnon’s friend Jonadab, a nephew of David’s, against Jonadab of 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊; the same discrepancy 21 The 𝔐𝔐 sentence ‫ויצם דוד צום ובא ולן ושׁכב ארצה‬, with a row of finite verbs, is awkward; 4QSama has ]‫[ד ויב‬, which allows a restoration ‫ויצם דוד ויבוא וישכב בשק ארצה‬, following 𝔏𝔏 (cf. 1 Kgs 21:27), see DJD 17, p. 144; indeed, ‫ ולן‬is obviously redundant.

90

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

occurs at Αnt. 7:178 (2 Sam 13:32). According to 2 Sam 21:21 and 1 Chr 20:7, his name was indeed Jonathan. 2 Sam 15:7 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 𝔊𝔊 = מקץ ארבעים שׁנה‬µετὰ τέσσαρα ἔτη Αnt. 7:196 τεσσάρων ἐτῶν. Absalom wanted to go to Hebron “fourty (𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. ‘four’) years” after his reconciliation with David. According to b.Ter 14b-15a, the 𝔐𝔐 time is reckoned from Saul’s reign; for b.Naz 4b Absalom was then 40.22 𝔊𝔊 Θεκωνει εἰς Γωλα 2 Sam 15:12 ‫אחיתפל‬ Ant. 7:197 Γελµωναῖος 𝔏𝔏 Γελµωναῖος τῆς Μεταλααδ ‫הגילני מגלה‬ Ἀχιτόφελος. Ahithophel, David’s counselor, was from Giloh (𝔐𝔐), or Thekoa (𝔊𝔊), or Gelmon (𝔏𝔏 and Ant.); 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 do not connect the adjective with a city name; the name Gelmon, as Ahithophel’s native city, appears again at 7:228. (At Josh 15:51, ‫ גלה‬is rendered by 𝔊𝔊 Γηλων or Χαννα; at 2 Sam 23:34, ‫ גילני‬is rendered by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Γελωνιτου.) 2 Sam 16:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עד־בחורים‬ἕως Βαουριµ, 𝔏𝔏 ἕως Χορραµ Ant. 7:207 κατὰ Χώρανον. Leaving Jerusalem, David comes “to Bahurim”, but 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. point to ‫ חורם‬or ‫חורן‬, as if ‫ ב‬were a preposition. A similar phenomenon can be seen at 2 S 19:32 Ket ‫את־בירדן‬, Qer ‫את הירדן‬, 𝔊𝔊 τὸν Ιορδάνην. A seemingly different “Bahurim” is mentioned at 2 Sam 17:18, see below. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τί ἐµοὶ καὶ ὑµῖν υἱοὶ 2 Sam 16:10 ‫מה־לי‬ Ant. 7:208 Δαβίδης αὐ‫ולכם בני צריה‬ (𝔏𝔏 σοῖ υἱὲ, from ‫ )ולך בן‬Σαρουιας τὸν τῆς ὀργῆς ἐπέσχε. Abishai wanted to kill Shimei, but David said: “What have I to do with you, you sons (𝔏𝔏 ‘son’) of Zeruiah?” Josephus, with “David restrained his anger against him”, is close to 𝔏𝔏 (singular), but we cannot exclude independent corrections, because the context suggests a singular form. 2 Sam 16:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 עיפים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκλελυµένοι (𝔏𝔏 adds παρὰ τὸν Ant. 7:210 παραγενόµε‫וינפשׁ שׁם‬ Ἰόρδανον) καὶ ἀνέψυξαν ἐκεῖ νος ἐπὶ τὸν Ἰόρδανον. Fleeing from Jerusalem, David and his men came “tired (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. add ‘to the Jordan’), and he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they’) rested there”. 𝔏𝔏 δέκα χιλιάδας 2 Sam 17:1 (‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁנים־עשׂר )אלף אישׁ‬ Ant. 7:215 µυρίους. Ahithophel asks for 12,000 men; 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. put 10,000. 2 Sam 17:18 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בבחורים‬Βαουριµ, 𝔏𝔏 Βαιθχορρων Αnt. 7:225 Βοκχόρης ἦν ὄνοµα. The two messengers took refuge at “Bahurim (𝔏𝔏 ‘Beth-horron’)”; for 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, the place is known since David’s exit; for 𝔏𝔏, the name cannot be Beth-horon of Josh 10:10 (west from Jerusalem), but it is similar to Χορραµ of 2 Sam 16:5 (see above), and akin to Josephus’ form; thus, for both 𝔏𝔏 and him, this is a different place, because of the prefixed Beth. 2 Sam 17:27 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )כבוא דוד( ושׁבי‬Ουεσβι, 𝔏𝔏 καὶ Σεφεει (= ‫ )ושפי‬Αnt. 7:230 Σειφάρ. One of the leaders at Mahanaim was “Shobi”; 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. witness a different form -‫ושפ‬. 𝔊𝔊 ἀπέστειλεν (Δαυιδ τὸν λαόν) 2 Sam 18:2 ‫וישׁלח‬ Αnt. 7:233 διελὼν εἰς τρία 𝔏𝔏 ἐτρίσσευσε (= ‫)וישלש‬ (‫)דוד את־העם‬ µέρη τὴν στρατιάν. 22 4QSama and 4QSamc are restored according to 𝔏𝔏, see DJD 17, p. 155 and 265; the most unlikely figure of “40 years” is probably the original.



IV – SAMUEL

91

At Mahanaim, David organizes his army “and he sent (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘divided into three parts’) the army, one third, etc.” ‫וישׁלח‬, which gives an awkward meaning, is apparently a misreading.23 2 Sam 18:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויצא‬εἰς τὸν δρυµόν Αnt. 7:236 παρατάξαντος τὴν δύναµιν ἐν τῷ ‫ 𝔏𝔏 העם( השׂדה‬εἰς τὸ πέδιον πεδίῳ τῷ µεγάλῳ περιβεβληµένῳ δρυµόν. For the battle “the people went out to the field (𝔊𝔊 ‘forest’, from ‫?יער‬, 𝔏𝔏 ‘plain’)”; ‫ שׂדה‬has usually the more generic sense of “plain” (opposite to “mountain”), hence the renderings of 𝔏𝔏 and Ant.; “forest” of 𝔊𝔊 matches the end of the verse, for the battle took place ‫“ ביער אפרים‬in the forest of Ephraim (𝔏𝔏 ‘Maainan’, maybe from ‫‘ מעיין‬spring’)”; Josephus saw this, and decided that the plain was “bordered by a forest”. 2 Sam 18:9 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויקרא‬καὶ συνήντησεν Αnt. 7:238 φανηρὸς αὐτοῖς ὑπὸ (‫ 𝔏𝔏 )אבשׁלום לפני עבדי דוד‬καὶ ἦν µέγας (= ‫ )ויגדל‬τοῦ κάλλους καὶ τοῦ µεγέθους. After the battle, “Absalom was summoned (𝔊𝔊 ‘met’, an approximate rendering; 𝔏𝔏 ‘was tall’) before David’s servants”. Josephus says that “he was plainly visible to them because of his beauty and tallness”; he recalls Absalom’s appearance (see 7:189), which means that he read like 𝔏𝔏. 2 Sam 18:9 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 האלה )הגדולה‬τῆς δρυός (= ‫ )אלון‬Αnt. 7:239 ἐµπλακείσης τῆς κόµης (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ויחזק ראשׁו באלה ויֻתן‬τοῦ ξύλου (= ‫)עץ‬ τραχεῖ δένδρῳ... ἀνακρεµνᾶται. In his flight, Absalom’s mule went under “the big therebinth (𝔊𝔊 ‘oak’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘tree’), and his head was caught fast in the therebinth, and he was given (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘hanging’, from ‫ )ויתל‬between heaven and earth”; like 𝔏𝔏, Josephus understood that “his hair got entangled in a leafy tree”, and he “remained hung”, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.24 There may have been corrections, for “the therebinth” cannot be a strong tree, as implied by the story; moreover, the article suggests it had a special meaning. 𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. 7:240 πεντήκοντα σίκλους. 2 Sam 18:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = )ועלי לתת לך( עשׂרה כסף‬ Would the soldier have killed Absalom, Joab “would have given him ten (4QSama, 𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. ‘fifty’) sicles of silver”. 2 Sam 18:19 (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = אמר )ארוצה‬adds τῷ Ιωαβ Αnt. 7:245 Ἰωάβῳ προσελθὼν ἐδεῖτο. Ahimaaz says for all to hear (𝔏𝔏 “to Joab”), that he wants to run to David; Josephus read like 𝔏𝔏, and understood that Ahimaaz asked Joab for permission. 2 Sam 18:23 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וירץ אחימעץ‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁδὸν τὴν 𝔊𝔊 τοῦ Κεχαρ Αnt. 7:247 ἐπιτοµωτέραν ‫ 𝔏𝔏 דרך הככר ויעבר את־הכושׁי‬διατεταγµένην ἐκβαλὼν τῶν ὁδῶν. The Cushite-Hushai was going to David, “and Ahimaaz ran by way of the plain (𝔊𝔊 transcribes; 𝔏𝔏 ‘by the assigned way’) and passed up the Cushite”; Ahimaaz’s journey was somehow shorter, and Josephus explains “striking off into a shorter way, which he alone knew”. It may have been a guess of his; however, the 𝔏𝔏 rendering sounds out of place, but it may depend on a (mis)reading ‫דרך הנכר‬, “way of the known”; with such a variant, Josephus’ phrasing would make sense. 2 Sam 18:29 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר אחימעץ‬εἶδον Αnt. 7:250 ἀκοῦσαι µεγάλης βοῆς (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ראיתי )ההמון הגדול‬ἤκουσα ὄπισθέν µου διωκόντων τὸν Ἀψάλωµον. 23 24

In 4QSama, the line, poorly conserved, is restored according to 𝔏𝔏, see DJD 17, p. 165. In 4QSama, the only legible portion of the phrase quoted is ‫ ;ויתל‬however, the last letter is doubtful, but the editors restore both ‫ ויתל‬and ‫האלה‬, see DJD 17, p. 164.

92

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Speaking to David, “Ahimaaz said: I saw (𝔏𝔏 ‘heard behind me’) a great tumult”; similarly to 𝔏𝔏, Josephus has “he said he heard a great shouting of those pursuing Absalom”. 2 Sam 19:15 (‫𝔊𝔊 = ויט )את־לבב יהודה‬, 𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἔκλινεν Αµασα Αnt. 7:262 Ἀµασὰ πείθει. After David’s speech, the story goes on: “And he (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Amasa’) turned the heart of all the men of Judah”; for 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, the natural meaning is that David himself did it. 𝔊𝔊 ὅτι οὐκ οἶδα 2 Sam 19:23 ‫כי הלוא ידעתי‬ Αnt. 7:266 οὐ γὰρ ἀγνοεῖν ὑµᾶς ὅτι 𝔏𝔏 ὅτι οὐκ οἴδατε (‫)כי היום אני־מלך‬ σήµερον ἄρχοµαι τῆς βασιλείας. David begins his new reign with pardons, “for do I (𝔏𝔏 ‘you’) not know that today I am king?” Josephus is close to 𝔏𝔏: “You cannot ignore that today I begin the reign”. 2 Sam 19:38 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 כמהם‬Χαµααµ, 𝔏𝔏 Αχιµααν υἱός µου Αnt. 7:274 τὸν υἱὸν Ἀχίµανον. Barzillai refuses to stay with David, but offers his servant “Chimham”, who actually was his son, according to 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 2 Sam 20:24 (‫𝔊𝔊 = ויהושׁפט )בן־אחילוד‬, 𝔏𝔏 Σαφατ Αnt. 7:293 Σαφάτην καὶ Ἀχίλαον. David put “Jehoshaphat (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Shaphat’25)” over the records. 2 Sam 21:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 נשׁבעו להם‬-𝔏𝔏 ὤµοσαν αὐτοῖς· Αnt. 7:294 ἀποκτείνας ἠσέβησεν, (‫ 𝔏𝔏 )ויבקשׁ שׁאול להכתם‬adds µὴ ἀπολέσαι αὐτούς τοὺς ὅρκους µὴ φυλάξας. The sons of Israel did not include the Gibeonites, but “they had sworn to them (𝔏𝔏 adds ‘not to destroy them’, from ‫)לבלתי השחיתם‬, and Saul had sought to smite them”; Josephus, agreeing with 𝔏𝔏, says that Saul “had wickedly killed them, not keeping the oaths”. 2 Sam 21:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הרפה‬, 𝔏𝔏 Γιγάντων Αnt. 7:298 ἀπόγονος τῶν Γιγάντων H ‫הרפאים‬ For a discussion of this passage, see § III.2. 2 Sam 23:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁמנה מאות‬, 𝔏𝔏 “900”; 1 Chr 11:11 “300” Αnt. 7:308 ἐννακοσίους. Ishbosheth felled many Philistines; Josephus agrees with 𝔏𝔏. 𝔊𝔊 Ασα, 𝔏𝔏 Ηλα 2 Sam 23:11 ‫)שמא בן( אגא‬ Αnt. 7:309 Ἠλοῦ υἱὸς Σαβαίας. David’s third warrior was “Samma son of Age (𝔊𝔊 ‘Asa’, 𝔏𝔏 and Αnt. ‘Ela’)”. 2 Sam 23:11 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויאספו פלשׁתים( לחיה‬εἰς Θηρία (= ‫ & 𝔏𝔏 )לחיות‬Α. 7:310 εἰς Σιαγόνα. The Philistine were gathered at “Lehi (𝔊𝔊 ‘beasts’, 𝔏𝔏 & Αnt. ‘Jawbone’)”, a place already named by Samson, Judg 15:19 (and translated “Jawbone” at Αnt. 5:300). 2 Sam 23:18 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = שׁלשׁ מאות חלל‬ἑξακοσίους Αnt. 7:315 ἑξακοσίους ἀπέκτεινε. Abishai was able to kill “three (𝔏𝔏 and Ant.‘six’) hundred” Philistines.

II – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏

There is a progression of Josephus’ dependence on 𝔐𝔐: renderings independants from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; agreements with 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; explanations of Hebrew words. 25 In 4QSama, the word is missing, and considerations of space have led to restore it ‫שפן‬, following some 𝔏𝔏 mss, see DJD 17, p. 176, but ‫ שׁפט‬would be better.



IV – SAMUEL

93

II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

The instances are very numerous, and generally convey the same meaning. Sometimess, there is a difference, and here is a selection of such cases, as well as proper names that the copyists have not corrected after 𝔊𝔊.

1 Sam 1:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 אלהי ישראל‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ θεὸς Ισραηλ δῴη Ant. 5:345 παρέξειν αὐτῇ παῖ‫יתן את שלתך‬ σοι πᾶν αἴτηµά σου δας τὸν θεὸν καταγγέλλων. Eli tells Hannah she will have children, but the verb ‫ יתן‬may mean either a vow “may God give you” (like 𝔊𝔊), or else a prophecy, so Josephus, “announcing that God would grant her children”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πρωτοτοκούσας 1 Sam 6:7 ‫)שתי פרות( ָעלות‬ Ant. 6:11 βόας ἀρτιτόκους. The cart has to be yoked to “two milch cows”, or “cows having freshly calved”, as Josephus puts it (like Ak. and Sym.); for 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏, these cows “have just brought forth their first offspring”, which is not very different. 𝔊𝔊 βερσεχθαν, 𝔏𝔏 βαεργαζ 1 Sam 6:8 ‫)תשימו( בארגז‬ Ant. 6:11 γλωσσόκοµον. The offerings of the Philistines have to be “put in a chest”; Josephus guessed or understood ‫ארגז‬, a Biblical hapax, but the Greek translators did not. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Γεθ 1 Sam 6:17 ‫גת‬ Ant. 6:8 Γίττης, Γήττης Gath, a Philistine city. Onomast. has Γιθθάµ (see 1 Sam 14:33). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Βαιθχορ Ant. 6:28 µέχρι Κορραίων τόπου. 1 Sam 7:11 ‫)עד מתחת( לבית כר‬ ‫ כר‬may mean “pasture” (in poetry); 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus are independant. 1 Sam 8:2 ‫ אביה‬,‫ 𝔊𝔊 יואל‬Ιωηλ, Αβι(ρ)α Ant. 6:32 Ουῆλος, Ἐβίας Joel & Abijah. 1 Sam 9:1 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = בן אביאל בן צרור‬ Ant. 6:45 εὖ γεγονὼς ‫𝔊𝔊 גבור חיל‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀνὴρ δυνατός (𝔏𝔏 adds ἰσχύι) καὶ ἀγαθὸς τὸ ἦθος. Kish, Saul’s father, is “the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite”. Josephus shortens “of good birth”, then interprets his quality “a mighty man of valor” as “of virtuous character”, while 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 stress his strength; both renderings are possible. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἰς τὸν βουνὸν τοῦ θεοῦ 1 Sam 10:5 ‫גבעת האלהים‬ Ant. 6:56 εἰς Γεβαθά. Samuel is told to go “to the hill of God”, but unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus transcribes the word as a name “to Gibeah” (“of Benjamin”, cf. Ant. 8:306). 1 Sam 12:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואם הרע תרעו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐὰν κακίᾳ κακοποιήσητε, Ant. 6:94 ἥξειν µεγάλην ‫ ִת ָסּפו‬προστεθήσεσθε (= ‫) ֻת ַספו‬ ἐκ θεοῦ πληγήν. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Samuel warns the Israelites: “And if you do wickedly, you shall be swept away (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘be added up’)”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has a strange meaning, extracted from ‫יסף‬, for the rarer root ‫ ספה‬was not recognized, but Josephus, with “a big blow from God”, understood rightly (cf. Num 16:26). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Νασιβ (𝔏𝔏 adds ὑπόστηµα) 1 Sam 13:3 (‫נציב )פלשתים‬ Ant. 6:95 φρούριον. Jonathan smote a “garrison of the Philistines”, so 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus; 𝔊𝔊 transcribed ‫ נציב‬as a name, and 𝔏𝔏 added a translation. 1 Sam 14:1+ ‫𝔊𝔊 נשא כליו‬-𝔏𝔏 αἴρων τὰ σκεύη Ant. 6:107 συντίθεται τῷ ὁπλοφόρῳ. For Jonathan’s armour-bearer, Josephus does not follow the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 phrase (but agrees with Sym.).

94

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

1 Sam 14:45 ‫כי ִעם אלהים‬ 𝔊𝔊 ὅτι ὁ λαὸς (= ‫ ) ַעם‬τοῦ θεοῦ Ant. 6:128 τὸν αἴτιον (‫)עשה היום הזה‬ 𝔏𝔏 ὅτι ἔλεον τοῦ θεοῦ τῆς νίκης Ἰωνάθην. Jonathan cannot be condemned, “for with God he (𝔊𝔊 ‘for God’s people’) made this day”; 𝔏𝔏 tried a slight correction “God’s compassion made this day”. Josephus, with “Jonathan, the author of the victory”, disagrees with both 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏. 1 Sam 14:49 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 יונתן וישוי‬Ιωναθαν καὶ Ant. 6:129 Ἰωνάθης καὶ ‫ומלכי שוע‬ Ιεσσιου (= ‫ )ישיו‬καὶ Μελχισα Ἰησοῦς καὶ Μέλχισος. Saul’s sons are “Jonathan and Ishvi and Malchi-shua”; 𝔏𝔏 adds Εισβααλ (from ‫)אשבעל‬, but this is a correction for Ishvi, since 4QSama has ]‫ וא‬as the first letters of the second name, suggesting a beginning ‫ ;אש‬thus, 𝔏𝔏 gives a clue to restore ‫ אשבעל‬or ‫;אישבעל‬26 1 Chr 8:33 has ‫אשבעל‬, 𝔊𝔊 Ασαβαλ. In other words, ‫ ישוי‬can be held as a corrumption of ‫ ישיו‬or ‫( אשיו‬cf. 𝔊𝔊), itself being a correction with the name of God instead of “Baal”, cf. Ishbosheth-Mephibosheth. According to 1 Sam 31:2, Saul’s second son was Abinadab. 1 Sam 14:49 ‫ מיכל‬,‫מרב‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Μεροβ, Μελχολ Ant. 6:129 Μερόβη καὶ Μιχαάλ. Josephus gives the names of Saul’s daughters (“Merab, Michal”), but omits his wife’s, “Ahinoam, daughter of Ahimaaz (14:50); 4QSama reads ‫מרוב‬, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 1 Sam 15:34 ‫)וילך( הרמתה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αρµαθαιµ Ant. 6:155 εἰς Ἅρµαθον πόλιν. Samuel’s place was “Ramah”, cf. Elkanah’s city, 1 Sam 1:1 ‫הרמתים צופים‬, 𝔊𝔊 Αρµαθαιµ Σιφα. 1 Sam 16:2 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עגלת בקר‬δάµαλιν βοῶν Ant. 6:158 θεοῦ δόντος ἀσφαλείας ὁδόν. Samuel is afraid of Saul, and God tells him to take a “heifer” to hide his oil horn, and to pretext a sacrifice to be performed at Bethlehem; unlike 𝔊𝔊, Josephus renders vaguely “God giving him a way of safety”; apparently, he misunderstood ‫ עגלת בקר‬as “oxcart”, which is possible, but the pretext collapses. The meaning “heifer” occurs at Deut 21:3. 1 Sam 17:39 ‫לא נסיתי‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 οὐ πεπείραµαι Ant. 6:185 οὐκ ἐγεγύµναστο. David, under Saul’s armor, says: “I cannot go with these, for I have not tested”; Josephus understands like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 that he has not been trained, and Sym. renders the same way: ἀγύµναστος γάρ εἰµι. 1 Sam 17:40 ‫𝔊𝔊 חמשה ח ֻלּקי אבנים‬-𝔏𝔏 πέντε λίθους λείους Ant. 6:185 πέντε λίθους. David took “five smooth stones”. The word ‫ ח ֻלּק‬is a hapax, from the root ‫חלק‬ “smooth”, which was correctly understood by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but Josephus renders from the homonymous ‫“ חלק‬piece”. 1 Sam 17:43 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויקלל את־דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 κατηράσατο τὸν Ant. 6:186 ἀρὰς αὐτῷ τίθεται ἐκ ‫ באלהיו‬Δαυιδ ἐν τοῖς θεοῖς αὐτοῦ τῆς προσαγορίας τοῦ θεοῦ. Goliath “cursed David by his gods”, but 𝔐𝔐 is somewhat ambiguous, and may be understood “by David’s God”, hence Josephus’ “he called down curses upon him in the name of God”. 1 Sam 25:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 והושׁע‬-𝔏𝔏 σῴζειν τὴν Ant. 6:303 µένοντά σε καθαρὸν ‫ידך לך‬ χεῖρά σού σοι ἐκεῖνος αὐτὸς ἐκδικήσει. Abigail has prevented David from shedding blood; she explains that God “has saved you to yourself”; Josephus understands otherwise: “If you stay clean, God 26

DJD 17, p. 75, suggests to restore ‫אישבשת‬, after 2 Sam 2:8.15.



IV – SAMUEL

95

himself will avenge you”, reading an imperative ‫שׁע‬ ַ ‫ והו‬instead of the infinitive ‫שׁע‬ ֵ ‫והו‬. 1 Sam 26:5 ‫)ושׁאול( שׁכב במעגל‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκάθευδεν Ant. 6:312 περὶ αὐτὸν ἐν κύ(‫)והעם חנים סביבתו‬ ἐν λαµπήνῃ κλῳ τῶν ὁπλιτῶν κειµένων. David has come to Saul’s camp, “and Saul was lying in the circle (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘chariot’), and the people were camped around him”; for Josephus, Saul’s troops “were lying in circle around him”. In fact, ‫ מעגל‬means either “circle” or “chariot” (like ‫)עגלה‬. 1 Sam 26:10 ‫)יהוה( יגפנו‬ 𝔊𝔊 παιδεύσῃ, 𝔏𝔏 παίσῃ Ant. 6:312 ἥξειν τὴν δίκην. David does not let Saul be killed, saying: “Yhwh will strike (𝔊𝔊 ‘discipline’; 𝔏𝔏 ‘hit’) him”; for Josephus, “punishment will come”, conveying the same idea. 1 Sam 27:9 (‫)וישׁב‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀνέστρεψαν καὶ Ant. 6:323 τῆς λείας µέρος (‫ויב ֹא )אל־אכישׁ‬ ἤρχοντο πρὸς Αγχους αὐτῷ δωρεὰν ἔπεµπε. David plundered the land around Ziklag, then “he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they’) returned and came to Achish”; for Josephus, “he sent him a part of the spoils”, reading ‫וי ֵבא‬, which makes a better sense in the context. 1 Sam 28:17 ‫ויעשׂ יהוה לו‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πεποίηκεν κύριός σοι (= ‫)לך‬ Ant. 6:335 ἄκουε ‫ויקרע את־הממלכה‬ διαρρήξει τὴν βασιλείαν ὅτι βασιλεῦσαι (‫ויתנה )לרעך לדוד‬ σου καὶ δώσει αὐτήν δεῖ Δαβίδην. Samuel tells Saul: “And Yhwh did for himself (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘for you’), and he tore (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘will tear’) the kingdom, and gave (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘will give’) it to your neighbor David”. 𝔐𝔐 read the verbs as past tense (conversive ‫)ו‬, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus render in the future. 1 Sam 29:3 ‫ויאמרו מה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τίνες οἱ διαπορευόAnt. 6:352 πόθεν οἱ Ἑβραῖοι ‫ה ִעברים האלה‬ µενοι (= ‫ )הע ֹברים‬οὗτοι ἠρώτων τὸν βασιλέα. The commanders of the Philistines ask Achish: “What are these Hebrews (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘passers-by’)?” Josephus vocalized like 𝔐𝔐. 2 Sam 1:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 אחזני‬-𝔏𝔏 ὅτι κατέσχεν µε Ant. 6:371 µὴ ταῖς χέρσι ‫השׁבץ‬ σκότος δεινόν (Ak. σφιγκτήρ) αὐτὸν δύνασθαι ποιῆσαι. Saul is unable to kill himself, and tells the Amalekite: “The weakness (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a dreadful darkness’, Ak. ‘anxiety’) has seized me”; ‫ שׁבץ‬is a hapax of doubtful meaning (apparently unconnected with the homonymous ‫“ שׁבץ‬weave”), but Josephus, with “could not do this with his hands”, is content with Saul’s plain weakness, unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Sam 3:2-5 ‫𝔊𝔊 אמנון לאחינעם‬-𝔏𝔏 Αµνων τῆς Αχινοοµ Ant. 7:21 ἐκ Ἀχίνας Ἀµνών, ‫ היזרעא ִלת‬τῆς Ιεζραηλίτιδος, ‫ כלאב לאביגיל‬Δαλουια τῆς Αβιγαιας ἐκ Ἀβιγαίας Δαλουίηλος, ‫ אשׁת נבל הכרמלי‬τῆς Καρµηλίας, ‫ אבשׁלום בן־מעכה‬Αβεσσαλωµ υἱὸς Μααχα ἐκ Μαχάµης Ἀψάλωµος ‫ בת־תלמי‬θυγατρὸς Θολµι τῆς Θολοµαίου θυγατρὸς ‫ מלך גשׁור‬βασιλέως Γεσιρ, τῶν Γεσσηρῶν βασιλέως, ‫ אדניה בן־חגית‬Ορνια υἱὸς Φεγγιθ, ἐκ Ἀήθης Ἀδωνίας, ‫ שׁפטיה בן־אביטל‬Σαβατια (𝔏𝔏 Σαφ-) τῆς Αβιταλ, ἐκ Ἀβιτάλης Σαφατίας, ‫ יתרעם לעגלה‬Ιεθερααµ τῆς Αιγλα ἐκ Ἀίγλας Ἰετρόας. At Hebron, David had six sons from six wives; all the names are given independantly by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant., with various corruptions. For the outstanding case of Chileab son of Abigail (the 2nd), see § I.3.

96

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

2 Sam 3:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויכהו שׁם( הח ֹמשׁ‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ τὴν ψόαν Ant. 7:35 ὑπὸ τὴν λαγόνα παίει. Joab struck Abner “in the belly (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘at the hip muscle’)”; Josephus cautiously renders “under the flank”; ‫ ח ֹמשׁ‬in this sense is rare. 2 Sam 3:33 ‫𝔊𝔊 הכמות נבל ימות אבנר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ναβαλ Ant. 7:43 οὐχ ὡς ἐχθρὸν ὑβρίσειεν. About Abner’s grand funeral, David asked: “Should Abner die like a fool (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Nabal’)?” Josephus paraphrases: “David would not have treated him shamefully like a foe”, which shows that he saw no allusion to Nabal, Abigail’s first husband. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Bαανα, Ρηχαβ υἱοὶ 2 Sam 4:2 ‫ רכב‬,‫בענה‬ Ant. 7:46 τῶν Ἐρέµµονος ‫בני רמון הבארתי‬ Ρεµµων τοῦ Βηρωθαίου υἱῶν Βανά, Θαηνός. A plot against Ish-boshet is devised by “Baanah and Rechab, sons of Rimmon the Beerothite”; Josephus’ second name is different, maybe a mistranscription of Βαηνός, a doublet of Βανά. 2 Sam 5:14-16 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 שׁמוע‬Σαµµους, 𝔏𝔏 Σαµαε (‫ שׁמוע‬Σαµαα) Ant. 7:70 Ἀµασέ (1 Chr 14:4-7) ‫ ושׁובב‬Σωβαβ, Ιεσσιβαθ (‫ ושׁובב‬Ισοβααµ) Ἀµνοῦ*, Σεβάν (// 1 Chr 3:5-9) ‫ ונתן‬Ναθαν, Ναθαν (‫ נתן‬Ναθαν) Νάθαν ‫ ושׁלמה‬Σαλωµων, Γαλαµααν (‫ ושׁלמה‬Σαλωµων) Σολοµῶνα ‫ ויבחר‬Εβεαρ, Ιεβααρ (‫ ויבחר‬Ιβααρ) Ἰεβαρῆ ‫ ואלישׁוע‬Ελισους, Θεησους (‫ *ואלישׁוע‬Ελισαε) Ἐλιήν ‫ ונפג‬Ναφεκ, Ναγεδ (‫ *ונגה ונפג‬Ναγε, Ναφαγ) Ναφήν ‫ ויפיע‬Ιεφιες, Ιαναθα (‫ ויפיע‬Ιανουου) Ἰεναέ ‫ ואלישׁמע‬Ελισαµα, Λεασαµυς (‫ ואלישׁמע‬Ελισαµαε) Φαλναγέην* ‫ ואלידע‬Ελιδαε, Βααλιµαθ (‫ ובעלידע‬Βαλεγδαε) ‫ ואליפלט‬Ελιφαλαθ, Ελιφαλαθ (‫ ואליפלט‬Ελιφαλετ) Ἐλιφαλέ 1 Chr 3:9 ‫ ותמר אחותם‬Θηµαρ ἀδελφὴ αὐτῶν Ant. καὶ θυγατέρα Θαµάραν. The sons born to David were eleven; 𝔊𝔊 gives a transcription of the names, then adds (v. 16a) another list of thirteen names, which approximately matches 𝔏𝔏 and 1 Chr (in brackets), with the addition of ‫( ואלפלט‬doublet of the last name), and ‫ ונגה‬after ‫ואלישׁוע‬. Josephus announces nine sons, but gives eleven names; two of them are out of place: Ἀµνοῦ (Amnon) and Φαλναγέην (of uncertain meaning); they may have been glosses. However, 1 Chr 3 says that the first four were by Bath-shua (Bathsheba), and the rest are nine; then it adds a daughter, Tamar (v. 9), like Josephus; this means that Josephus had a form of 1 Chr 3:5-9, with “nine’ and “Tamar”, but he speaks of “wives and concubines” in general and at the end adds that the last two sons were by concubines, whereas 1 Chr 3:9 says that the thirteen sons are “besides the sons of the concubines”. In other words, Josephus did not see 1 Chr 3, but he had a partial gloss coming from there. 2 Sam 5:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 בעמק רפאים‬-𝔏𝔏 τῶν Tιτάνων Ant. 7:71 τὴν κοιλάδα τῶν Γιγάντων. The Philistines arrive at “the valley of Rephaim (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘of the Titans’; 1 Chr 14:9 𝔊𝔊 ‘of the Giants’)”; Josephus renders “Giants”, as he does elsewhere; see § III.2, 2 Sam 21:16. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 παρέσει αὐτοῖς πλη2 Sam 5:23 ‫ובאת להם‬ Ant. 7:76 ἐν τοῖς ἄλσεσι ‫ממול בכאים‬ σίον τοῦ Κλαυθµῶνος καλουµένοις Κλαυθµῶσι. The oracle instructs David not to go directly up against the Philistines, but “you will come at them in front of the balsam trees (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the Tear place’)”; ‫בכאים‬ may be the plural of either ‫“ בכא‬balsam tree” or ‫“ בכי‬tear”; both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus retained the second meaning, but the latter, with a more accurate plural, understood it as the name of a grove.



IV – SAMUEL

97

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Οζα καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ 2 Sam 6:3 ‫ו ֻעזא וא ְחיוֹ‬ Ant. 7:79 ἕλκειν ἀδελφοῖς (‫בני אבינדב )נהגים‬ αὐτοῦ (= ‫ )א ָחיו‬υἱοὶ Αµιναδαβ τε καὶ παῖσιν ἐπέστρεψαν. The Ark is put on a new waggon, “and Uzzah and Ahio (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘his brothers’), sons of Abinadab, were leading”. Josephus’ mention of Abinadab’s brothers indicates that he did not understand the name, and was not sure of the exact position of the word ‫ואחיו‬, before or after ‫אבינדב‬. (‫ אחיו‬as a name has similar forms elsewhere: ‫אחיה‬, ‫אחיהו‬.) 2 Sam 6:10 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עבד־אדום הגתי‬Αβεδδαρα, 𝔏𝔏 Αβεδαδδαν Αnt. 7:83 Ὠβαδάρου Ληουίτου. David set the Ark into the house of “Obed-edom the Gittite”; for Josephus, he was a righteous Levite, but this is a correction of his own for the sake of correctness, because his identity makes him a Philistine (Gath) and/or an idolworshipper (Edom). (At 1 Chr 15:25 Obed-edom is gate-keeper, that is, almost a Levite.) 2 Sam 8:4 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויעקר )דוד את־כל־הרכב‬-𝔏𝔏 παρέλυσεν Ant. 7:99 τὰ πλείω ἠφάνισεν. Having defeated Hadadezer, David took 1000 chariots “and he harmstrung (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘disabled’) all the chariots”, keeping only 100. Joseph understood that David distroyed most of them, a possible meaning of ‫( ויעקר‬qal instead of piel, translated νευροκοπέω “harmstring” at Jos 11:6 and elsewhere). 2 Sam 8:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויקח את( שׁלטי הזהב‬-𝔏𝔏 χλιδῶνας χρυσοῦς Ant. 7:104 χρυσᾶς φαρέτρας. David “took the shields (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘bracelets’; 1 Chr 18:7 κλοιούς ‘chains, collars’) of gold” of Hadadezer’s servants; Josephus puts “quivers”, as does 𝔊𝔊 τὰς φαρέτρας αὐτῶν ἐκρέµασαν to render Ezek 27:11 ‫“ שׁלטיהם תלו‬they hung their shields”. 2 Sam 9:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 מכיר מלו דבר‬-𝔏𝔏 Μαχιρ ἐκ τῆς Λαδαβαρ Ant. 7:113 Μάχειρον εἰς Λάβαθα. Jonathan’s son was brought up by “Machir, from Lo-debar”. At 2 Sam 17:27, the city of Machir is named ‫לא דבר‬, 𝔊𝔊 Λωδαβαρ, 𝔏𝔏 Λαβαδαρ. 2 Sam 10:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁלח דוד לנחמו‬-𝔏𝔏 παρακαλέσαι αὐτόν Ant. 7:117 παρεµυθήσατο. Learning of Nahash’s death, “David sent ton console (his son)”; the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 verb has this typical, Biblical meaning, while Josephus uses it only for “beg, entreat”; conversely, παραµυθέοµαι never translates ‫ נחם‬in 𝔊𝔊. 2 Sam 10:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויגשׁ יואב בארם‬-𝔏𝔏 προσῆλθεν Ιωαβ Ant. 7:126 πολλοὺς ἀπέκτεινεν (≈ 1Chr 19:14) ‫ וינסו מפניו‬καὶ ἔφυγαν Ἰώαβος, ἅπαντας εἰς φυγήν. David’s generals wage war, “Joab drew near to the war against Aram, and they fled before him”; so, there was no real battle, but Josephus adds that “Joab killed many”; he depends on a reading ‫“ ויגשׂ‬he oppressed”. The same confusion occurs at 1 Sam 13:3 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 כי צר־לו כי נגשׂ‬ὅτι στενῶς αὐτῷ µὴ προσάγειν (from ‫)נגשׁ‬ αὐτόν. There is no significant difference with the parallel 1 Chr 19:14 (but the 𝔊𝔊 rendering παρετάξατο Ιωαβ, καὶ ἔφυγον is different). 2 Sam 11:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 בת־שׁבע בת־אליעם‬-𝔏𝔏 Βηρσαβεε θυγάτηρ Ελιαβ Ant. 7:130 Βεεθσαβή. Unlike Josephus, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has the same rendering for Bathsheba and the city of Beersheba. 2 Sam 11:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 משׂאת המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 ἄρσις τοῦ βασιλέως Ant. 7:132 ἐκ τοῦ δείπνου µέρη. David sent home Uriah with “the gift of the king”; both 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. understood “portion of the king’s meal”. At Gen 43:34, ‫ משׂא ֹת‬is rendered with µερίδας “portions” (from Joseph’s table).27 27

The 𝔐𝔐 phrase, which runs ‫ותצא אחריו משׂאת המלך‬, is not conserved in 4QSama; in DJD

98

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αβιµελεχ υἱὸν Ιεροβοαµ 2 Sam 11:21 ‫אבימלך‬ Ant. 7:142 Γεδεῶνος υἱὸν ‫בן־ירבשׁת וימת בתבץ‬ (𝔏𝔏 Ιεροβααλ), ἐν Θαµασ(σ)ι Ἀβιµέλεχον, ἐν Θήβαις. A stone hit “Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth… and he died at Thebez”; Josephus rightly remembered – or was reminded by a gloss – that JerubbeshetJerubbaal was Gedeon’s other name. 2 Sam 12:19 ‫ ויבן‬...‫𝔊𝔊 וירא‬-𝔏𝔏 συνῆκεν... ἐνόησεν Αnt. 7:156 αἰσθόµενος... συνείς. David “saw (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘understood’)” his servants’ whisper, and “understood” that the child was dead; Josephus has “perceiving… undestanding”; both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus have two verbs of similar meaning, and the first one could conceivably have been ‫( וידע‬not ‫)וישׂכל‬, but such a hypothesis is not necessary. 4QSama has only conserved the second verb. 2 Sam 13:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 לאבשׁלום בן־דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 Αβεσσαλωµ υἱῷ Δαυιδ Αnt. 7:162 Ἀψάλωµος. 2 Sam 15:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 עד־הראשׁ‬-𝔏𝔏 ἕως τοῦ Ροως Αnt. 7:203 ἐπὶ τῆς κορυφῆς τοῦ ὄρους. Leaving Jerusalem, David arrived “to the summit (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘to Roos’)”; Josephus correctly understood “on the summit of the mountain”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τοῦτο τὸ ἔλεός σου 2 Sam 16:17 ‫זה חסדך‬ Αnt. 7:211 πιστὸς εἶναι δόξας. Absalom asks Hushai: “Is this your loyalty (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘mercy’) to your companion?”; Josephus understands like 𝔐𝔐: Absalom warns Hushai that he is “supposed to be faithful to David”. 2 Sam 17:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 ולא ילין את־העם‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐ µὴ καταλύσῃ Αnt. 7:218 κατὰ τὴν ἑσπέραν (‫)הנה עתה הוא־נחבא‬ τὸν λαόν ἀπολιπὼν τοὺς ἰδίους. Hushai gives Absalom his own counsel: David is strong, and “he will not spend the night with the people (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘not let the people rest’, with a mistranslation of ‫ ;)את‬behold, he is now hiding”; Josephus, with “toward evening, leaving his men”, understood correctly. 2 Sam 17:16 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )אל־תלן הלילה‬ἐν Αραβωθ, 𝔏𝔏 κατὰ δυσµάς Αnt. 7:222 ταχέως δια‫ תעבור‬...‫𝔊𝔊 בערבות המדבר‬-𝔏𝔏 τῆς ἐρήµου... σπεῦσον βῆναι τὸν Ἰόρδανον. Hushai advises David: “Do not spend this night in the plains of the desert (𝔊𝔊 ‘Araboth’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘toward the sun settings’)..., and cross”; both 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 tried to manage ‫“ ערבות‬steppes” or “evenings” and lost the orientation, but Josephus clearly understood that David had “to rush and cross over the Jordan valley”, that is, to leave the Judean desert and go eastwards. 𝔊𝔊 αραφωθ, 𝔏𝔏 παλάθα 2 Sam 17:19 ‫הרפות‬ Αnt. 7:226 πλάκας ἄνωθεν ἐρίων. The woman put a covering over the well and scattered on it “the grain”; the word ‫הרפות‬, which elsewhere occurs only at Prov 27:22, was not well known, hence a transcription by 𝔊𝔊, and guesses from the context by 𝔏𝔏 (“cakes”) and Josephus (“layers of wool”). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐνετείλατο 2 Sam 17:23 ‫ויצו‬ Αnt. 7:228 συγκαλέσας τοὺς οἰκείους ‫אל־ביתו‬ τῷ οἴκῳ αὐτοῦ ἅπαντας, ἃ συνεβούλευσεν διεξῆλθε. Back home, Ahithophel “ordered to his house”; an object is lacking, but ‫ צוה‬may mean “summon, send for” (see Gen 50:16); Josephus understood that “he summoned all his people, and gave them an account of his rejected advice”; this 17, p. 140, the proposed restoration is ‫ותצא אחריו משרת המלך‬, with the supposed meaning “and the servant of the king went out after him”, but with the feminine ‫ותצא‬, the plain meaning is “the juice of the king”!



IV – SAMUEL

99

is a kind of testament, and Josephus may have known of ‫“ צוואה‬last will” (though it is only attested from Rabbinic sources). 2 Sam 17:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 ודוד בא מחנימה‬-𝔏𝔏 διῆλθεν εἰς Μαναιµ Αnt. 7:230 εἰς Παρεµβολάς. David arrives at Mahanaim; Josephus translates “Camps” and describes the place as “a very fine and well-fortified city”, forgetting that he has already introduced it as Ishbosheth’s capital (Αnt. 7:10). 2 Sam 18:17 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וי ִצבו )עליו‬ἐστήλωσεν, 𝔏𝔏 ἐπέστησεν Αnt. 7:242 καὶ τὸ σχῆµα (‫𝔊𝔊 גל־אבנים גדול מאד‬-𝔏𝔏 σωρὸν λίθων µέγαν σφόδρα τάφου καὶ µεγέθος. The armor-bearers (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Joab’) cast Absalom’s corpse into a pit, “and erected (𝔏𝔏 ‘put’) over it a very big heap of stones”; the correction of 𝔏𝔏 minimizes the dignity of the device, while Josephus gives it “the form and size of a grave”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκάλεσεν τὴν στήλην 2 Sam 18:18 ‫ויקּרא‬ Αnt. 7:243 προσηγό‫לה יד אבשׁלם‬ Χεὶρ Αβεσσαλωµ ρευσεν ἰδίαν χεῖρα. Absalom had set up for himself a pillar, “and it was called (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘he called it’) the Hand of Absalom”; Josephus says he named it “his own hand”. 2 Sam 20:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אבלה ובית מעכה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:288 ἐν ὀχυρᾷ πόλει Ἀβελωχέᾳ. Joab, who poursues Sheba, arrives at “Abel and Beth-maakah”, seemingly two places, but the next verse has “Abel Beth-maakah” (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αβελ Βαιθµαχα), as retained by Josephus (“the strong city”), with a misspelling of the name.

II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 Against 𝔊𝔊 (and 𝔏𝔏)

Some 4QSam readings are relevant, but they generally agree with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ συνέλαβεν 1 Sam 1:20 ‫ויהי‬ Ant. 5:346 ἀναστρεψάντων εἰς ‫לתקפות הימים‬ καὶ ἐγενήθη τῷ καιρῷ τὴν πατρίδα κύειν ἤρξα‫ותהר חנה ותלד‬ τῶν ἡµερῶν καὶ ἔτεκεν το καὶ γίνεται παιδίον. 𝔐𝔐 means “in the circuit of the days, Hannah conceived and gave birth”, but 𝔊𝔊 puts the “season of the days” after her becoming pregnant; Josephus says that “after their return home she began to conceive”, which implies some waiting time, as in 𝔐𝔐. 1 Sam 2:22 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ואת‬om.; 𝔏𝔏 καὶ ὅτι συνεκοίµωντο Ant. 5:339 γυναικάς τε τὰς ‫אשר ישכבון‬ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ µετὰ τῶν ἐπὶ θρησκείᾳ παραγινο‫את הנשים‬ γυναικῶν τῶν παρεστηµένας ὕβριζον φθοραῖς, ‫הצבאות פתח‬ κυίων παρὰ τὰς θύρας ταῖς µὲν βίαν προσφέροντες, ‫אהל מועד‬ τῆς σκηνῆς τοῦ µαρτυρίου τὰς δὲ δώροις ὑπαγόµενοι. About the crimes of Eli’s sons at the gate of the shrine (abusing women), omitted by 𝔊𝔊-B, the 𝔏𝔏 translation (with ‫ פתחי‬instead of ‫ )פתח‬is independant of 𝔊𝔊-A (restored after Or.). Josephus and 𝔏𝔏 witness the longer form of 𝔐𝔐, dealt with differently. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 αἱ ἀκοαί... τοῦ µὴ 1 Sam 2:24 ‫השמעה‬ Ant. 5:340 τό τε πλῆ‫מע ִברים עם יהוה‬ δουλεύειν λαὸν θεῷ θος ἐδυσφόρει. The people of God circulates bad reports on Eli’s sons, but 𝔊𝔊 “the people not worshipping God” may depend on ‫ מע ֹבדים‬instead of ‫ ;מע ִברים‬Josephus, with “the people chafed”, paraphrases 𝔐𝔐. 1 Sam 4:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 כארבעת אלפים‬-𝔏𝔏 τέσσαρες χιλιάδες Ant. 5:352 εἰς τετραχισχιλίους.

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Τhe Philistines killed “about four thousand” men; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. “about”. 1 Sam 4:15 ‫𝔏𝔏 = ועלי בן תשעים ושמנה שנה‬-Ant. 5:359 𝔊𝔊 Ηλι υἱὸς ἐνενήκοντα ἐτῶν. 4:18 ‫𝔏𝔏 = שפט את ישראל ארבעים שנה‬-Ant. 5:359 𝔊𝔊 ἔκρινεν τὸν Ισραηλ εἴκοσι. Eli lived 98 years and held the power for 40 years; the 𝔊𝔊 figures are 90 and 20. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Οὐαὶ βαρχαβωθ 1 Sam 4:21 ‫אי כבוד‬ Ant. 5:360 Ἰακώβην, Ἰοχάβην. The new-born child of Pinehas is called Ichabod by his mother, or “No Glory”, see § II.3; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 depends on ‫“ אוי בר כבוד‬Woe to Son-of-Glory”. Josephus did not read ‫בר‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἰ... πορεύσεται 1 Sam 6:9 (‫)אם דרך גבולו‬ Ant. 6:12 κἂν µὲν τὴν Ἑβ‫יעלה בית שמש‬ κατὰ Βαιθσαµυς ραίων χώραν ἀναβαίνωσιν. 𝔐𝔐 “If the cart (with the Ark) goes up to Beth-shemesh” is followed by Josephus, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is almost neutral, with an overtone “goes down”. 1 Sam 8:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואת בחוריכם‬-𝔏𝔏 τὰ βουκόλια (= ‫)בקריכם‬ Ant. 6:41 κτῆσιν ‫הטובים‬ ὑµῶν τὰ ἀγαθὰ καὶ τοὺς ἀφαιρήσονται, ‫ואת חמוריכם יקח‬ ὄνους ὑµῶν λήµψεται εὐνούχοις δωρήσονται, ‫ועשה‬ καὶ ἀποδεκατώσει (= ‫)ועשּׂר‬ βοσκηµάτων ἀγέλας ‫למלאכתו‬ εἰς τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ τοῖς αὑτῶν προσνεµοῦσι. “(The king) will take your best young men (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘herds’) and your donkeys, and make (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘tithe’) for his work”. Josephus summarizes, but with a duplication: “(The kings) will rob you of your possessions and bestow them to their eunuchs..., and give your herds of cattle to their people”; he reads ‫ בקריכם‬like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but ignores “tithe”. Moreover, “the king’s people” reflects a reading ‫ למלאכיו‬instead of ‫למלאכתו‬. As for the variant take/tithe, 4QSama has ‫ועשו‬, graphically close to both 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 readings ‫ ועשה‬/ ‫ועשר‬. 1 Sam 9:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 )שאול( בחור‬-𝔏𝔏 εὐµεγέθης Ant. 6:45 τὴν µορφὴν ‫וטוב‬ ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός, ἄριστος ‫גבה מכל העם‬ ὑψηλὸς ὑπὲρ πᾶσαν τὴν γῆν καὶ τὸ σῶµα µέγας. 𝔐𝔐 describes Saul as “select and good, taller than all the people”, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 puts “of good size, good man, tall above the whole land”. Josephus, with “excellent in appearance and tall of body”, disagrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δώσεις (= ‫)ונתת‬ 1 Sam 9:8 ‫ונתתי‬ Ant. 6:48 τοῦ δ᾽ οἰκέτου ‫לאיש האלהים‬ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τοῦ θεοῦ φήσαντος δώσειν. Saul’s servant has some money left and says: “I shall (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘you will’) give to the man of God.” 4QSama and Josephus agree with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µετὰ ταῦτα 1 Sam 9:13 ‫אחרי כן‬ Ant. 6:48 προκατακλίνεσθαι ‫יאכלו הק ֻראים‬ ἐσθίουσιν οἱ ξένοι τῶν κεκληµένων. Samuel is to come first “then the invited guests (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the strangers’) will eat”; like 𝔐𝔐, Josephus says the guests are invited; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 could have rendered ‫ק ֻראים‬ with ἐπίκλητοι, or κεκληµένοι as at 1 Sam 9:22. 1 Sam 9:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויתן להם מקום‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔθετο αὐτοῖς τόπον ἐν Ant. 6:52 ἐπάνω ‫בראש הקרואים‬ πρώτοις (= ‫ )ראשי‬τῶν κεκληµένων τῶν κεκληµένων. Saul and his servant joined Samuel “and he gave them a place at the head (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 among the first) of the invited guests”; with “above the guests”, Josephus agrees here with 𝔐𝔐, but disagrees in the immediate sequel for the number of hosts, see § I.3. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δύο (om. 𝔏𝔏) ἀπαρχὰς ἄρτων 1 Sam 10:4 ‫שתי לחם‬ Ant. 6:55 ἄρτους δύο.



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The three men are to give Saul “two pieces of bread” (cf. the Pentecost offering, Lev 23:17), so 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, but 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 introduce “firstfruits of bread”, which should be compared to 4QSama ‫“ שתי תנופות לחם‬two offerings of bread”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἔδραµεν (𝔏𝔏 adds Σαµουηλ) 1 Sam 10:23 ‫וירצו‬ Ant. 6:65 πέµπει τοὺς ‫ויקחהו‬ καὶ λαµβάνει αὐτόν ἄξοντας αὐτόν. When Saul’s hidding place was known “they (𝔏𝔏 he, 𝔏𝔏 Samuel) ran and took him”; Josephus has “he sent to fetch him”, close to 𝔐𝔐. 1 Sam 10:24 (‫𝔊𝔊 בחר בו )יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκλέλεκται ἑαυτῷ Ant. 6:66 θεὸς ἔδοκε βασιλέα. Samuel tells the people that “Yhwh chose him (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘chose for himself’)”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 depends on a reading ‫ לו‬instead of ‫בו‬, unlike Josephus. 1 Sam 10:24 (‫𝔊𝔊 וי ִרעו )כל העם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔγνωσαν (= ‫)וידעו‬ Ant. 6:66 ἐπευφήµησε ὁ λαός. “All the people shouted (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘knew’)”; Ant. has “the people acclaimed”, like 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἤρχετο µετὰ τὸ 1 Sam 11:5 ‫)שאול( בא‬ Ant. 6:75 ἀπὸ τῶν περὶ τὴν ‫אחרי ה ָב ָקר מן השדה‬ πρωὶ (= ‫ )ב ֹ ֵקר‬ἐξ ἀγροῦ γεωργίαν παραγινόµενος. Saul “was coming behind the oxen (𝔊𝔊 ‘after the morning’) from the field”; 𝔊𝔊’s mistranslation is corrected by an addition of 𝔏𝔏: µετὰ τὸ πρωὶ κατ᾽ ὄπισθεν τῶν βοῶν “after the morning behind the oxen”, a second translation. Like 𝔐𝔐, Josephus, who later alludes to Saul’s oxen (§ 77), means here the whole workday. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐβόησαν 1 Sam 11:7 (‫ויצאו )כאיש אחד‬ Ant. 6:78 τῶν δὲ συνελθόντων. Summoned by Saul, the Israelites “came out (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘shouted’) as one man”. The 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 reading, unknown of Josephus, is probably a mistake for ἔβησαν; otherwise, it could reflect a variant ‫ויצעקו‬.28 1 Sam 11:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויהי( ממחרת‬-𝔏𝔏 µετὰ τὴν αὔριον Ant. 6:79 φθάνει ἥλιον ἀνίσχοντα. Saul summons the people “the next morning”, which matches Josephus’ “before sunrise”, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has “after tomorrow”, which must mean “the day after tomorrow, since the battle begins “at the morning watch”. 1 Sam 13:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויפץ‬-𝔏𝔏 διεσπάρη Ant. 6:101 αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν ‫העם‬ ὁ λαὸς αὐτοῦ (= ‫)עמו‬ στρατιωτῶν καταλειπόµενον. When Saul was waiting for Samuel at Gilgal, “the people (𝔊𝔊 ‘his people’) scattered”; Josephus, with “he was deserted by the soldiers”, read like 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 bis εἰς δουλείαν (= ‫ )לעבד‬Ant. 6:125 εἰς ἕνα τόπον, 1 Sam 14:40 ‫לעבר אחד‬ 𝔏𝔏 adds εἰς ἓν µέρος ‫לעבר אחד‬ κατ᾽ ἄλλο µέρος. Saul tells the people: “(You will be) on one side, (I and Jonathan) on one side”, so 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 mistakenly renders “toward slavery”, but 𝔏𝔏 adds a correction “to one part”. 1 Sam 14:41-42 (only one casting of lots) 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has significant additions, partly reflected in a fragment of 4QSamb,29 which involve the use of urim and thummim, in two steps: first, Saul and Jonathan are taken as a group against the people; then, Jonathan is taken. Ant. 6:125 shortens into one step, but we cannot be sure that Josephus had the shorter 𝔐𝔐 text. 1 Sam 17:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 בין שוכה ובין עזקה‬-𝔏𝔏 Σοκχωθ, Αζηκα Ant. 6:170 Σωχοῦς, Ἀζηκοῦς. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 depends on ‫שוכּות‬. 28 29

As in the restored line of 4QSama, see DJD 17, p. 68. See DJD 17, p. 224-5.

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𝔊𝔊 om. 1 Sam 17:12-31 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 6:175-6: David with his family; his rebuke 1 Sam 17:49 ‫𝔊𝔊 ותטבע‬-𝔏𝔏 adds διὰ τῆς Ant. 6:189 βάλλει ἐπὶ τὸν Γολίαθον εἰς τὸ ‫ האבן במצחו‬περικεφαλαίας µέτωπον, καὶ διῆλθεν ἕως τοῦ ἐγκεφάλου. David struck Goliath on his forehead, “and the stone sank into his forehead”, which Josephus renders “and it penetrated into the brain”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds “through the helmet”, maybe from ‫בעד כובעו‬. 1 Sam 18:8 ‫ ;𝔏𝔏 = ועוד לו אך המלוכה‬om. 𝔊𝔊 Ant. 6:194 τὴν βασιλείαν ὑστερεῖν αὐτῷ. Only 𝔊𝔊 omits “And what more for him but the kingdom?” 1 Sam 19:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ותוסף המלחמה‬adds πρὸς Δαυιδ Ant. 6:213 Παλαιστίνων ἐπὶ τοὺς ‫ 𝔏𝔏 להיות ויצא דוד‬adds πρὸς ἀλλοφύλους Ἑβραίους, πέµπει τὸν Δαβίδην. “And once more there was a war (𝔊𝔊 adds ‘against David’; 𝔏𝔏 adds ‘against the Philistines’), and David went out”. Josephus, with “the Philistines against the Hebrews, Saul sent David”, did not see the additions of 𝔊𝔊 or 𝔏𝔏.

1 Sam 19:18 ‫בניות‬-‫𝔊𝔊 בנוית‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν Ναυαθ (Ναυιωθ) ἐν Ραµα Ant. 6:221 Βαλγουάθ. Samuel and David go to “Naioth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘in Ramah’)”; for Josephus, the initial ‫ ב‬belongs to the name, and the form given by the mss should be restored Βανιουάθ (ΝΙ corrupted into ΛΓ in uncials); thus, he read ‫( בניות‬Qer). 1 Sam 20:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁבע עוד דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀπεκρίθη Δαυιδ (= ‫ )וישב דוד‬Ant. 6:225 ὁ δὲ ὤµνυεν. According to 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, David swore to Jonathan; for 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, he just replied (maybe as a consequence of a haplography of ‫)ע‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 αµατταρι 1 Sam 20:20 ‫למטרה‬ Ant. 6:233 τρία ἀκόντια ἐπὶ τὸν σκοπόν. Jonathan is to shoot arrows “at the target (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes)”; contrarily to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus understood the word. (It may mean “guard”, too, but elsewhere in 𝔊𝔊 it is accurately rendered as “target”, see Job 16:12; Lam 3:12.) 1 Sam 20:29 ‫𝔊𝔊 והוא צוה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐνετείλαντο (= ‫)צוו‬ Ant. 6:236 παρακαλέσαι ‫ לי אָ ִחי‬πρός µε οἱ ἀδελφοί µου (= ‫ ) ֵא ַחי‬µέντοι καὶ τοῦτον ἐλθεῖν. Jonathan explains that David said: “My brother (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSamb30 ‘brothers’) ordered me to attend the sacrifice”. Josephus understood that David invited Jonathan “his brother” to join, which is only possible with 𝔐𝔐. 1 Sam 20:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 לא תכון‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐχ ἑτιµασθήσεται Ant. 6:237 ἐπισφαλῶς αὐτοῖς ‫אתה ומלכותך‬ ἡ βασιλεία σου31 (om. ‫)אתה‬ τὰ τῆς βασιλείας ἔχει. Saul tells Jonathan: “Neither you (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.) nor your kingdom will hold”; Josephus renders “their hold upon the kingdom is insecure”, implying both Saul and Jonathan, which matches 𝔐𝔐.

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αβιµελεχ 1 Sam 21:1 ‫אחימלך‬ Ant. 6:242 Ἀχιµέλεχος Ahimelech. ‫)ויבא דוד( נ ֹבה‬ Νοµβα εἰς Ναβάν Nob. 4QSamb may have had ‫אבימלך‬, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.32 As for “Nob”, Josephus attached the suffix ‫ה‬- to the name. 1 Sam 22:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר לרצים( ס ֹבּו‬- 𝔏𝔏 προσαγάγετε Ant. 6:259 ὁπλίταις περιστᾶσιν.

30 It has ‫ ואני‬instead of ‫והוא‬, which sounds better (see DJD 17, p. 232), but we cannot ascertain which reading both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus depend on. 31 4QSamb has ‫לא תכן את ממלכתך‬, see DJD 17, p. 233; ‫ את‬could be viewed as underlining the real subject of ‫תכן‬, as in ‫ ויֻגד לרבקה את־דברי עשׂו‬of Gen 27:42; in other words, 𝔊𝔊 could plainly reflect 4QSamb. 32 According to the restoration of DJD 17, p. 238 (discussion on 1 Sam 21:2).



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Saul tells the runners: “Surround (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘draw nigh’) him”; Josephus, with “soldiers surrounding”, is closer to 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἰ ἀποκλεισ1 Sam 23:11 ‫ֲהיַ ְס ִגּ ֻרנִי‬ Ant. 6:274 µαθὼν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ‫בעלי קעילה בידו‬ θήσεται (= ‫ )היסּגר‬ὅτι οἱ Κιλλῖται ἐκδώσουσι Σαούλῳ. David asks: “Will the men of Keilah deliver me into Saul’s hand?” 4QSamb ‫ היסגירו אתי‬has the same meaning,33 as well as Ant. “learning from God that the Killites would give him up to Saul”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: “Will it be shut up?” 1 Sam 25:44 ‫𝔊𝔊 מיכל לפלטי‬-𝔏𝔏 Μελχολ, τῷ Φαλτι υἱῷ Ant. 6:309 Μελχάν, τῷ Φελ‫בן־לישׁ אשׁר מגלים‬ Λαις ἐκ Ροµµα (𝔏𝔏 Γολιαθ) τίῳ υἱῷ Λίσου ἐκ Γεθλᾶς. Saul gave his daughter “Michal to Palti, son of Laish from Gallim (𝔊𝔊 ‘Rommah, 𝔏𝔏 Goliath’)”; Josephus is close to 𝔐𝔐, but with two metatheses: λχ for χλ (in Μελχάν) and θλ for λθ (in Γεθλᾶς, from a Hebrew ‫מגלית‬, as witnessed by 𝔏𝔏 ἐκ Γολιαθ). 1 Sam 26:16 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ראה אי־חנית )המלך‬ἰδὲ δὴ τὸ δόρυ Ant. 6:315 ζήτησον τὸ δόρυ. David says to Abner: “See, where is (𝔊𝔊 ‘please see’, from ‫ )את‬the spear of the king?” Josephus, with “look for the spear”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏. ‫ אי‬and ‫ את‬are close, and either of them can be a misreading. 1 Sam 27:1 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 εἶπεν Δαυιδ, νῦν Ant. 6:319 Δαβίδης φοβηθεὶς ‫)אל־לבו( עתה ֶא ַסּ ֶפה‬ προστεθήσοµαι (= ‫) ֶאאָ ְס ָפה‬ µὴ συλληφθῇ. David said in his heart: “Now I will be swept away (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘added up’, from the root ‫ אסף‬or ‫𝔊𝔊 ;”)יסף‬-𝔏𝔏 hardly makes sense, but Josephus’ rendering is correct: “David, fearful of being captured”. 1 Sam 27:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמן( אכישׁ בדוד‬-𝔏𝔏 Δαυιδ ἐν τῷ Αγχους Ant. 6:324 πείθει Ἀγχοῦν. David reported of his raids, “And Achish believed David (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘David believed Achish’)”; but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 hardly fits into the sequel “saying: He has surely made himself odious to his people”, and David obviously cannot have said that; so, 𝔏𝔏 has replaced “saying” with “and Achish said”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 οὕτως ἀρχισωµατο1 Sam 28:2 ‫לכן שׁמר‬ Ant. 6:326 ποιήσειν αὐτὸν (‫לראשׁי )אשׂימך‬ φύλακα (= ‫)שמר הראש‬ φύλακα τοῦ σώµατος. Achish decides to establish David as “his bodyguard (‘headguard’, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘head of the bodygards’)”; Ant. agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 1 Sam 28:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 בשׁונם‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Σωµαν (= ‫ )שומן‬Ant. 6:327 (ἔγγιστα) Σούνης πόλεως. The Philistines camped “in Shunem”. The 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 form occurs for “Abishag the Sunammite” Αβισακ τὴν Σωµανῖτιν (1 Kgs 1:3 ‫אבישׁג השׁונמית‬, cf. Ant. 7:344), but ‫ שׁונם‬is rendered Σουναν at Josh 19:18. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἄνδρα ὄρθιον (= ‫ )זקף‬Ant. 6:333 γέροντα ἐσήµαινεν. 1 Sam 28:14 ‫אישׁ זקן‬ The medium woman of En-dor saw “an old (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘upright’) man”. Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐, but adds that the man was ἔνδοξον “distinguished”; this can be either a personnal comment of his, or a trace of a marginal gloss ‫זקף‬. 1 Sam 28:24 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עגל־מרבק‬δάµαλις νοµάς, 𝔏𝔏 µοσχάριον γαλαθηνόν A. 6:339 µόσχον. Τhe medium woman had only “a stall calf (𝔊𝔊 ‘a grazing heifer’, from ‫𝔏𝔏 ;עגלת רעי‬ ‘a young milking calf’); 𝔏𝔏 has ventured a fresh translation against 𝔊𝔊. Josephus follows 𝔐𝔐, and develops ‫ מרבק‬as the woman’s care for her only calf. 33 In fact, 4QSamb lacks the first question of v. 11, which is repeated in v. 12, and is deemed to be the original, see DJD 17, p. 244-5. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 lacks v. 12, and is somewhat confused.

104

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

1 Sam 30:8 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = )ארדף( הגדוד )הזה‬γεδδουρ Ant. 6:359 εἰ διώξαντι Ἀµαληκίτας. David enquired of God: “Shall I poursue this band (𝔊𝔊 ‘geddour’, from a corrupt ‫ ;”)גדור‬Josephus recalls that the “band” is of Amalekites. 1 Sam 31:12 (‫𝔊𝔊 )גוית שׁאול‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ τὸ σῶµα ΙωναAnt. 6:376 τὸ σῶµα Σαούλου ‫ואת גוית בניו‬ θαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ τῶν παίδων αὐτοῦ. The people of Jabesh-gilead took “the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and the body of Jonathan his son’)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊 Ορνιας (= ‫ )ארניה‬υἱὸς Φεγγιθ 2 Sam 3:4 ‫אדניה‬ Ant. 7:21 Ἀδωνίας 𝔏𝔏 Ορνια υἱὸς Αγγιθ ‫בן־חגית‬ ἐκ γυναικὸς Ἀήθης. For Adonijah son of David and Haggith, see too 1 Kgs 1:5 (Chap. VI, § II.1). 𝔊𝔊 ἐγώ εἰµι, then 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 σήµερον 2 Sam 3:39 ‫ואנכי היום‬ Ant. 7:45 οὐδὲν τοὺς ‫רך‬ συγγενὴς καὶ καθεσταΣαρουίας παῖδας ‫ומשׁוח מלך‬ µένος ὑπὸ βασιλέως ποιεῖν ἱκανός εἰµι. Learning that Abner is dead, David says: “I am (𝔏𝔏 omits) today weak (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a kinsman’, from ‫ )ממשפחתו‬and anointed king (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘established by a king’, from ‫ ;”) ֻמפקד ממלך‬for 𝔐𝔐 and Ant., David says he is weaker than Zeruiah’s sons; for 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, the whole phrase refers to Abner, not to David, but “I am” of 𝔊𝔊 is a remnant of David’s speech according to 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκλήθη (= ‫)ויקראו‬ 2 Sam 5:9 (‫ויקרא )לה עיר דוד‬ Ant. 7:65 προσηγόρευσε. David lived in the stronghold, “and he called it (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘it was called’, cf. 1 Chr 11:7 ‫ )קראו לו‬City of David”;34 for Josephus, David gave the name. 2 Sam 7:18 (‫𝔊𝔊 )מי אנכי ומי ביתי‬-𝔏𝔏 ὅτι ἠγάπηκάς (= ‫)אהבתני‬ Ant. 7:95 ἐκ ταπεινοῦ ‫כי הביאתני עד־הלם‬ µε ἕως τούτων εἰς τηλικοῦτο µέγεθος. David speaks to God: “Who am I and who is my house, that you brought me (𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 ‘that you loved me’) this far?” Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐. The 𝔐𝔐 parallel 1 Chr 17:16 is identical, but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has similarly to 2 Sam ἠγάπησάς µε ἕως αἰῶνος, from ‫( אהבתני עד עולם‬as at 17:12 end ‫)וכננתי את־כסאו עד־עולם‬. 2 Sam 8:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויהושׁפט בן־אחילוד‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιωσαφατ υἱὸς Αχια Ant. 7:100 Ἰωσάτον Ἀχίλου. David’s recorder was “Josaphat son of Ahilud (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Ahia’, 1 Chr 18:15 𝔊𝔊 Αχιλουδ)”; Josephus is closer to 𝔐𝔐. 2 Sam 8:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 ובניהו בן־יהוידע‬-𝔏𝔏 Βαναιας υἱὸς Ant. 7:100 Βαναίᾳ Ἰωαδου τὴν (‫)והכרתי והפלתי‬ Ιωδαε σύµβουλος σωµατοφυλάκων ἄρχην. David appointed “Benaiahu son of Jehoiada (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘adviser’, from ‫ )יועץ‬over the Cheretite and the Pelethite”; Josephus, like 𝔐𝔐, ignores the “adviser”, and plausibly interprets Benaiahu’s position as “head of the bodyguards”. 2 Sam 10:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 חצי זקנם‬-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς πώγωνας αὐτῶν Ant. 7:119 τὰ ἡµίση τῶν γενεῖων. David sent messengers to Hanun, but he shaved off “half of (om. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and the parallel 1 Chr 19:435) their beards”. Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 share the same variant. 𝔊𝔊 ἑπταπλασίονα, 𝔏𝔏 τετραπλ. 2 Sam 12:6 ‫ישׁלם ארבעתים‬ Ant. 7:150 τετραπλήν. David says that the lamb must be repaid “fourfold” (according to Exod 21:37), but 𝔊𝔊 alone puts “sevenfold”, as in Prov 6:31. 34 35

4QSama has only ]‫ויקר‬, which can be restored ‫ ויקרא‬or ‫ויקראו‬, see DJD 17, p. 121. Here, 4QSama is restored according to 1 Chr, see DJD 17, p. 136.



IV – SAMUEL

105

2 Sam 16:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 אולי יראה יהוה ב ֲעוֹני‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῇ ταπεινώσει µου Αnt. 7:209 ἔσται τις ‫והשׁיב יהוה לי טובה תחת‬ ἐπιστρέψει µοι ἀγαθὰ ἴσως οἶκτος ὑµῖν ‫ קללתו‬Qer ,‫ קללתי‬Ket ἀντὶ τῆς κατάρας αὐτοῦ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. Fleeing from Jerusalem, David said: “Perhaps Yhwh will see my sin (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘affliction’, reading ‫עניי‬, an alteration of Qer ‫ )עיני‬and Yhwh will return to me good instead of my curse (Qer ‘his curse’, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘his curses’)”.36 For Josephus, David said he had no feeling of gilt and “there will be God’s compassion”; thus, he understood “affliction” like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, and read “my curse” (not God’s) like Ket. 2 Sam 16:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 ושׁמע כל־ישׂראל‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀκούσεται ὅτι κατῄσΑnt. 7:213 ἀδιάλλακτά ‫כי־נבאשׁת את־אביך‬ χυνας τὸν πατέρα σου σοι τὰ πρὸς αὐτόν ἐστι. Ahitophel gave an advice, then said: “And Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 have dishonored’, from ‫ )נבושת‬your father”; Josephus, with “by this act towards him you cannot be reconciled”, is closer to 𝔐𝔐. For the variants ‫בוש‬/‫באש‬, see also chap V, § I, 1 Chr 19:6. 2 Sam 17:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 ופניך‬-𝔏𝔏 τὸ πρόσωπόν σου πορευόΑnt. 7:219 παραλαβὼν αὐτὸς ‫הלכים בקרב‬ µενον ἐν µέσῳ αὐτῶν τὴν δύναµιν γίνου στρατηγός. Hushai gives Absalom his advice: all Israel must be gathered, “and your face will go into the battle (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘in the middle of them’, from ‫ ;”)בקרבם‬for Josephus, Hushai urges Absalom: “taking yourself the army, be the leader”, which agrees with 𝔐𝔐. However, the verse begins with ‫כי יעצתי האסף יאסף‬, “thus I advise gathering, that (all Israel) be gathered”, and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 insists still more ὅτι οὕτως συµβουλεύων ἐγὼ συνεβούλευσα, from ‫ ;כי כה יעוץ יעצתי‬Josephus’ insistence (“do not entrust the command to anybody else”) suggests that he may have read such an emphatic variant. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐπέσαξεν 2 Sam 17:23 ‫ויחבשׁ‬ Ant. 7:228 ἐπιβὰς τοῦ κτήνους ‫את־החמור‬ τὴν ὄνον αὐτοῦ ἐξώρµησε εἰς Γελµόν. His advice rejected, Ahitophel “saddled the ass (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘his she-ass’, probably not from ‫ ;”)אתנו‬Josephus has “mounting the riding-animal”, without a possessive, like 𝔐𝔐. However, the definite article of ‫ החמר‬is unexpected, as if the ass were supposed to be known.37 (A similar case occurs at Exod 4:20 ‫וירכבם על־החמר‬ “and Moses mounted them on the ass”.) 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὅτι σὺ (= ‫ )אתה‬ὡς 2 Sam 18:3 ‫כי־עתה‬ Αnt. 7:234 ὑπονοήσειν εἰκός ἐστι ‫כמנו עשׂרה אלפים‬ ἡµεῖς δέκα χιλιάδες ἄλλο στράτευµα εἶναι. The people urge David not to enter the battle, “for now (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘you are’) like ten thousand of us”; unlike 𝔐𝔐, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 gives a strong statement of David’s worth; Josephus has an indirect speech: “the enemies will think there probably is another army with him”, a loose rendering of the 𝔐𝔐 reading.38 2 Sam 18:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויקחו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔλαβεν (𝔏𝔏 adds Ιωαβ) Αnt. 7:241 κατασπῶσιν τὸν νέκρον. After Absalom’s death, “the armor-bearers (𝔐𝔐 and Ant.; 𝔊𝔊 ‘he’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘Joab’) took Absalom’s corpse”. 2 Sam 19:9 (‫𝔊𝔊 לכל־העם )הגידו‬-𝔏𝔏 πᾶς (= ‫ )כל‬ὁ λαός Αnt. 7:257 τὸν λαὸν ἀκούσαντα.

36 In 4QSama, most of the verse is lost, but ‫ קללתו‬is attested (like Qer), and the rest is restored according to (lectio facilior), see DJD 17, p. 159. 37 In 4QSama, only ]‫ [יחבש‬can be read in the line, and the following words are restored after 𝔊𝔊 ‫את חמורו‬, see DJD 17, p. 162. 38 For ‫כי־עתה כמנו עשׂרה אלפים‬, 4QSama has only ]‫כי עתה‬, and the restoration follows 𝔏𝔏, see DJD 17, p. 165.

106

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

After David’s recovery from his pain, “they told all the people (𝔐𝔐 and 4QSama, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘all the people told’)” that the king was sitting at the gate. Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 2 Sam 19:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 )למה אתם‬-𝔏𝔏 τοῦ ἐπιστρέψαι Αnt. 7:259 οὐ παρακαλοῦσιν Δα‫ מחרשׁים( להשׁיב את־המלך‬πρὸς (= ‫ )אל‬τ. βασιλέα βίδην παύσασθαι τῆς ὀργῆς. After Absalom’s death, some ask: “Why are you silent about bringing back the king (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘to the king’)?” The 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 meaning is “bring back the people to the king”, but Josephus, with “Why they do not appeal to David to stop his anger?”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐.39

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἡ µάχαιρα ἐξῆλ2 Sam 20:8 ‫והוא‬ Αnt. 7:284 προσιόντος Ἀµασᾶ, ‫יצא ותפל‬ θεν καὶ ἔπεσεν τὴν µάχαιραν ἐποίησεν ἐκπεσεῖν. Amasa is not suspicious of Joab’s sword, “and as he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the sword’) went out, it fell”; contrarily to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, ‫ יצא‬and ‫ ותפל‬cannot have the same subject, and Josephus rightly understood the trick: “when Amasa approached, Joab let his sword fall”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐξεκκλη2 Sam 20:14 ‫( ויקלהו‬Ket) Αnt. 7:288 µὴ δεξαµένων τῶν (‫( ויקהלו )ויבאו אף־אחריו‬Qer) σιάσθησαν ἐν τῇ πόλει, χαλεπῶς διετέθη. Joab arrived at Abel Beth-maakah, “and he was despised (Qer and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they were gathered’) and went after him”. For Josephus, Joab “was not admitted by those in the city, and he felt bitter”, a wording close to Ket. 2 Sam 20:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואדרם על־המס‬-𝔏𝔏 Αδωνιραµ ἐπὶ τοῦ φόρου Αnt. 7:293 Ἀδώραµον. David appointed “Adoram (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Adoniram’) over the forced labor”; he is called “Adoniram” at 1 Kgs 5:28. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τρία ἔτη λιµός 2 Sam 24:13 ‫שׁבע שׁנים רעב‬ Αnt. 7:321 λιµὸν ἐπὶ ἔτη ἑπτά. David may choose “seven (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 1 Chr 21:12 ‘three’) years of famine”. Josephus agrees with 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐.

II.3 Hebrew Explanations

Josephus’ interpretations are sometimes approximative. 1 Sam 1:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 שמואל‬-𝔏𝔏 Σαµουηλ, καὶ εἶπεν Ὅτι παρὰ Ant. 5:346 Σαµουῆλον, ‫כי מיהוה שאלתיו‬ κυρίου... ᾐτησάµην αὐτόν θεαίτητον ἄν τις εἴποιεν. Hannah called him “Samuel, for (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘she said’) I asked him from Yhwh”; Josephus, following the verse, cautiously renders: “One might say ‘asked of God’”, which of course hardly fits the name “Samuel”, but better explains “Saul”, of the same spelling. 1 Sam 4:21 ‫אי כבוד‬ Ant. 5:360 (Ἰακώβην, Ἰοχάβην) adds σηµαίνει δὲ ἀδοξίαν. The Ant. mss have poorly transcribed the name “Ichabod” (see § II.2), but Josephus’ translation “ingloriousness” is right. 1 Sam 7:6 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויקבצו‬-𝔏𝔏 Μασσηφα, Ant. 6:22 Μασφάτην adds κατοπτευόµενον ‫המצפתה‬ Μασσηφαθ τοῦτο σηµαίνει παρὰ τὴν Ἑβραίων γλῶτταν. The Israelites gather to Mizpah, of which Josephus gives a passive meaning “conspicuous place”, instead of the usual “observatory” (from ‫)צפה‬. 39 The phrase ‫ להשׁיב את־המלך‬occurs three times (v. 11, 12, 13); in 4QSama, the words are missing, and the restoration proposed follows the pattern of 𝔏𝔏 ‫ לשוב אל‬at v. 11 (clearer than ‫)להשיב אל‬, and like 𝔐𝔐 for the others, see DJD 17, p. 169.



IV – SAMUEL

107

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αβενεζερ 1 Sam 7:12 ‫)ויקרא את שמה( אבן העזר‬ Ant. 6:28 λίθον... ἰσχυρόν. The place name “Eben ha-Ezer” means “the stone of help”, hence “the strong stone” of Josephus, who does not transcribe. 1 Sam 15:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 גבעת שאול‬-𝔏𝔏 Γαβαα Ant. 6:156 Γαβᾶ, σηµαίνει βουνὸν τὸ ὄνοµα. Josephus adds an accurate translation “hill” of “Gibeah”. At Ant. 6:56, he did not give a translation, see § II.1, 1 Sam 10:5. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ναβαλ ὄνοµα αὐτῷ 1 Sam 25:25 ‫כשׁמו‬ Ant. 6:302 Νάβαλος ‫כן־הוא נבל‬ καὶ ἀφροσύνη µετ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀφροσύνην δηλοῖ. Nabal is foolish, as stated by his very name, say 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, but this does not appear clearly in the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 rendering “foolishness with him”. 𝔊𝔊 Μαναεµ 2 Sam 2:8 ‫מחנַים‬ Ant. 7:10 Μάναλιν, Παρεµβολὰς λεγοµένην. The mss of Ant. are blurred, but Josephus’ translation “camps” is almost correct, for he viewed ‫ מחנים‬as a plural, while the normal Biblical form is ‫( מחנות‬excepted Num 13:19). 𝔊𝔊 rightly transcribes a dual. 𝔊𝔊 ἀπῆλθεν Δαυιδ 2 Sam 5:6 ‫)וילך המלך‬ Ant. 7:67 Ὅµηρος ὠνόµασεν Ἱεροσό‫ואנשׁיו( ירושׁלם‬ εἰς Ιερουσαληµ λυµα τὰ Σόλυµα, ὅ ἐστι ἀσφάλεια. Leaving Hebron, “the king and his men went to Jerusalem”; Josephus explains that by Abraham’s time, the name was Solyma; afterwards, Homer called it Hiero-Solyma, “hiero-” being the Greek prefix “holy”, and “Solyma” meaning “security”. The explanation, repeated in AgAp 1:174, is somewhat unexpected, but the adjective ‫ שלם‬may mean “in security”.

III – Josephus’ Peculiarities Sometimes, Josephus witnesses an unusual Hebrew reading, which can be mistaken or genuine. III.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H In many cases, Josephus has an expanded reading that suggests a marginal gloss rather than a true variant. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ελκανα 1 Sam 1:1 ‫אלקנה‬ Ant. 5:342 Ἀλκάνης λευίτης, Elkanah. Instead of Elkanah’s genealogy, which is not related to prominent characters, Josephus says he was a Levite “of the middle-class citizens” (ἀνὴρ τῶν ἐν µέσῳ πολιτῶν); but according to 1 Chr 6:12-13 Elkanah was a Levite of the Kohath clan, and Samuel was his firstborn, which contradicts 1 Sam. Thus, Josephus read in his source a gloss somewhat connected with the 1 Chr genealogies. 1 Sam 4:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויאמרו‬-𝔏𝔏 εἶπαν οἱ πρεσ- Ant. 5:353 οἱ Ἑβραῖοι πέµH ‫ויאמרו‬ ‫זקני ישראל‬ βύτεροι Ισραηλ πουσιν... τὴν κιβωτὸν τοῦ ‫לזקני ישראל‬ ‫למה נגפנו יהוה‬ Κατὰ τί κτλ. θεοῦ κελεύοντες κοµίζειν ‫למה נגפנו יהוה‬ Τhe Israelites are back from a defeat; the elders wonder why God allowed it, and decide to bring down the Ark of the covenant to the battlefield; but Josephus says that “the Hebrews ordered them to bring it along, from a slightly different reading. 1 Sam 4:19 ‫ ותלד‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = הרה ללת‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 5:360 κυούσῃ... τίκτει ἑπταµηναῖον παῖδα.

108

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Eli’s daughter-in-law “was pregnant in order to beget... and she begot”, maybe implying that the pregnancy was not complete (‫ ללת‬is a shortened form of ‫;)ללדת‬ anyway, Josephus states that “she gave birth to a seven-month son”; he may have understood that she gave birth to a premature baby. 1 Sam 6:1 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )ויהי ארון יהוה( שבעה )חדשים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:18 τέσσαρας H ‫ארבעה‬ The Ark stayed with the Philistine “seven months”, but for Josephus, only four; he read ‫ארבעה‬, with ‫ ש‬altered into ‫אר‬. 1 Sam 7:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 )והלך( מדי שנה בשנה‬-𝔏𝔏 κατ᾿ ἐνιαυτὸν ἐνιαυτὸν Ant. 6:31 δὶς τοῦ ἔτους. Samuel used to go every year to the Benjamin cities; the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 translation underlines a redundancy, for ‫ מדי שנה‬would suffice; Josephus says “twice a year”; he may have read ‫בשנים‬, so that the phrase would mean either “every year for years” (‫שנִים‬ ָ ), or else, “every year in two” (‫שנַיִם‬ ְ ), i.e. twice, like Ant. 1 Sam 8:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שפטים בבאר שבע‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:32 τὸν µὲν ἐν Βεθήλῳ τὸν δ᾽ ἐν Βερσουβεί. Every year, Samuel, who was judging Israel, went to the Benjamin cities of Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah; when he grew old he appointed his sons juges over Israel, but both at Beersheba, a remote city in the Negeb; Josephus, who knew the country, attempted a correction and sent one of them to Bethel. 1 Sam 8:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 מלך לשפטנו‬βασιλέα δικάζειν ἡµᾶς Ant. 6:35 ἄρξει τοῦ ἔθνους καὶ ‫ככל הגוים‬ καθὰ καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ ἔθνη τιµωρήσεται Παλαιστίνους. The people want a king “like all the nations”, a detail omitted by Josephus, who adds “he will take vengeance on the Philistines, because of past injuries”; this sounds awkward, since Samuel has defeated them many years before. Thus, his source drew him to such a remark; however, when later God accepts to give a king, he says his task will be “to deliver my people from the hands of the Philistine” (9:16 ‫)והושיע את עמי מיד פלשתים‬, but Josephus does not mention such a mission there (Ant. 6:50); we may surmise that Josephus read a phrase of this kind as a marginal gloss (correction) between two columns, and put it at the wrong place. 1 Sam 10:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וירדת‬-𝔏𝔏 καταβήσῃ Ant. 6:57 ἥξεις δὲ µετάπεµπτος ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ל ָפנַי הגלגל‬ἔµπροσθεν (= ‫ ) ִל ְפנֵי‬τῆς Γαλγαλα εἰς Γάλγαλα ὑπ᾽ ἐµοῦ. Samuel tells Saul “You shall go down before me to Gilgal (𝔊𝔊 ‘before Gilgal’)”; Josephus introduces a delay “You shall come when I summon you”, which may reflect a misreading ‫“ לפי‬according to me” instead of ‫לפני‬. 1 Sam 13:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = במכמש ובהר בית אל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:95 ἐν πόλει Βεθήβῳ H ‫?בית און‬ Saul’s men are “in Michmash and mount Bethel”; Josephus seems to have read “Beth-aven” (‫ ל‬altered into ‫)ון‬, see 1 Sam 14:23. 1 Sam 13:3 (‫𝔊𝔊 )תקע בשופר‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐθετήκασιν οἱ Ant. 6:98 διὰ πάσης κηρύς(‫ 𝔊𝔊 )בכל הארץ לאמר‬δοῦλοι (= ‫)העבדים‬ σει τῆς χώρας, ἐπ᾽ ἐλευ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ישמעו העברים‬Ἑβραῖοι θερίᾳ καλῶν τὸν λαόν. Saul trumpets a message: “Let the Hebrews (𝔊𝔊 slaves) hear”; Josephus, with “calling the people to freedom”, may have had both readings, one of them as a gloss. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐν Γαβεε 1 Sam 13:16 (‫בגבע )בנימן‬ Ant. 6:105 εἰς Γαβαὼν H ‫בגבעון‬ For “Geba of Benjamin”, Josephus has “Gibeon” (cf. 2 Sam 2:12), probably a misreading for ‫( גבעת‬cf. 1 Sam 13:2 “Gibeah of Benjamin”).



IV – SAMUEL

109

1 Sam 14:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 ונִ ְגלינו‬-𝔏𝔏 κατακυλισθηAnt. 6:110 προσβάλωµεν τοῖς πολεµίοις, (‫)אליהם‬ σόµεθα (= ‫)נָג ֹ ֵלּינו‬ κἂν ἀναβῆναι κελεύσωσι ἰδόντες. Jonathan tells his armour-bearer: “We will reveal ourselves (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘roll down’) to them”, with different interpretations of ‫ ;ונגלינו‬Josephus, with “let us attack the enemy, and seeing (us) if they bid to go up...”, combines the two meanings. 1 Sam 14:45 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויפדו העם‬-𝔏𝔏 προσηύξατο (= ‫ )ויפלל‬Ant. 6:128 τὸν µὲν ἐξαρπάζουσι, ‫את יונתן‬ ὁ λαὸς περὶ Ιωναθαν αὐτοὶ δὲ εὐχὰς ποιοῦνται. “And the people rescued (𝔊𝔊 ‘prayed for’) Jonathan”. Josephus has two verbs, “snatched” like 𝔐𝔐, and “prayed” like 𝔊𝔊, the latter suggesting ‫ ויפלל‬as a source (see 1 Sam 2:25 ‫“ ופללו אלהים‬God will intercede for him”); thus, Josephus had the two readings, one of them as a gloss, for ‫ לל‬can easily be corrupted into ‫ ;דו‬in other words, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 probably reflects the original. 1 Sam 16:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 שֹלם בואך‬-𝔏𝔏 ἡ εἰρήνη εἴσοδός σου Ant. 6:158 πάντες ἠσπάζοντο, (4QSamb adds ‫)הרואה‬ ὁ βλέπων αἰτίαν ἀφίξεως ἐπηρώτων. At Samuel’s arrival to Bethlehem, people greet him “Peace be your coming”; 𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 displays an addition “you the seer!”, as in 4QSamb, and also a difference, with the article “the peace”, suggesting ‫ ;השלם‬but ‫ ה‬can be viewed as the interrogative particle. Josephus, with “all greeted him and asked for the cause of his coming”, witnesses both the statement and the question; thus, he read both ‫שלם‬ and ‫השלם‬, the second as a marginal gloss. We cannot say if he saw the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 addition, for in the sequel, Samuel is somewhat blind: he actually does not see, among Jesse’s sons, who is the chosen one. 1 Sam 16:6-9 Jesse’s seven sons are Eliab, Abinadab (𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 6:161 Aminadab), Shammah and four others unnamed (with David they are eight, see 1 Sam 11:17); Ant. 6:161 adds three names: Netanel, Raddai, Ozem, so that one name is missing, but Josephus’ list matches 1 Ch 2:13-5 (Jesse’s seven sons, including David); he may have read these names in a marginal gloss, and avoided saying that Jesse did have eight sons. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκράτησα τοῦ 1 Sam 17:35 ‫והחזקתי‬ Ant. 6:182 αὐτὸν ‫בזקנו‬ φάρυγγος αὐτοῦ βαστάσας τῆς οὐρᾶς. Relating his victory over a lion, David explains: “I seized it by its beard (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘its throat’, from ‫ ;”)בחכּו‬for Josephus, David seized its tail (from ‫)בזנבו‬. It is remarkable that such a common word as ‫ זקן‬could not be read properly. 1 Sam 17:53 ...‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁבו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀνέστρεψαν Ant. 6:192 ὑποστρέψας διαρ‫ מדלק‬ἐκκλίνοντες (𝔏𝔏 ἐκκαίοντες) πάζει τὰ χαράκωµα ‫ וישׁסו את־מחניהם‬κατεπάτουν τὰς παρεµβολὰς αὐτῶν καὶ ἐνέπρησεν. The Israelites “returned from chasing (𝔊𝔊 ‘turning away’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘burning’) the Philistines and plundered (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘trampled down’) their camp”; ἐκκλίνοντες of 𝔊𝔊, which makes no sense, is probably an error for ἐκκαίοντες, as corrected by 𝔏𝔏. The homonymous roots ‫ דלק‬mean “chase” and “burn”; the latter, more common, was retained by 𝔏𝔏 and Ant., but it gives the sentence an awkward meaning, and Josephus, with “returning to their camp destroyed the palisade and set fire”, tried to correct this with a “palisade”, maybe extracted from ‫ישׁסו‬. 1 Sam 20:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 כפשׂע ביני‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐµπέπλησται (= ‫ )כשׁפע‬ἀνὰ Ant. 6:225 ὅταν θεάσηται ‫ובין המות‬ µέσον µου καὶ τοῦ θανάτου πεφονευµένον αὐτον. David explains to Jonathan: “There is about a step (?, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘it is filled up’) between I and death.” The word ‫ פשׂע‬is a hapax, and Josephus, with “when he (Jonathan) sees him murdered”, has read ‫“ פשׁע‬crime”.

110

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1 Sam 20:34 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )נעצב אל־דוד‬συνετέλεσεν Ant. 6:239 ἑαυτὸν µὲν ἀπολέσθαι, κα‫ כי הכלמו אביו‬ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸν ὁ πατήρ τακρίσθαι δ᾽ ἀποθανεῖν Δαβίδην. Jonathan was sad, “for his father had disgraced (𝔊𝔊 ‘finished up’, from ‫)הכלה עמו‬ him”. Josephus has two verbs: Jonathan “narrowly escaped destruction, and David was doomed to die”; the latter matches 𝔐𝔐, and the former is a possible meaning of the source of 𝔊𝔊 (Saul had just tried to kill Jonathan). Thus, Josephus had the two variants, one of them as a marginal gloss. 1 Sam 20:41 ‫𝔊𝔊 ודוד קם‬-𝔏𝔏 Δαυιδ ἀνέστη Ant. 6:240 ἐν ἐρηµίᾳ Δαβίδῃ ‫מאצל הנגב‬ ἀπὸ τοῦ εργαβ (= ‫)הרגב‬ παρῆλθεν, ἀναφανεὶς οὗτος. After receiving the signal devised with Jonathan, “David had risen from the Negeb (or ‘wilderness’; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes ‫‘ הרגב‬the clod’)”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏’s source alludes to David’s hiding place (“the clod”), see § I.4, 1 Sam 20:19. Josephus gives two steps: Jonathan goes to the wilderness (Negeb), then David appears in the open, that is, leaves his hiding place; in other words, Josephus read both ‫ הנגב‬and ‫הרגב‬, one of them as a marginal gloss. 1 Sam 22:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁמעו אחיו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:247 πέµπει πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς, δηλῶν ἔνθα. David fled from Gath, “and his brothers heard of it”; according to Josephus, David let them know; he may have read ‫( ויֵשׁמע‬hifil). 1 Sam 22:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 הקים בני‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπήγειρεν ἐπ᾿ ἐµὲ Ant. 6:253 σύµβουλος καὶ συνεργός ‫)את־עבדי( עלי לארב‬ εἰς ἐχθρόν (= ‫ לאויב‬40) τῶν κατ᾽ ἐµοῦ συντεταγµένων. Saul explains to his servants: “My son has stirred up my servant against me as an ambush (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘ennemy’)”; Josephus, who mentions David’ plot and general enmity towards him, read the two variants, probably ‫ ארב‬in the text and ‫ אויב‬as a marginal correction. 1 Sam 25:43 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אחינעם מיזרעאל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:309 γυναῖκα ἐξ Ἀβισάρου πόλεως. David’s first wife was “Ahinoam of Jezreel”, Amnon’s mother (2 Sam 3:2), from the future northern capital. According to Josh 15:56, there was a Jezreel in southern Juda (close to Ziph and Maon). Josephus’ strange form of the name should be the outcrop of a misreading. 1 Sam 26:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 אבישׁי בן‬-𝔏𝔏 Αβεσσα υἱὸν Ant. 6:311 τὸν ἐκ τῆς ἀδελφῆς ‫צרויה אחי יואב‬ Σαρουιας ἀδελφὸν Ιωαβ αὐτοῦ Σερουίας Ἀβισαῖον. David took with him “Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother”, but Josephus has “Abishai son of Zeruiah, (David’s) sister”; indeed, 1 Chr 2:16, about David’s genealogy, mentions two sisters of David, Zeruiah and Abigail, and it seems that instead of ‫אחי יואב‬, Josephus read ‫אחותו‬, maybe as a marginal gloss; but later, he held Zeruiah as a man (see § II.2, 2 Sam 3:39). 𝔊𝔊 ἐν Αενδωρ, 𝔏𝔏 Ενδωρ 1 Sam 28:7 ‫בעין דור‬ Ant. 6:330 ἐν πόλει Δώρῳ. Τhey found for Saul a medium woman “at En-dor”; Josephus understood “in the city of Dor”, from a misreading ‫בעיר דור‬. Τhis cannot be the Phoenician harbor of Dor (see Ant. 5:83). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 σὺ καὶ οἱ υἱοί σου 1 Sam 28:19 ‫אתה‬ Ant. 6:336 σαυτὸν µετὰ τέκνων ‫ובניך עמי‬ (𝔏𝔏 Ιωναθαν) πεσοῦνται πεσόντα, µετ᾽ ἐµοῦ γενησόµενον. Samuel says to Jonathan: “You and your sons (𝔏𝔏 ‘you and Jonathan’) will be with me (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘will fall’, from ‫”)יפלו‬. Josephus combines the two readings “with me” and “will fall”; he read both ‫ עמי‬and ‫יפלו‬, one of them as a marginal gloss. 40

Such is the restoration of 4QSamb, according to DJD 17, p. 240.



IV – SAMUEL

111

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ιωαβ υἱὸς Σαρουιας 2 Sam 2:23 ‫ויואב בן־צרויה‬ Ant. 7:11 Σαρουίας παῖς, (om.) πατρὸς δὲ Σουρί, ‫ועבדי דוד‬ καὶ οἱ παῖδες Δαυιδ ἐκ τῆς ἀδελφῆς ἐκείνου. Abner was coming, and against him were “Joab son of Zeruiah and David’s servants”; Josephus ignores the servants, but introduces Zeruiah as David’s sister, an unexpected detail, and adds one Suri or Zuri as Joab’s father; this suggests that he had an illegible text, probably with a marginal gloss, from which he extracted ‫( צורי‬a variant of ‫ צוריאל ;צרויה‬does exist, Num 3:35), and ‫ אחותו‬instead of ‫ועבדי‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 διαθήσοµαι (= ‫ )וכרתי‬Ant. 7:30 ἀγαγεῖν τὸ πλῆθος, ἵνα 2 Sam 3:21 ‫ְויִכרתו‬ (‫אתך ברית )ומלכת‬ µετὰ σοῦ διαθήκην παρόντι παραδώσει τὴν ἀρχην. Abner wants to gather all Israel, “and they will (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘so that I may’) make a covenant with you”; the covenant is the consequence of the gathering, and a Hebrew form ‫ וכרתו‬would be more appropriate, and much closer to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.41 For Josephus, Abner tells David that he wants to leave and “bring the crowd, in order that it (or ‘he’) may hand over the power to him when present”; the wording is not clear, for we can understand that the power will be handed over either by the people (like 𝔐𝔐) or by Abner himself (like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏); so he may have read either an ambiguous ‫וכרתו‬/‫ וכרתי‬or one form in the text, the other as a gloss. 2 Sam 4:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויהי בחפזה לנוס ויפל ויפסח‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:113 καὶ βλαβῆναι τὰς βάσεις. Josephus has ignored at its right place (Ant.7:46) the verse explaining why Jonathan’s son was lame, and he paraphrases it when David looks for him, after 2 Sam 9:2. It is doubtful that he skipped over it at its original place, and kept it for a more convenient location. In other words, he read it in the margin. On a similar feature for the curse of Jericho, see Chap. II, § II.1, Josh 6:26. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἔλαβεν Δαυιδ 2 Sam 8:1 ‫ויקח דוד‬ Αnt. 7:98 πολλὴν τῆς χώρας ‫את־מתג האמּה‬ τὴν ἀφωρισµένην προσορίσας τῇ τῶν Ἑβραίων. David smote the Philistines and subdued them “and David took the bridle of the cubit (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the separated territory’; 1 Chr 18:1 ‫‘ גת ובנתיה‬Gath and its villages’)” from the hands of the Philistines; 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐 (confirmed by 4QSama)42 and 𝔊𝔊 are difficult, while 1 Chr is clear. For Josephus, “David annexed much of their territory to the country of the Hebrews”; he did not see 1 Chr, and seems to have guessed according to the context. 𝔊𝔊 ἐκ Μασβακ; 𝔏𝔏 ἐκ Ματεβακ 2 Sam 8:8 ‫ומבטח‬ Αnt. 7:105 ταῖς καλ𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν ‫מברתי‬ λίσταις τῶν πολέων, (‫)ערי הדדעזר‬ πόλεων Βατταίᾳ καὶ Μάχωνι. David took bronze “from Betah (𝔊𝔊 ‘Masbak’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘Matebak’; 1 Chr 18:8 ‫ומטבחת‬ ‘from Tibhath’) and from Berothai (1 Chr 18:8 ‫‘ ומכון‬from Kun’43), cities (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 1 Chr 18:8 𝔊𝔊 ‘from choice cities’) of Hadadezer”; Josephus, with “the fairest cities, Battaia and Machon”, has the first city like 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐, the second like 1 Chr 𝔐𝔐, and an adjective like 𝔊𝔊, possibly as a gloss. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἡγίασεν ἐκ πασῶν 2 Sam 8:11 ‫הקדישׁ‬ Αnt. 7:108 ἐκ τῶν πόλεων καὶ ‫מכל־הגוים‬ τῶν πόλεων (= ‫)הערים‬ ἐθνων, ἀνατιθησι τῷ θεῷ. 41 For ‫ויכרתו‬, 4QSama has only ]‫ [רתו‬with the first and third letters doubtful, see DJD 17, p. 111; but the ‫ ו‬might be a ‫י‬, matching the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 rendering. 42 The various ancient translations are confusing, see DJD 17, p. 133. 43 4QSama is lacking, and DJD 17, p. 134, proposes after discussion a restoration ‫ומברות‬.

112

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

David took the spoils, which “he consecrated, from all the nations (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the cities’)”; Josephus adds up “cities and nations”, having read both variants. The parallel 1 Chr 18:11 has only “nations”. 2 Sam 12:24 ‫( ויקרא‬Ket) 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἔτεκεν υἱόν, καὶ ἐκάλεΑnt. 7:158 Σολοµῶ‫( תקרא את־שׁמו שׁלמה‬Qer) σεν τὸ ὄνοµα αὐτοῦ Σαλωµων να προσηγόρευσεν. Bathsheba gave birth to a son, and “he (Qer ‘she’) named him Solomon”; in the Greek, the verbs ἔτεκεν and ἐκάλεσεν are supposed to have the same subject, hence “she named”. For Josephus, David made her pregnant and named the newborn child Solomon; contrarily to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, the two verbs have the same subject, David, like Ket. 2 Sam 12:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וילכד את־עיר המלוכה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:159 τῶν ὑδάτων ἀποτεµνόµενος Joab was fighting against Rabbat Ammon, “and he took the city of the kingdom”; that makes no sense, for the “city” is Rabbah, and later Joab urges David to come himself to take it, which he did (v. 29). Now, at v. 27 Joab reports to David, saying ‫“ לכדתי את־עיר המים‬I took the city of waters”. Josephus undestood according to the report, that Joab “cut off their water supplies”; he may have read a v. 27 corrected according to v. 26. 1 Chr 20:1a is parallel to 2 Sam 11:1 (Joab besieges Rabbah), ending with “and David stayed at Jerusalem”; then 1 Chr 20:1b, skipping over the Bathsheba affair and David’s capture of Rabbah, concludes “and Joab smote Rabbah and destroyed it”. 2 Sam 13:23 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בבעל חצור‬ἐν Βελασωρ, 𝔏𝔏 Βασελλασωρ Αnt. 7:174 Βελσεφών, ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אשׁר עם־אפרים‬τῇ Εφραιµ, 𝔏𝔏 Γοφραιµ τῆς Ἐφράµου κληρουχίας. Absalom had sheepshearers “at Baal-hazor (𝔏𝔏 ‘Basellasor’), which is near Ephraim (𝔏𝔏 ‘Gophraim’, from ‫”)עפרים‬. Josephus’ “Belsephon”, from ‫בעל צפון‬, sounds like “the place besides the Red See” (Ant. 2:315), referring to Exod 14:2 (right after the exit from Egypt); however, the strange 𝔏𝔏 form may have been a mixture of Βαλασωρ and Βασελ-, an alteration of Βαλεσ-.44 2 Sam 19:10 (‫( 𝔊𝔊)ויהי כל־העם‬δια)κρινόµενος Αnt. 7:259 µεµφόµενοι ὅτι αὐτὸν ‫ 𝔏𝔏 נדון‬γογγύζοντες (= ‫)נלון‬ ἐκβαλόντες, ἄλλῳ ἐνεχείρισαν. After Absalom’s defeat, “all the people disputed (𝔏𝔏 ‘grumbled’); for Josephus, they were “blaming themselves for having expelled (David from the kingship) and given it to another”; thus, they were discussing and grumbling, and Josephus knew of the two variants, one of them as a gloss. 2 Sam 21:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויחמל המלך על־מפי־בשׁת בן־יהונתן‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:296 Ἰεβόσθου φεισάµενος. David wanted to spare Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, homonymous to a son of Saul; Josephus calls both “Ishbosheth”, confusing the two names. 2 Sam 23:38 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כל שׁלשׁים ושׁבעה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:307 διασηµότατοι ὀκτὼ καὶ τριάκοντα. At the end of a list of David’s warriors a total is given “37”, which does not match the detailed reckoning; Josephus has “38”, maybe a tentative correction. The parallel 1 Chr 11:41 omits this total and adds 16 other names.

III.2 Actual Readings of H The filing of some cases between this section and the previous one is sometimes uneasy. 44

4QSama is restored according to 𝔐𝔐, see DJD 17, p. 147.



IV – SAMUEL

113

1 Sam 1:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 ונתתיו‬-𝔏𝔏 δώσω αὐτὸν Ant. 5:347 ἀνατιH ‫ונתתיו‬ (om.) ἐνώπιόν σου θεῖσα τῷ θεῷ ‫ ליהוה‬δοτὸν προφήτην ‫נזיר ליהיה‬ ‫ כל ימי חייו‬ἕως ἡµέρας θανάτου αὐτοῦ γενησόµενον ‫עד יום מותו‬ (om.) οἶνον καὶ µέθυσµα οὐ πίεται ‫יין ושכר לא ישתה‬ ‫ ומורה לא‬σίδηρος οὐκ ἀναβήσεται κόµη τε οὖν ἀνεῖτο ‫ומורה לא‬ ‫ יעלה על ראשו‬ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν αὐτοῦ καὶ ποτὸν ἦν ὕδωρ ‫יעבר על ראשו‬ Hannah vows that if she is given a son, she will consecrate him forever: “Α razor45 shall never come to his head”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has two additions: first, δοτόν “given”, or possibly “consecrated”, which seems redundant, but makes sense by comparison with nazir “consecrated” of 4QSama;46 second, the abstention of wine. In other words, the future child is slated to be a permanent nazir, like Samson (Judg 13:4), whom Josephus calls a “prophet”, too, because of this very diet (Ant. 5:285); for him, the definition of a nazir is restricted to a personal, temporary vow (Ant. 4:72, cf. Num 6:1-21). Thus, Josephus’ source H was close to 4QSama, and not far away from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 1 Sam 4:10 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = )ויפל מישראל( שלשים אלף‬Ant. 5:353 εἰς τρισµυρίους H ‫כשלשים אלף‬ At the second defeat, “thirty thousand” Israelites fell; Josephus adds “about”. 1 Sam 4:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 על הכסא‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ τοῦ δίφρου Ant. 5:358 ἐκαθέζετο γὰρ H ‫על הכסא‬ (Qer) ‫יד‬ παρὰ τὴν πύλην καθ᾽ ἑτέρας τῶν πυλῶν ‫יד‬ ‫דרך מצפה‬ σκοπεύων τὴν ὁδόν ἐφ᾽ ὑψηλοῦ θρόνου ‫דלת‬ Eli, expecting some news from the battlefield, was sitting on his seat, “by the road, watching”; Josephus has only “by one of the two doors on his high seat” (Eli is blind), while 𝔊𝔊 has both readings “by the gate, watching the road”. Josephus may witness the original form, since 𝔐𝔐 is probably corrupt: instead of ‫יד‬, Ket has ‫יך‬, which is meaningless in this context (jussive of ‫)?הכה‬. 4QSama is lacking here. 1 Sam 8:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = למלאכתו‬ Ant. 6:41 τοῖς αὑτῶν προσνεµοῦσι H ‫למלאכיו‬ For the whole sentence, see § II.2. 1 Sam 10:27, Ant. 6:68-69 adds a story of Nahash’s early conquests, which is clearly witnessed by 4QSama Xa:6-9, hence H.47 𝔊𝔊 Αβιεζεκ 𝔏𝔏 Σαουλ 1 Sam 11:8 (‫)ויפקדם‬ Ant. 6:78 ἐν Βαλᾶ H ‫בבמה‬ ‫בבזק‬ ἐν Βαµα ἐν Ραµα τῇ πόλει Saul numbered the Israelites “in Bezek”; for 𝔊𝔊, they were numbered by “Abiezek in Bama”, and 𝔏𝔏 corrects “Saul in Ramah” (Samuel’s city); for Josephus, Saul did the numbering (like 𝔐𝔐), and the name should be restored Βαµᾶ (uncial error), so that he must have read ‫“ בבמה‬at the high place”. 1 Sam 13:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 שלשת אלפים‬-𝔏𝔏 3,000 ἀνδρῶν ἐκ Ant. 6:95 ὡς περὶ H ‫כשלשת אלפים‬ ‫ מישראל‬τῶν ἀνδρῶν Ισραηλ τρισχιλίους. ‫מישראל‬ Saul chose “3,000 from Israel”, but Josephus has “some 3,000”. 1 Sam 14:33 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ויגידו‬καὶ ἀπηγγέλη Ant. 6:120 ἀπαγέλλεται H ‫ויגידו‬ ‫לשאול‬ τῷ Σαουλ ὑπὸ τῶν γραµµατέων ‫הסופרים לשאול‬ 45 46

Ak. has φόβος, from a reading ‫מורא‬, which cuts down any connection with nazir. The end of the line is missing, and the editors have restored ‫ נזיר‬from 1 Sam 1:22, but the line length rather suggests ‫נזיר ליהיה‬, which would match quite well Josephus’ wording; see DJD 17, p. 29-31. 47 See DJD 17, p. 66 (the ms. has been corrected above the line).

114

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

The people is sinning, which “they (𝔊𝔊 ‘was’) told to Saul”; Josephus adds “by the scribes”, whom he never mentioned before. He may have read ‫ הסופרים‬as a gloss, perhaps a scribal indication of some variant readings. For instance, in the previous verse (14:32), we read ‫“ ויעש‬turned (upon the spoil)” (Ket and 𝔊𝔊 ἐκλίθη) and ‫“ ויעט‬spurned” (Qer and 𝔏𝔏 ὅρµησεν), while Josephus has “at dusk they turned to the pillage”, which may combine both readings.48 1 Sam 14:36 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:122 καλέσας Ἀχίτωβον τὸν H ‫ויאמר‬ (‫הכהן )נקרבה הלם‬ ἀρχιερέα ἐκέλευσεν αὐτὸν γνῶναι ‫לאחיטוב הכהן‬ After the people’s approval, “the priest said: Let us come near”, but for Josephus, Saul “said to the high priest Achitob”; he depends on a source, for at 6:107 the high priest is Achiyah (Achitob’s son according to 1 Sam 14:3). 1 Sam 14:47 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = ובאדום‬Ant. 6:129 Ἰδουµαίους τε καὶ Ἀµαληκίτας H ‫ובאדום ובעמלק‬ To the peoples subdued by Saul, Josephus adds “Amalek”, maybe taken from 14:48. See too § I.3. 1 Sam 15:27 for the variants ‫ ויחזק‬/ ‫ויאחז‬, witnessed by Josephus, see § I.3. 1 Sam 21:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואת־הנערים‬-𝔏𝔏 τοῖς παιδαρίοις δια- Ant. 6:243 θεράπον- H ‫ואת־הנערים‬ ‫ יודעתי‬µεµαρτύρηµαι (= ‫)העדתי‬ τας προσέταξα ‫יעדתי‬ David arrived alone at Nob, and tells the priest: “I let be known (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘I testified’) to my servants”; both 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 readings are somewhat strange: ‫ יודעתי‬is supposed to be a rare poel, with a hifil value, but 4QSamb has ‫יעדתי‬, with a smooth meaning, like Josephus “I ordered”; this is probably the original,49 but we could conjecture another vocalization ‫ ה ֹעדתי‬of the source ‫ העדתי‬of 𝔊𝔊. 1 Sam 26:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = )קח־נא( את־החנית‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 6:313 αὐτοῦ τὸ δόρυ H ‫חניתו‬ David says to Abishai: “Please take the spear (Ant. and 4QSama ‘his spear’)”. 1 Sam 28:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 תצא במחנה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐξελεύσει εἰς πόλε- Ant. 6:325 εἰς H ‫תצא‬ ‫ אתה ואנשׁיך‬µον σὺ καὶ οἱ ἄνδρες σου τὸν πόλεµον ‫אתה ואנשיך‬ (om.) εἰς Ῥεγάν ‫למלחמה יזרעאלה‬ Achish says to David: “You will go out in the camp (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘to war’), you and your men”. Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 “to war”, but adds “to Regan”, an unknown name; however, 4QSama has a parallel addition ‫“ יזרעאלה‬to Jezreel”, which allows a restoration of the expression of Ant. EICPEΓAN into EICPAΕΛΑ,50 hence H (with a change of order). 1 Sam 28:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 וימאן‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐκ ἐβουλήθη Ant. 6:338 ἀντέχοντα, H ‫ולא אבה‬ ‫ויאמר לא אכל‬ φαγεῖν, παρεβιά- τελέως ἀπεστραµµένον ‫ויאמר לא אכל‬ ‫ויפרצו־בו‬ ζοντο αὐτόν ἐβιάσατο καὶ συνέπεισεν ‫ויפצרו בו‬ The medium woman invites Saul to eat, “and he refused and he said: I will not eat; and they broke through (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘urged him’, from ‫ויפצרו‬, with a metathesis)”; Josephus, with “refusing and resolutely turning away, then she urged him” begins with 𝔐𝔐, then agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏,51 hence H. 48 About “at dusk” of Josephus (δείλης ὀψίας), CAQUOT, p. 150 suggests a connection of ‫ ויעש‬with Arabic ‫“ ﻋﺸﺎء‬evening”. 49 See DJD 17, p. 235. 50 See DJD 17, p. 95. 51 Owing to the line length of the column, the missing words of 4QSama are restored according to 𝔏𝔏, see DJD 17, p. 97.



IV – SAMUEL

115

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπὸ ἑωσφόρου 1 Sam 30:17 ‫מהנשׁף‬ Ant. 6:364 ἀναιροῦντες H ‫מהנשׁף‬ ‫ועד־הערב‬ ἕως δείλης ἀπὸ πρώτης ‫ועד־הערב‬ ‫למחרתם‬ καὶ τῇ ἐπαύριον ἕως ἑσπέρας ‫להחרמתם‬ David slaughtered the Amalekites “from the twilight until the evening to their next day (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and on the next day’, from ‫“ 𝔐𝔐 ;”)ולמחרת‬their next day” sounds awkward, and Rashi suggests that the evening of the Israelite is already the next day for the Amalekites (solar vs. lunar calendar); 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 introduces a second day; for Josephus, the slaughter lasted simply one day, which suggests a simple correction of his Hebrew: the anathema, or utter destruction, of the Amalekites was mandatory (see 1 Sam 15:1-3 and Ant. 6:132), so that we can conjecture ‫“ להחרמתם‬for their utter destruction”, instead of the difficult ‫למחרתם‬. 1 Sam 31:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויחל מאד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐτραυµατίσθη (𝔏𝔏 -σαν Ant. 6:370 πολλὰ H ‫ויחל מאד‬ ‫מהמורים‬ αὐτὸν) εἰς τὰ ὑποχόνδρια θραύµατα λαβών ‫אל המתנים‬ The battle went against Saul, the archers found him, “and he badly writhed (𝔊𝔊 ‘he was wounded’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘they wounded him’) from the archers (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘to the abdomen’, from ‫( 𝔐𝔐 ;”)המתנים‬including the parallel 1 Chr 10:3, which has ‫)מהיורים‬ gives an awkward meaning, taking ‫ ויחל‬from ‫חיל‬/‫ חול‬and repeating ‫המורים‬, while 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 understand from ‫“ חלל‬pierce” (with a slight difference), and allude to Saul’s wounds;52 Josephus understood like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Sam 1:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = על־ספר הישׁר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:6 ἔγραψε θρήνους, ὅσοι µέχρις ἐµοῦ. 1:19-27 David’s dirge over Saul and his sons H om. After Saul’s death, David orders to teach the sons of Judah the song of the bow, which is written “in the Book of Jashar (the Righteous One)”, a title already mentioned at Josh 10:12 𝔐𝔐. According to Josephus, David “wrote lamentations, which have survived until me”; this indicates that he saw the dirge in a separate document, as in the previous allusion (see Chap. II, § III.2). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Δαλουια (from ‫)דלויה‬ 2 Sam 3:3 ‫כלאב‬ Αnt. 7:31 Δαλουίηλος H ‫דלויאל‬ The name of Abigail’s son is discussed at § I.3. 2 Sam 3:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 εἶπεν Μεµφιβοσθε Ant. 7:23 καταµεµφθεὶς H ‫ויאמר‬ υἱὸς Σαουλ ὑπὸ Ἰεσβώσθου ‫אישבושת בן שאול‬ The surviving son of Saul was “Mephibosheth” (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏) or “Ishbosheth” (Ant. and other witnesses), but there are some confusions with Mephibosheth, Jonathan’son and Saul’s grandson (2 Sam 9:6); in 4QSama, only ‫ שאול‬can be read,53 that is, a remnant of “Saul’s son”, hence H, with the longer 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 form. For that name, see too § II.1, 1 Sam 14:49. 2 Sam 4:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 בן שאול‬-𝔏𝔏 & 4QSama add ‫ מפיבושת‬Ant. 7:46 Ἰέσβωσθος H ‫אישבושת‬ See previous note. 2 Sam 5:4-5 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 1 Chr 11:3, 4QSama, VetLat & Ant. 7:54 om.54 H om. This addition of 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 on the chronology of David’s reigns, was introduced after the composition of 1 Chr. 2 Sam 5:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 כי אם־הסירך‬-𝔏𝔏 ὅτι ἀντέστησαν (‫ )כי הסירו‬Ant. 7:61 κωλύειν H ‫כי הסיתוך‬ ‫העורים‬ οἱ τυφλοὶ αὐτὸν εἰσελθεῖν ‫העורים‬ ‫והפסחים‬ καὶ οἱ χωλοί τοὺς ἀναπήρους ‫והפסחים‬ DJD 17, p. 102 restores according to 𝔏𝔏: ‫ויחלו אותו אל המתנים‬. And the missing words are restored after 𝔊𝔊 and 2 Sam 4:1, with ‫מפיבושת‬, see DJD 17, p. 110. 54 See a further discussion in DJD 17, p. 120-1. 52

53

116

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

The Jebusites said to David: “You shall not come here, unless you turn away the blind and the lame (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘for the blind and the lame withstood’)”; Josephus, with “the lame would prevent him from entering” disagrees with both 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but 4QSama has ‫“ כי הסיתוך‬for they divert you”,55 which provides a tolerable solution. 2 Sam 11:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 אוריה החתי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ουριου Αnt. 7:131 Ἰωάβου H ‫אוריה החתי‬ τοῦ Χετταίου ὁπλοφόρον Οὐρίαν ‫נושא כלי יואב‬ Only 4QSama and Josephus say that Uriah the Hittite was Joab’s armor bearer. 2 Sam 19:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 ועברה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐλειτούργησαν Αnt. 7:264 τὸν ποταµὸν H ‫ועבדו‬ (‫ָה ֲע ָב ָרה )לעביר בית המלך‬ τὴν λειτουργίαν ἐγεφύρωσαν ‫ַה ֲע ָב ָרה‬ The people want to fetch David, who is beyond the Jordan, “and the ford crossed (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and they served the service’, from ‫ )ועבדו העב ֹדה‬to let the king’s household cross”; the meaning of the variants is not clear (and 4QSama is lacking); Josephus clearly says that “they made a bridge over the river”, that is, a device to cross over the river; thus, he saw ‫ העברה‬as a verbal noun of ‫להעביר‬, and rendered according to his experience, hence H. 2 Sam 21:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ישׁבי‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:298 Ἄκµονος H ‫חכמון בן הרפה‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 = אשׁר בילידי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ἀράφου δὲ παιδός, ἦν ‫אשר בילידי‬ ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = הרפה‬τῶν Γιγάντων ἀπόγονος τῶν Γιγάντων ‫הרפאים‬ A strong Philistine wants to strike David, “Ishbi, who was among the descendants of the Raphah”; Josephus gives him a different name, “Akmon, son of the Raphah”, which may be somewhat related to a warrior of David’s, 1 Chr 11:11, ‫ ישׁבעם בן־חכמוני‬for which 𝔊𝔊 sheds some light Ιεσεβααλ υἱὸς Αχαµανι, suggesting Ιεσεβ, after the removal of βααλ (the parallel 2 Sam 23:8 is different); moreover, Josephus gives him a second origin, akin to 𝔏𝔏, “a descendant of the Giants”, that is, of the Rephaim (see § II.1, 2 Sam 5:18). Thus, we can tentatively reconstruct H. See next note. 2 Sam 23:8 ‫ישׁב בשׁבת תחכמני‬ Ant. 7:308 Ἴσεβος H ‫אישבושת‬ 1 Chr 11:11 ‫ישׁבעם בן־חכמוני‬ υἱὸς Ἀχεµαίου ‫בן־חכמוני‬ For a discussion of these variants, see Chap. V, § I, 1 Chr 11:11.

IV – Conclusions In cases where there is no interference with 1-2 Chr, there are many little differences between 1-2 Sam and Josephus, and three major ones (§ III.2): first, Ant. 5:347, like 4QSama, adds to 1 Sam 1:11 that Samuel was consecrated as a permanent nazir; this reinforces the parallel between Samuel announcing David and John the Baptist announcing Jesus, for John was consecrated “from his mother’s womb” (Luke 1:15); second, Ant. 6:68-69 adds to 1 Sam 10:27 a story about king Nahash’s early conquests, which is closely witnessed by 4QSama, but the reason of its disappearance from 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is not clear;56 third, 2 Sam 1:19-27 quotes David’s dirge on Saul and his 55 56

According to the plausible restoration of DJD 17, p. 121; only ]‫ כי הסית‬can be read. For a detailed analysis, see Eugene ULRICH, The Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus



IV – SAMUEL

117

sons, and indicates that it is recorded “in the Book of Jashar (the Righteous One)”, a title previously mentioned in Josh 10:12 𝔐𝔐 about the sun’s stop (Chap. II, § III.2). Josephus says that David “wrote lamentations, which have survived until me” (Ant. 7:6); this indicates that he knew the dirge from a separate document, most probably the same Book, which he has described as “a written document laid in the temple” (Ant. 5:61). The passage is not conserved in the 4QSama fragments, but it may have been absent from the whole scroll. As for lesser details, Ant. has several double readings, probably from marginal glosses (§ III.1); sometimes, such glosses have been inserted at the wrong place (e.g. 1 Sam 8:5, 2 Sam 4:4). The sources Josephus used are close to the various Qumran fragments and to 𝔏𝔏 (§ I.4), albeit with several divergences.57 On the contrary, he is not conversant with the genealogies of 1 Chr: e.g. about David’s sons (2 Sam 5:14), he ignores the rectification of 1 Chr 3:59 (Ant. 7:70); he does not know that according to 1 Chr 6:12 Elkanah was of good Levitical descent, and that Samuel was his firstborn, which contradicts 1 Sam 1:2; had he known that, he would have managed to reduce the gap, as he does elsewhere when he has divergent sources. Beyond his closeness to 𝔏𝔏 for the content, Josephus has significant literal contacts with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. As it was observed in the previous chapter, the best interpretation is that the translators or revisers of the Greek borrowed from him in several difficult instances, and not the reverse, typically when a word or phrase is both a hapax in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and common in Josephus’ works (§ I.2). Finally, there is no doubt that Josephus used Hebrew sources: his contacts with Qumran and 𝔐𝔐 are strong (§ II), and his affinities with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 never imply that he must have used a Greek source.58 (About the relationship between the witnesses, see Chap. V, § IV.)

(Harvard Semitic Monographs, 19; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1978), p. 165-91; but he concludes that Josephus used a Greek source very close to 4QSama. 57 Curiously, Tuukka KAUHANEN, The Proto-Lucianic Problem in 1 Samuel (Göttingen / Oakville: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), p. 43-44, concludes that the contacts between Ant. and 𝔏𝔏 are negligible. 58 See, too, Michael AVIOZ, Josephus’ Interpretation of the Books of Samuel (London / New York / New Dehli: T & T Clark, 2016.

CHAPTER FIVE SAMUEL AND CHRONICLES The chapter examines the relations of Josephus with the parallel sections of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Chronicles. For the former, 𝔐𝔐, 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 are quite different, but for the latter, 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 are closer to 𝔐𝔐.

I – Josephus with 1 Chr Against 2 Sam

1 Chr 11:6 victory of Joab, unknown to 2 Sam 5:8 Ant. 7:64. Josephus ignores the water tunnel (‫בצנור‬, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 παραξιφίδι “sword, dagger”, hapax) as well as the exclusion of the lame of 2 Sam 5:8. 1 Chr 11:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ויואב יחיה‬καὶ ἐπολέµησεν Ant. 7:66 ἐπιµελητὴν τῶν τει‫את־שׁאר העיר‬ καὶ ἔλαβεν τὴν πόλιν χῶν κατέστησεν Ἰώαβον. A detail unknown to 2 Sam 5:9 is given: “And Joab revived the rest of the city”, followed by Josephus “David appointed Joab keeper of the walls”, while 𝔊𝔊 has “And he waged war and took the city”. 1 Chr 11:11‫𝔊𝔊 ישׁבעם בן־חכמוני‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιεσεβααλ υἱὸς Αχαµανι Ant. 7:308 Ἴσεβος 2 Sam 23:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ישׁב בשׁבת תחכמני‬Ιεβοσθε ὁ Χαναναῖος, 𝔏𝔏 Ιεσβα. υ. Θ. υἱὸς Ἀχεµαίου. Τhe first of David’s warriors was: according to 1 Chr “Yashobeam (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Iesebaal’) son of Hakmoni”; according to 2 Sam 𝔊𝔊 “Ishbosheth the Canaanite”, 𝔏𝔏 “Ishbaal son of Tahkemoni”; 𝔐𝔐 “Josheb-bashebeth, a Tahchemonite” is corrupt. Josephus has “Ishbosheth son of Hachmoni”, closer to 1 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; ‫ ישׁבעם‬of 𝔐𝔐 is an alteration of ‫ ;אישבעל‬2 Sam 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. display another alteration ‫אישבושת‬. On this name, see Chap. IV, § II.2, 2 Sam 3:7. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐν Φασοδοµιν 1 Chr 11:12 ‫)עם־דויד( בפס דמים‬ Ant. 7:308 µετὰ τοῦ βα𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐν Σερραν 2 Sam 23:9 ‫)עם־דוד( בחרפם‬ σιλέως ἐν Ἐρασαµῷ. Eleazar was with David at “Pas-dammim (2 Sam 𝔐𝔐 ‘when they reproached’, 𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 ‘at Serran’); the place name given by 1 Chr is similar to Ephes-dammim, where there was a battle in the making, before Goliath’s challenge (1 Sam 17:1). Josephus is close to 1 Chr, though the form of the name is corrupt; the initial E suggests that he may have read “Ephes-dammim”. 1 Chr 11:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 )האישׁ המצרי( אישׁ מדה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἄνδρα ὁρατόν Ant. 7:315 ἀνδρὸς Αἰγυπτίου 2 Sam 23:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 )אישׁ מצרי( אישׁ מראה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἄνδρα ὁρατόν θαυµαστοῦ τὸ µέγεθος. Benaiah had a struggle with “an Egyptian man, a man of size (2 Sam and 1 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘appearance’; 1 Chr adds ‘of five cubits’)”; at Num 13:32, ‫“ אנשׁי מדות‬men of sizes” is understood ἄνδρες ὑπερµήκεις “men of great size”. Josephus, with “an Egyptian man of extraordinary size”, agrees with 1 Chr 𝔐𝔐, including the addition, for five cubits are 2.25 m, that is, higher than Goliath (see Chap. IV, § I.3, 1 Sam 17:4).



V – SAMUEL AND CHRONICLES

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𝔊𝔊 ἐβουλεύσατο Δαυιδ 1 Chr 13:1-6 ‫ויועץ דויד‬ Ant. 7:78 ἔδοξε Δαβίδῃ ...‫עם־שׂרי האלפים‬ µετὰ τῶν χιλιάρχων... συµβουλευσαµένῳ... David consulted the authorities, then summoned all the people to bring the Ark to Jerusalem; the whole passage is missing between 2 Sam 6:1 & 2, but Josephus had it. However, for both 2 Sam and Ant., it comes after David’s victories over the Philistine, while 1 Chr has the reverse order, and we may ask whether the passage was in an earlier form of 2 Sam, from which 1 Chr was extracted. 𝔊𝔊 ἐκ πόλεως Ιαριµ 1 Chr 13:5 ‫מקרית יערים‬ Ant. 7:78 εἰς Καριαθιάριµα. David summons all Israel to bring the Ark from Kiriath-jearim to Jerusalem. According to the parallel 2 Sam 6:3, the Ark was with Abinadab at Gibeah.1 (Since 1 Sam 6:21, the Ark was supposed to stay at Kiriath-jearim.) 1 Chr 13:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = על אשׁר־שׁלח ידו על־הארון‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:81 ἐκτείναντα τὴν χείραν. God struck Uzzah “because he put out his hand to the Ark”; so Josephus. The parallel 2 Sam 6:7 is much shorter ‫“ על־השׁל‬for the irreverence” (hapax); 𝔊𝔊 omits, and 𝔏𝔏 renders ἐπὶ τῇ προπετείᾳ “because of the rashness”. 4QSama agrees with 1 Chr, and should be deemed original.2 𝔊𝔊 εἶπεν Δαυιδ κατακαῦ1 Chr 14:12 ‫ויאמר דויד‬ Ant. 7:77 τοὺς θεοὺς ‫וישׂרפו באשׁ‬ σαι (= ‫ )ישׂרפו‬αὐτοὺς ἐν πυρί αὐτῶν διέφθειρε. The Philistines were defeated; they left behind their gods, “and David ordered to burn them with fire”; Josephus agrees with this, while the parallel 2 Sam 5:21 has “David and his men took them away”. However, 𝔏𝔏 adds there εἶπεν Δαυιδ καυθήσονται ἐν πυρί; this may be a gloss imported from 1 Chr, or else a remnant of an earlier form of 2 Sam, from which 1 Chr was extracted. 1 Chr 18:8 adds ‫𝔊𝔊 = בה עשׂה שׁלמה את־ים הנחשׁת‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:106 ἐξ οὗ Σολόµων 2 Sam 8:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 נחשׁת רבה מאד‬-𝔏𝔏 adds 1 Chr θάλασσαν ἐποίησε. David took “very much brass”; 2 Sam 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, 1 Chr and Αnt. add: “with that Solomon made the sea of bronze”. 4QSama is lacking here. 1 Chr 18:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואבשׁי בן־צרויה הכה את־אדום‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:109 πέµψαντος Ἀβεσσαῖον. Here, Josephus follows mainly 1 Chr, see Chap. IV, § III.2, 2 Sam 8:13. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Σουσα γραµµατεύς 1 Chr 18:16 ‫ושׁושׁא סופר‬ Ant. 7:110 γραµµατέα 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ασα ὁ γραµµατεύς) (2 Sam 8:17 ‫ושׂריה סופר‬ Σεισὰν ἐποίησε. According to 1 Chr, tolerably followed by Josephus, David’s scribe was “Sawsa”, which can be read “Sousa”; 2 Sam is different, with no agreement between 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 for the name. The name is given again as “Sousa” at 7:393, see Chap. IV, § I.3, 2 Sam 20:25. 1 Chr 19:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 התבאשׁו ִעם דויד‬-𝔏𝔏 ᾐσχύνθη λαὸς Δαυιδ Ant. 7:121 παρεσπονδή2 Sam 10:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 נבאשׁו בדוד‬κατῃσχύνθησαν ὁ λαὸς Δ. κασι, δίκην ὀφείλουσι. After their dismissal of David’s messengers, the Ammonites understood that, according to 𝔐𝔐, “they made themselves (2 Sam ‘became’) odious to David”; 𝔊𝔊 is different, in two similar parallel wordings: “the people (𝔏𝔏 παῖδες ‘servants’) of David were ashamed”; the meaning is awkward, and 𝔏𝔏 tried a correction, which 1 ‫ ;בית אבינדב אשׁר בגבעה‬the phrase is missing in 4QSama, but the line length allows a restoration ‫“ אשר בגבעת קרית יערים‬the house of Abinadab, which is at the hill of Kiriathjearim”; however, this is probably an harmonizing gloss, see DJD 17, p. 128. At 6:4, 𝔐𝔐 has a repetition of ‫בית אבינדב אשׁר בגבעה‬, absent from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 4QSama. 2 4QSama only provides ]‫ אש‬instead of ‫השל‬, and the line length allows a restoration like 1 Chr, see DJD 17, p. 127.

120

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

results in a tautology, repeating the servants’ humiliation stated in the previous verse. The root of the problem is clear in 1 Chr: ‫ עם‬was taken as ‫“ ַעם‬people”, and ‫ התבאשׁו‬was forced to mean ‫ ;התבישו‬a consequence is that the 𝔊𝔊 translator of 2 Sam did read ‫עם דוד‬, like 1 Chr. As for Josephus, with “they had violated the treaty, and were liable to a punishment”, he is cose to 𝔐𝔐, probably with the phrase ‫עם דוד‬.3

1 Chr 19:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁלח חנון ובני עמון אלף ככר־כסף‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:121 πέµψαντες 2 Sam 10:6 ‫בני־עמון‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁלחו‬-𝔏𝔏 χίλια τάλαντα. The Ammonites get ready for a war: “Hanun and (2 Sam om.) the sons of Ammon sent 1,000 talents of silver (2 Sam om.); Josephus is close to 1 Chr.4 1 Chr 19:6 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )לשׂכר להם‬ἐκ Συρίας, 𝔏𝔏 ἐκ Σύρου Αnt. 7:121 πέµψαντες πρὸς ‫𝔊𝔊 מן־ארם נהרים‬-𝔏𝔏 Μεσοποταµίας Σύρον τὸν τῶν Μεσο(2 Sam 10:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 ארם בית־רחוב‬-𝔏𝔏 τὴν Συρίαν Βαιθροωβ) ποταµιτῶν βασιλέα. The Ammonites sent “to hire for themselves from Aram (𝔊𝔊 ‘Syria’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘a Syrian’) Naharaim (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘of Mesopotamia’)”; 2 Sam is different: “They hired the Arameans of Beth-rehob.” The geographical notion of “Syria of Mesopotamia” is not clear, so that both Josephus and 𝔏𝔏 understood ‫ ארם‬as a proper name (as did 𝔊𝔊 at v. 16), thus obviously “the king of Mesopotamia”. Since 4QSama here is very close to 1 Chr,5 we may surmise that the 2 Sam of Josephus had the same feature, all the more so that Josephus mentions a fourth king in the confederacy, Ish-tob, given only in 2 Sam. 1 Chr 19:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויערך אלהם‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:128 (Δαβίδης) ‫ ≈ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ויערך דויד לקראת ארם מלחמה‬2 Sam 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὑπαντήσας αὐτοῖς, 2 Sam 10:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויבא חלאמה‬-𝔏𝔏 συνάψας αὐτοῖς, ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויערכו ארם לקראת דוד וילחמו‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς µάχην ἐνίκησε. David decided to conduct himsel the war: “He drew up in array against them, and David drew up in battle array against the Arameans”, according to 1 Chr 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus, but 2 Sam and 1 Chr 𝔊𝔊 state the opposite: “He came to Heilam, and the Arameans drew up in array against David and fought”. 1 Chr 𝔐𝔐 has a doublet ‫ויבא אלהם ויערך אלהם ויערך‬, parallel to ‫ ויבא חלאמה ויערכו‬of 2 Sam, so that the name Heilam disappears. However, Josephus says like 2 Sam that the battle took place at Heilam, which means that the 1 Chr doublet can be restored ‫ ;ויבא חלאמה ויערך דויד לקראת ארם מלחמה‬this is Josephus source. In the context, Josephus is closer to 2 Sam than to 1 Chr, and we may wonder whether this restored 1 Chr verse was not in his 2 Sam. 1 Chr 20:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויקח את־עטרת־מלכם ובה אבן יקרה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:161 τοῦ βασιλέως στέ2 Sam 12:30 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויקח את־עטרת־מלכם ואבן יקרה‬-𝔏𝔏 φανον, λίθον ἔχοντα ἐν µέσῳ. And David “took the crown of their king (𝔊𝔊 adds a transcription Μελχολ, Μολχολ)..., and in it (2 Sam om.) was a precious stone”; for Josephus, David “took the king’s crown, which had a stone in the middle”, close to 1 Chr.6 3 It is noteworthy that here 4QSama has been restored according to 1 Chr, see DJD 17, p. 137. 4 Here the few words conserved by 4QSama definitely agree with 1 Chr, allowing a clear restoration, see DJD 17, p. 137. 5 Of this line, 4QSama has only ]‫ [עכה‬in the middle and ‫ [ה רכב ופרשׁים‬at the end, which matches exactly the end of 1 Chr 19:6; for the first half of the line, the restoration proposed in DJD 17, p. 137-8, is ‫ ;לשׂכר להם מן־ארם רחוב ומן ארם מעכה‬it first follows 1 Chr, but ‫ רחוב‬has been taken from 2 Sam, and we may wonder why ‫ נהרים‬has not been retrieved from 1 Chr. 6 In DJD 17, p. 146, the verse is restored according to 1 Chr.



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121

1 Chr 20:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ותעמד מלחמה בגזר עם־פלשׁתים‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:301 συνελθώντων 2 Sam 21:18 ‫ותהי־עוד המלחמה בגוב עם־פלשׁתים‬ Παλαιστίνων εἰς Γάζαραν. There was a new war with the Philistines at Gezer, according to 1 Chr and Ant. In the parallel 2 Sam, the place is poorly defined: “Gob” for 𝔐𝔐, 𝔊𝔊 Γεθ, 𝔏𝔏 Γαζεθ, Γαζερ (somewhat closer to 1 Chr). 1 Chr 20:4 ‫מילדי הרפאים‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ סבכי החשׁתי את־ספי‬-𝔏𝔏 Α. 7:301 Σαβρήχης Χετταῖος, 2 Sam 21:18 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ≈ ;𝔊𝔊 ≈ סבכי החשׁתי את־סף אשׁר בילדי הרפה‬προγόνους τοὺς Γιγάντας. During a war with the Philistines, “Sibbekai the Hushatite (2 Sam 𝔊𝔊 Αστατωθι, 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. Χετταῖος ‘Hittite’, from ‫ )חתי‬struck Saphi (2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Saphu’, 2 Sam ‘Saph’), among the descendants of the Rephaim-Giants (1 Chr and 2 Sam 𝔏𝔏; 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 ‘of the Rapha’)”. Josephus has affinities with 2 Sam 𝔏𝔏, with “Hittite” and “Giants”, and in fact is close to 1 Chr. 1 Chr 20:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 אלחנן בן־יעיר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ελλαναν υἱὸς Ιαιρ Α. 7:302 ἠρίστευσε Ἐφᾶν 2 Sam 21:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 אלחנן בן־יערי ארגים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ελεαναν υἱὸς Αριωργιµ ὁ συγγενὴς αὐτοῦ. In this new Philistine war, 2 Sam plainly states that Elhanan of Bethlehem won over Goliath of Gath; for 1 Chr he smote Goliath’s brother, which entails no problem of consistency. Josephus avoids mentioning Goliath, but he says that Elhanan-Ephan was a relative of David’s, and we read at 1 Chr 11:26, among David’s mighty warriors, ‫“ אלחנן בן־דודו מבית לחם‬Elhanan son of Dodo from Bethlehem”, and Josephus may have read ‫“ בן־דוד‬son of David”. 1 Chr 21:1‫ ויסת את־דויד‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ השטן‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:318 βουλόµενος γνῶναι µυριάδες λαοῦ, 2 Sam 24:1 ‫ ויסת את־דוד‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 τῶν Μωυσέως ἐντολῶν ἐκλαθόµενος. At some point, “Satan (2 Sam ‘Yhwh’) stood up against Israel (2 Sam ‘again, the anger of Yhwh burned against Israel’), and incited David to number Israel”; the incitement came either from God (2 Sam) or from Satan (1 Chr). Josephus renders: “Desiring to know the myriads of the people, David forgot the precepts of Moses”, i.e. he was not incited by God; so, Josephus agrees with 1 Chr. 1 Chr 21:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצא יואב ויתהלך‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:319 Ἰώαβος ἐπιὼν τὴν (‫𝔊𝔊 בכל־ישׂראל )ויבא ירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν παντὶ ὁρίῳ Ισραηλ τῶν Ἰσραηλιτῶν χώραν 2 Sam 24:4-8 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויצא יואב‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ τὸ πλῆθος κατανοήσας ‫ נגב‬...‫ צר‬...‫ צידון‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ גלעד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπέστρεψεν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυµα. According to 2 Sam 24:2 (and 1 Chr 21:2), David wanted a census of Israel, “from Dan to Beer-sheba”, but its story in 2 Sam mainly gives a list of regions outside the kingdom: beyond the Jordan, Phoenicia, then south, that is, a country larger than Herod’s Judaea, certainly an anachronism. On the contrary, 1 Chr is short and focused: “Joab departed and went through all (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the limit of’, from ‫ )גבול‬Israel”; the same way, Josephus says: “Joab, taking along the chiefs of the tribes and the scribes, went through the country of the Israelites, noted down the extent of the population”; there is no allusion to territories outside the tribes. However, Josephus adds a chronology “after nine months and twenty days, he returned to the king”, a detail given at 2 Sam 24:8; but this looks like a gloss poorly inserted, may be in a revision, for Josephus goes on saying that Joab did not have time to number the tribes of Benjamin and Levi; this is stated in 1 Chr 21:6-7, while 2 Sam only reports the censuses of Israel and Juda (see the following note). 1 Chr 21:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 כי־נתעב‬κατίσχυσεν (= ‫ )חזק‬Ant. 7:320 ἐξαριθµῆσαι οὐκ ἔφθα(‫ 𝔏𝔏 )דבר־המלך את־יואב‬κατέταχυνεν (= ‫)מהר‬ σεν, µετανόησε ὁ βασιλεύς.

122

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There is no parallel in 2 Sam. There was no census of Benjamin and Levi (see the previous note), “for the word of the king was abhorrent (𝔊𝔊 ‘was strong’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘hurried’) to Joab”; the explanations vary: Joab did not finish up the census, for he was doing it unwillingly (𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 with some nuances), but for 𝔏𝔏, a word of David interrupted the process. For Josephus, Joab “did not have time to count, for the king changed his mind, having discovered his sin”, that is, Joab received an order that stopped the census, which broadly agrees with 𝔏𝔏.

1 Chr 21:16-7 ≈ 4QSama is loosely paraphrased at Ant. 7:327-8, while the parallel 2 Sam 24:17 is very short.7 1 Chr 21:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ומלאך יהוה אמר אל־גד לאמר לדויד‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:329 κατακούσας ὁ θεός, 2 Sam 24:18 and 4QSama ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויבא־גד אל־דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔπαυσε τὸν λοιµόν. After David’s prayer that the pestilence may cease, God’s reply is not stated: 1 Chr has “and the angel of God told Gad to tell David”, while 2 Sam is shorter, “and Gad came to David”. Josephus says that “God hearkened and stopped the pestilence”; so, he read a move from God (like 1 Chr) and supplied its effect; it is unnecessary to conjecture that he had an additional phrase like ‫וישמע יהוה ויכל‬ ‫את הדבר‬. According to 1 Chr 21:22 (and 2 Sam 24:22), the pestilence will cease when David makes a sacrifice on an altar to be built on Arauna’s threshing floor. 1 Chr 21:20 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וירא את( המלאך )וארבעת בניו‬-𝔏𝔏 βασιλέα Ant. 7:330 Ὀροννᾶς (‫𝔊𝔊 )עמו( מתחבאים )וארנן דשׁ חטים‬-𝔏𝔏 µεθαχαβιν τὸν σῖτον ἀλοῶν, 21:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצא מן־הגרן וישׁתחו לדויד אפים‬-𝔏𝔏 τὸν βασιλέα καὶ τοὺς 2 Sam 24:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וירא את־המלך ואת־עבדיו‬-𝔏𝔏 παῖδας ἐθεάσατο ‫𝔊𝔊 = עברים עליו ויצא ארונה וישׁתחו למלך אפיו‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ προσεκύνησεν. David went to Arauna, who, according to 1 Chr, “saw the angel (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the king’, from ‫ )המלך‬and his four sons with him, hidden (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes), and Arauna was threshing wheat, and he went out from the threshing floor and prostrated to David, the face to the ground”; 2 Sam is different: “he saw the king and his servants coming on over him, and Arauna went out and prostrated, his face to the ground”. These different wordings are somewhat united in a long verse of 4QSama:8 ‫וירא את המלך דויד ואת ארבעת בניו עמו מתחבאים בשקים וארנא דש חטים ויבא דויד עד ארנא‬ ‫וירא את המלך ואת עבדיו עברים עליו מתכסים בשקים באים אליו ויצא ארנא וישתחו לדויד על אפיו ארצה‬

This is a kind of doublet that collects all the elements of 1 Chr and 2 Sam: “four children hidden (1 Chr), king’s servants covered (2 Sam), threshing wheat and David’s coming (1 Chr), Arauna’s exit (2 Sam), prostration (both). Josephus is shorter: “Arauna was threshing wheat, he saw the king and his children, and prostrated”, that is, three details of 1 Chr; since he does not mention “hiding in sackcloth” (alluded to twice in 4QSama), there is no reason to surmise that his source was longer than 1 Chr. However, Josephus (7:331) has 2 Sam 24:21 “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?”, which 1 Chr omits.

7 8

A detailed study is given DJD 17, p. 193. The restoration of the whole verse is discussed in DJD 17, p. 194; this is a good example of the literary development of 4QSama, see Jason K. DRIESBACH, 4QSamuela and the Text of Samuel (VTSup, 171; Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2016), p. 321-9.



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II – Josephus with 1-2 Sam Against 1 Chr 1 Sam 31:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 בית שׁן‬-𝔏𝔏 Βαιθσαν Ant. 6:374 Βηθσάν 1 Chr 10:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בית דגון‬ The Philistine put Saul’s “body to the wall of Beth-shan (1 Chr ‘head in the house of Dagon’)”; Josephus has: “Crucified their bodies to the walls of Bethshan”, including Saul’s sons because of v. 12. For the end of Saul, the conclusions of 1 Sam 31 and 1 Chr 10 are different. 1 Chr 11:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לא תבוא הנה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:61 (Ἰεβουσαίων) τοὺς πεπη2 Sam 5:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לא תבוא הנה כי אם הסירך‬-𝔏𝔏 ρωµένους τὰς ὄψεις καὶ τὰς βάσεις ‫𝔊𝔊 = העורים והפסחים לאמר לא יבוא דוד הנה‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ πᾶν τὸ λελωβηµένον στησάντων David came to Jebus, and the inhabitants said: “You shall not come in here (2 Sam adds ‘for the blind and lame will turn you away, saying: David shall not enter here’).” 4QSama, which omits 2 Sam 5:4-5 like 1 Chr and Ant., reads ‫ הסיתוך‬instead of ‫הסירך‬.9 Josephus has the addition: “(The Jebusites) placed those who had lost an eye or a leg and all the lame.” In the context, Josephus agrees with 1 Chr (see § I, 1 Chr 11:6), and here, we can suspect in Chr a leap from ‫הנה‬ to ‫הנה‬. 1 Chr 15:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויזבחו שבעה פרים‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:85 ἑπτὰ χορῶν 2 Sam 6:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׁשׁה צעדים ויזבח שור‬-𝔏𝔏 ἑπτὰ χοροί (= ‫)מח ֹלּות‬ προσαγώντων. When the Ark moved towards Jerusalem, the bearers “went 6 paces (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘with them 7 bands’), and sacrificed an ox”; for 1 Chr, “they sacrificed 7 bulls and seven rams”.10 Like 2 Sam 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus has the bands (see Chap. IV, § I.3). 1 Chr 15:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מכרבל במעיל בוץ‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:85 ἐν κινύρᾳ παί2 Sam 6:14 (‫𝔊𝔊 )מכרכר( בכל )עז‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν ὀργάνοις (= ‫)בכלי‬ ζοντος καὶ κροτοῦντος. Coming with the Ark, David was “dancing with all might (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sounding with tuned instruments’)”; for 1 Chr, David was “clothed with a robe of fine linen”. For Josephus, he was “playing the harp and clapping”, which is close to 2 Sam 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (see Chap. IV, § I.3). 1 Chr 17:13 om. Ant. 7:93 αὐτὸν δὲ τιµωρήσων, 2 Sam 7:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אשׁר בהעותו והכחתיו בשׁבט‬-𝔏𝔏 ἂν ἀµαρτὼν τυχῇ. David is warned: “When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod”; 1 Chr omits, but Josephus has: “He would punish him, when he happens to sin.” 1 Chr 18:2 om. Ant. 7:98 δύο µέρη τῆς στρα2 Sam 8:2 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )שׁני־חבלים להמית( ומלא החבל )להחיות‬-𝔏𝔏 δύο τιᾶς νικήσας διέφθειρε. David smote Moab, and “he measured two lines (of people) to put to death and one full line (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘two lines’) to keep alive”; Josephus says like 2 Sam 𝔐𝔐 that he “destroyed two thirds of the army”. 1 Chr 18:3 ‫מלך צובה‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 = הדרעזר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:99 ἐπὶ Ἀδράζαρον Ἀραοῦ υἱὸν 2 Sam 8:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הדדעזר בן־רחב מלך צובה‬-𝔏𝔏 βασιλέα τῆς Σωφηνῆς ἐστράτευσε. David smote “Hadadezer (1 Chr and Ant. ‘Hadarezer’) son of Rehob (1 Chr om.), king of Zobah”. Unlike Josephus, 1 Chr adds “Hamath”, the place of the battle. 9 See 10

DJD 17, p. 118. 4QSama has been restored according to 1 Chr, see DJD 17, p. 124-26.

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1 Chr 19:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואת שׁופך שׂר־הצבא המית‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:128 ἔτρωσε Σέβεκον, 2 Sam 10:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואת שׁובך שׂר־צבאו הכה וימת שׁם‬-𝔏𝔏 ὃς ἐκ τῆς πληγῆς ἀπέθανεν. Another disagreement: for 2 Sam and Josephus, David “hit Shobach and he died there”, but 1 Chr states that he killed him (“Shophach”). 1 Chr 20:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וינהג יואב את־חיל הצבא‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:129 ἔπεµψε τὸν ἀρχιστράτηγον 2 Sam 11:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁלח דוד את־יואב‬-𝔏𝔏 Ἰώαβον πολεµήσειν τοῖς Ἀµµανίταις. The following year, “David sent Joab”, according to 2 Sam and Josephus; for 1 Chr, Joab took the initiative. 1 Chr 21:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = תנה־לי הגרן ואבנה־בו מזבח בכסף מלא‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:331 ὠνήσασθαι τὴν ἅλω, 2 Sam 24:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לקנות מעמך את־הגרן לבנות מזבח‬-𝔏𝔏 ὅπως βωµὸν κατασκευάσῃ. David says to Arauna, with two different wordings that convey almost the same meaning: “Give me (2 Sam ‘to buy from you’) the place of the threshing floor, that I may build on it an altar, for the full price (2 Sam omits)”. Josephus says that David wanted “to buy the threshing floor in order to build an altar”; we can hardly know which version he followed. 1 Chr 21:22 (om.) Ant. 7:331 τὸν θεὸν ἡδέως εὔχεσθαι 2 Sam 24:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויאמר ארונה יהוה אלהיך ירצך‬-𝔏𝔏 τὴν θυσίαν προσέσθαι. Arauna, offering everything to David, prays: “May Yhwh your God satisfy (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εὐλογήσαι ‘bless’) you”; 1 Chr omits (maybe because a foreigner utters the name of God), but Josephus paraphrases 2 Sam: “Arauna said he prayed that God would graciously accept the sacrifice”. 1 Chr 21:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁקלי זהב משׁקל שׁשׁ מאות‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:332 πεντήκοντα σίκλων 2 Sam 24:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בכסף שׁקלים חמשׁים‬-𝔏𝔏 ὠνεῖται παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ τὴν ἅλω. David bought Arauna’s oxen and threshing floor for “600 shekels of gold by weight” (1 Chr) or “50 shekels of silver” (2 Sam); Josephus, with “50 shekels”, implies “of silver”, for otherwise he would have specified “of gold”; so, he agrees with 2 Sam; he is not aware of a major inflation by the time of the Chronicler.

III – Combined readings of 2 Sam and 1 Chr 1 Chr 18:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואבשׁי בן־צרויה הכה את־אדום‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:109 τὸ νικᾶν παρέσχεν θεός, 2 Sam 8:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויעשׂ דוד שׁם בשׁבו מהכותו ארם‬-𝔏𝔏 πέµψαντος αὐτοῦ Ἀβεσσαῖον. Back from a campaign against Hadadezer, king of Zobah, “David made a name when he returned from smiting Aram (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘he smote Edom’)” in the Valley of Salt; the parallel 1 Chr is different: “Abishai son of Zeruiah smote Edom”. Josephus, with “David sent Abishai to Edom” and “God granted David, through him, victory and success”, adds up the two variants into a smooth sentence; since the sequel unambiguously speaks of Edom, he probably had 1 Chr in the text, and something like ‫ ויעשׂ דוד שׁם‬as a marginal gloss, or maybe both in a single verse. 1 Chr 19:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁלחו מלאכים‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:127 πέµψαντες πρὸς Χα‫𝔊𝔊 = ויוציאו את־ארם אשׁר מעבר הנהר‬-𝔏𝔏 with Σύρον λαµάν, τὸν τῶν πέραν 2 Sam 10:16 ...‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁלח הדדעזר‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀπέστειλεν Αδρααζαρ Εὐφράτου Σύρων adds (at the end) ‫𝔊𝔊 ויבאו חילם‬-𝔏𝔏 Χαλαµακ παρεγένοντο Αιλαµ βασιλέα.



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After a serious defeat against the Israelites, “they sent messengers (2 Sam ‘Hadadezer sent’) and brought out the Arameans who were beyond the River (2 Sam adds ‘and they came to Heilam’, with a doublet Χαλαµακ/Αιλαµ of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, om. by Or.)”. Josephus has: “(The Ammonites) sent to Heilam, the king of the Syrians across the Euphrates”; thus, he agrees with 2 Sam at the end, with Heilam, but not at the beginning, because of Hadadezer; Heilam, like Aram, can be held as a man. So his source was a mixture of 1 Chr and 2 Sam. 1 Chr 19:19 (‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁלימו )עם־דויד‬-𝔏𝔏 διέθεντο Αnt. 7:129 αὑτοὺς Δαβίδῃ παρέδο2 Sam 10:19 (‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁ ִלמו )את־ישׂראל‬-𝔏𝔏 ηὐτοµόλησαν σαν καὶ δῶρα ἔπεµψαν αὐτῷ. The kings were defeated, “and they made peace (2 Sam 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘changed sides’) with Israel (1 Chr ‘David’)”. According to Josephus, “they surrendered to David and sent him gifts”, which is closer to 1 Chr; however, the mention of “gifts” sounds redundant, or may be an additional payment, corresponding to a piel reading ‫“ ויְשׁ ְלּמו‬and they paid” like 2 Sam Ket. So Josephus may have read the two forms, with and without ‫י‬, hifil and piel) one of them as a marginal correction.11 1 Chr 20:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁחת את ארץ בני־עמון ויבא ויצר את־רבה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αnt. 7:129 τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν 2 Sam 11:1 ‫ויצרו על־רבה‬ ‫בני עמון‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁחתו את‬-𝔏𝔏 ἅπασαν διέφθειρε... Joab waged war “and he destroyed the land of (2 Sam om.) the Ammonites, and he came (2 Sam om.), and he besieged Rabbah”; Josephus, with “he ravaged all their country, then came to their capital Rabbah and besieged it”, agrees with 1 Chr. However, 1 Chr finishes with an addition “and Joab struck Rabbah and destroyed it”, which cannot be reconcilied with 2 Sam and Josephus, for after the Bathsheba affair (omitted by 1 Chr), Joab invites David to come and seize himself Rabbah (2 Sam 12:29 and Ant. 7:160). Thus, the natural conclusion is that here Josephus followed 2 Sam, but with the longer verse of 1 Chr.

IV – Josephus with 1-2 Chr alone The book 2 Samuel ends up with the cessation of the pestilence as a consequence of David’s sacrifice on the altar built on Arauna’s threshing floor. The narrative of Ant. continues with 1 Chr. However, in the summary of Ant. 7, the only possible allusion to that book is (7:s13): “David’s death, and how he left to his son a great mass of silver and gold and stone for the building of the temple”; this could allude to 1 Chr 22:14 (“I have prepared for the house of Yhwh 100,000 talents of gold and 1,000,000 talents of silver”), but it is, too, a part of David’s speech to his son before his death, so that we cannot ascertain the source. IV.1 Josephus’ Peculiarities The main topic of this section is that Josephus gives details taken from elsewhere in 1 Chr, probably from marginal glosses. 11

Unlike 𝔐𝔐, 4QSama has ]‫וישלימ‬, like 1 Chr.

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1 Chr 3:5-9 David’s sons and Tamar, see § II.1, 2 Sam 5:14-16. 1 Chr 12:24-41 𝔐𝔐 & 𝔊𝔊 The tribal forces joining David at Hebron Ant. 7:55-60. The list, which does not match the numbering disposition of Num 2:1-31, includes 13 tribes, for Levi is included: Judah, Simeon, Levi, Benjamin, Ephraim, half of Manasseh, Isachar, Zabulon, Nephthali, Dan, Asher, two tribes beyond the Jordan with the rest of Manasseh. Josephus follows various details attached to the tribes; the numbers he gives are not reliable, as usual, and his wording does not depend on 𝔊𝔊. Contrarily to 1 Chr, the list is given at its right place, before the conquest of Jebus by David.

1 Chr 14:4-7 David’s sons and Tamar, see above 1 Chr 3:5-9. 1 Chr 21:28 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בראות דויד כי־ענהו יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:334 ὁρῶν τὸν θεὸν ἐπήκοον ‫בגרן ארנן היבוסי ויזבח שׁם‬ ἔκρινε βωµὸν προσαγορεῦσαι 1 Chr 22:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויאמר דויד זה מזבח לעלה לישׂראל‬-𝔏𝔏 τοῦ λαοῦ παντὸς καὶ οἰκοδοµῆσαι. Josephus says two things: 1) “Seeing that God had hearkened to his prayer”, which corresponds to 1 Chr 21:28 “When David saw that God had answered him on the threshing floor, etc.”; 2) “He decided to call the place ‘the altar of the whole people’, and to build a temple to God”, which corresponds to 1 Chr 22:1 “And David said: This is the house of God, and this is the altar of burnt offerings for Israel”. So, Josephus skipped over 1 Chr 21:29-30, which explains that the tabernacle built by Moses in the wilderness was at Gibeon, and that David was afraid to go there “because of the sword of Yhwh’s angel”. More accurately, Josephus did not have these verses here, for a little later, by the time of Solomon’ prayer at Gibeon, he gives a similar tradition, retrieved from 2 Chr 1:3, see Ant. 8:22. 1 Chr 22:2 (‫𝔊𝔊 )לכנוס את‬-𝔏𝔏 προσηλύτους Ant. 7:335 ἐξαριθµηθῆσι τοὺς παροίκους ‫ הגרים ויעמד חצבים‬κατέστησεν λατόµους εἰς ὀκτὼ µυριάδας καὶ δέκα. David gave orders “to gather the foreigners, and he set stonecutters”, but Josephus speaks of “the aliens to be numbered, around one hundred and eighty thousand”, and adds details and figures about different workers (see note 2 Chr 2:1 below). We read at 2 Chr 2:16 something similar (alluded to at Ant. 8:59): “Solomon numbered all the aliens who were in the land of Israel, following the numbering which his father David had numbered of them; and 153,600 were found”; this refers to a previous numbering by David, which is not to be found in 1 Chr, but only in Ant. here. The natural assumption is that Josephus read the passage here, in the text or as a gloss. 1 Chr 22:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = דם לרב שׁפכת ומלחמות‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:92 φόνῳ τῶν ἐχθρῶν µεµιασµένῳ. God explains to David why he will not build the Temple: “You have shed much blood, and wars”: David repeats this reason in his speech 1 Chr 28:3, retrieved at Ant. 7:371. Here, Josephus paraphrases Nathan’s prophecy (2 Sam 7:8-17 and 1 Chr 17:7-15), which dos not includes the reason, but he adds it from his own: “for he was stained with the murder of his enemies”; Josephus probably read it in a marginal gloss, but it may have been a well-known tradition. 2 Chr 2:1 // 2:17 ‫ סבל‬70,000 = 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (νωτοφόρων) Ant. 7:335 λατόµους 80,000 ‫ חצב בהר‬80,000 (λατόµων) τὸ δὲ ἄλλο παραφέρειν λίθους ‫ מנצחים עליהם‬3,600 (ἐργοδιώκτας) 3,500 ἐργαζοµένοις ἐξ αὐτῶν. Solomon appointed “70,000 to carry loads and 80,000 to quarry in the mountain and 3,600 to supervise them”. Josephus, with “80,000 to quarry, the rest to carry the stones, and from them 3,500 supervisors”, is close to 2 Chr 2:1 (the fig-



V – SAMUEL AND CHRONICLES

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ures are not relevant), but more probably to the parallel 2:17, since it comes after 2:16 already used by Josephus (see note at 1 Chr 22:2 above). Thus, we may conclude that instead of the text of 1 Chr 22:2 Josephus read at that place what we have at 2 Chr 2:16-17, after a shorter version of 1 Chr 21:28-22:1; in the sequel, he agrees with 1 Chr 22:3-19, but moves the organization of the works and worship (1 Chr 23-29), after Solomon’s enthronment (7:363). 2 Chr 3:1 ‫ בית־יהוה בירושׁלם בהר המוריה‬Ant. 7:333 Ἅβραµον ὁλοκαυτῶσαι Ἴσακον. Josephus identifies Arauna’s threshing floor as the place where Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac, that is, Mount Moriah; since he does not alludes to that at the right place, when the building begins (Ant. 8:61), he problably had 2 Chr 3:1 as a marginal gloss here: “Then Solomon began to build the house of Yhwh in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where he had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite” (see Ant. 1:226, where Josephus says, somewhat loosely, that David built the Temple on Mount Moriah).

Nil.

IV.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐 IV.3 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

1 Chr 13:9 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 גרן כידן‬τῆς ἅλωνος (𝔏𝔏 adds Χεδων) Ant. 7:81 τῆς Χειδῶνος ἅλωνος. The Ark has reached the “threshing floor of Kidon”. The parallel 2 Sam 6:6 has ‫“ גרן נכון‬the threshing floor of Nakon (𝔊𝔊 ‘Nodab, Nachor’; 𝔏𝔏 ‘Orna the Jebusite’, a kind of correction)”, or “the fixed threshing floor”, with an allusion, suggested by 𝔏𝔏, to the future altar of David on the threshing floor of Arauna-Orna (see Ant. 7:329).

V – Conclusions Both 2 Sam and 1 Chr have many passages with no parallel, and Josephus took from either one. For the common sections, it has been shown that 4QSama has definite affinities with 1 Chr, which means that the latter reflects an earlier form of 2 Sam.12 This opens up a new possibility to define Josephus’ sources. In fact, his contacts with 1 Chr against 2 Sam (§ I) are much more numerous and significant than the opposite (§ II); sometimes, for minute details, he combines the two corresponding variants (§ III). In some cases, he introduces in the narrative flow of 2 Sam some details known from elsewhere in 1 Chr, which suggests that he read glosses, maybe already inserted in his source. Some of the parallel sections of 2 Sam and 1 Chr are too different to allow a clear synthesis, even for Josephus, but others are comple12

See E. ULRICH, The Qumran Text of Samuel, p. 151-64.

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‫‪mentary, and Josephus took advantage of this, but we may wonder‬‬ ‫‪whether he did not see the combination already done in his copy of‬‬ ‫‪2 Sam, instead of picking up details from two different scrolls un‬‬‫‪rolled before him. Here are two instances.‬‬ ‫‪1) The first is David’s arrival to Jebus, for which Josephus adds‬‬ ‫‪up details to be found in 2 Sam and 1 Chr (Ant. 7:61-65); 4QSama is‬‬ ‫‪poorly preserved in this passage, but it has good contacts with 1 Chr:‬‬ ‫‪Remarks‬‬ ‫‪om. 4QSama & A.‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 2 Sam‬‬ ‫הסיתוך ‪4QSama - A.‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 2 Sam‬‬

‫‪ om. A.‬יגע ‪4QSama‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪ = A.‬עיר ‪4QSama‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬

‫‪1 Chr 11:‬‬

‫‪2 Sam 5:‬‬

‫‪ 4-5 om.‬בן־שׁלשׁים שׁנה דוד‪ ...‬כל־ישׂראל‬ ‫‪ 4‬וילך דויד וכל־ישׂראל ירושׁלם היא יבוס ‪ 6‬וילך המלך ואנשׁיו ירושׁלם‬ ‫אל־היבסי יושׁב הארץ‬ ‫ושׁם היבוסי ישׁבי הארץ‬ ‫ויאמר לדוד לאמר‬ ‫‪ 5‬ויאמרו ישׁבי יבוס לדויד‬ ‫לא תבוא הנה‬ ‫לא־תבוא הנה‬ ‫‪ om.‬כי אם הסירך העורים והפסחים לאמר‬ ‫‪ om.‬לא יבוא דוד הנה‬ ‫‪ 7‬וילכד דוד את מצדת ציון היא עיר דוד‬ ‫וילכד דוד את מצדת ציון היא עיר דוד‬ ‫‪ 8‬ויאמר דוד ביום ההוא‬ ‫‪ 6‬ויאמר דויד‬ ‫כל־מכה יבסי‬ ‫כל־מכה יבוסי‬ ‫‪ om.‬ויגע בצנור‬ ‫בראשׁונה יהיה לראשׁ ולשׂר ויעל‬ ‫בראשׁונה יואב בן־צרויה ויהי לראשׁ‬ ‫‪ om.‬ואת־הפסחים ואת־העורים שׂנאי נפשׁ דוד‬ ‫‪ om.‬על־כן יאמרו עור ופסח לא יבוא אל־הבית‬ ‫‪ 7‬וישׁב דויד במצד על־כן קראו־לו עיר דויד ‪ 9‬וישׁב דוד במצדה ויקרא־לה עיר דוד‬ ‫ויבן דוד סביב מן־המלוא וביתה‬ ‫‪ 8‬ויבן העיר מסביב מן־המלוא ועד הסביב‬ ‫ויואב יחיה את־שׁאר העיר‬

‫‪Josephus’ narrative mainly follows 1 Chr, but the position of the‬‬ ‫‪“blind and lame” is retrieved from 2 Sam – which adds their exclu‬‬‫‪sion from the temple, a rule that Josephus omits.‬‬ ‫‪2) The second case is David’s encounter with Araunah the Jebu‬‬‫‪site; again, 4QSama, poorly preserved, is restored according to 1 Chr:‬‬ ‫‪Remarks‬‬ ‫ארנא ‪4QSama -A.‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 2 Sam‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 2 Sam‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬ ‫‪Ant. = 1 Chr‬‬

‫‪1 Chr 21:‬‬ ‫‪ 20‬וישׁב ארנן‬ ‫וירא את־המלאך‬ ‫וארבעת בניו עמו מתחבאים‬ ‫וארנן דשׁ חטים‬ ‫‪ 21‬ויבא דויד עד־ארנן‬ ‫ויבט ארנן וירא את־דויד‬ ‫ויצא מן־הגרן‬ ‫וישׁתחו לדויד אפים ארצה‬

‫‪2 Sam 24:‬‬ ‫‪ 20‬וישׁקף ארונה‬ ‫וירא את־המלך‬ ‫ואת־עבדיו עברים עליו‬

‫ויצא ארונה‬ ‫וישׁתחו למלך אפיו ארצה‬ ‫‪ 21 om.‬ויאמר ארונה מדוע בא אדני־המלך אל עבדו‬ ‫‪Ant. = 2 Sam‬‬ ‫ויאמר דוד לקנות מעמך את־הגרן‬ ‫ויאמר דויד אל־ארנן תנה־לי מקום הגרן‬ ‫לבנות מזבח ליהוה‬ ‫ואבנה־בו מזבח ליהוה‬ ‫‪ Ant. = 1 Chr‬בכסף מלא תנהו לי‬ ‫ותעצר המגפה מעל העם‬ ‫ותעצר המגפה מעל העם‬ ‫‪ 23 om.‬ויאמר ארונה אל־המלך יהוה אלהיך ירצך‬ ‫‪Ant. = 2 Sam‬‬



V – SAMUEL AND CHRONICLES

129

Josephus (Ant. 7:330) seems to have “sandwiched” details from 2 Sam within the 1 Chr story. However, 1 Chr has kept its own variants, e.g. “the angel’s (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘king’s’) four sons who were hiding”; this 1 Chr variant has certainly some dignity, since 4QSama managed to keep it together with 2 Sam (see § I, 1 Chr 21:20). Of course, no definite conclusion about this topic can be arrived at without a more systematic study of the texts. As for the language of Josephus’ source(s), the observations made in the previous chapters stand: it was uniformly Hebrew. Now, by combining these results with those of the previous chapter, it is possible to schematize a simplified genealogy of the 1-2 Sam witnesses. The first step is to review the main connections, as statistical facts, i.e. without considering the (numerous) idiosyncrasies of the extant texts or their Hebrew vorlagen: a) 4QSama and Josephus’ source H have major contacts, setting them apart from all others; b) H and 𝔏𝔏 have good contacts, when fragments of 4QSam are absent; 𝔏𝔏 depends on a Hebrew source H𝔏𝔏; c) 1 Chr is the result of three components: long genealogies (gChr), stories of its own (nChr), and portions borrowed from a certain stage of 2 Sam (sChr); the latter is related to 𝔏𝔏; Josephus did not use gC; d) 𝔐𝔐 is often difficult, but the affinities of H and 𝔏𝔏 allow us by contrast to see 𝔐𝔐-H𝔊𝔊 as a subfamily, where H𝔊𝔊 is the Hebrew source of 𝔊𝔊. These links can be drawn in a schematic diagram, which does not imply that any witness is better or worse than the others:

Fig. 3 – Diagram of the main links.

The next step is to introduce an estimate of the various families, in order to build a stemma, in which everything depends on an archetype Ω. Since no chronological clue is available, the task is to identify the errors. But due to a lack of further data, there are two logical

130

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

possibilities, represented by the circled numbers: 1) Considering that 𝔐𝔐-H𝔊𝔊 is inferior to all the others, we obtain a first solution:

Fig. 4 – Stemma 1 of 1-2 Samuel.

2) Now, considering that 4QSama-H is superior to all the others, a second solution appears:

Fig. 5 – Stemma 2 of 1-2 Samuel.

All the Hebrew witnesses are arranged on the same line, because these stemmas do not have any chronological implication. Josephus’ H, with its defects and glosses, may have been written some decades



V – SAMUEL AND CHRONICLES

131

before 70; 4QSama may have been dated 50-25 BCE; 𝔐𝔐 may have been the result of a Rabbinic edition. In spite of this, we can hardly infer any dating of their ancestors, because several text-types may have coexisted at any time, at least until the 2nd cent. CE.

CHAPTER SIX KINGS For the method followed here and in the next chapter, the reader is referred to the remarks given at the beginning of Chapter IV. For 1 Kgs 20-21 𝔐𝔐, both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 8:355-392 display the reverse order of the chapters (21-20); in the Qumran fragments, nothing of these chapters has been preserved. For the sake of convenience, the 𝔐𝔐 numbering is kept.

I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏

I.1 Inconclusive Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏

They are numerous; here is a sample.

1 Kgs 5:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 בני־קדם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀρχαίων Ant. 8:42 ἀρχαίους ὑπερβάλλειν ἀνθρώπους. In wisdom, Solomon surpassed all “the sons of the east (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the ancients’)”; both meanings are valid, and Josephus has “surpass ancient people”. 1 Kgs 12:28 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויועץ המלך ויעשׂ שׁני עגלי זהב‬-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 8:226 δύο δαµάλεις χρυσᾶς. Jeroboam wanted to prevent his people to return to Jerusalem, “and the king consulted, and made two golden calves (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘heifers’, maybe from ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;)עגלות‬often renders ‫ עגל‬or ‫ בקר‬with the feminine δάµαλις, but not for the “golden calf” of Exod 32:4 (which Josephus omits, Ant. 3:91.99). 2 Kgs 3:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויסבו דרך‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκύκλωσαν Ant. 9:32 κυκλώσαντες 7 ἡµερῶν ὁδόν, ‫שׁבעת ימים‬ ὁδὸν 7 ἡµερῶν πλανηθέντων τῶν ἡγουµένων. The kings of Israel, Judah and Edom “made a circuit of 7 days”; according to 3:8 they are supposed to go through “the wilderness of Edom”, somewhere beyond the Jordan. For Josephus, Edom is Idumea, south of Judah (see p. 49), which prompted him to add that “the guides had lost the way”, and they were going around and around. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπὸ τῆς ἅλωνος 2 Kgs 6:27 (‫)מאין אושׁיעך‬ Ant. 9:64 µήτε ἅλωας αὐτῷ ‫המן־הגרן או מן־היקב‬ ἢ ἀπὸ τῆς ληνοῦ; µήτε ληνοὺς ὑπάρχειν. King Jehoram asks the woman: “From where shall I help you? From the threshing floor, or from the wine press?” Josephus uses the same words in a different way: the king says “he has neither threshing floors nor wine presses”. 2 Kgs 10:29 ‫𝔊𝔊 עגלי הזהב‬-𝔏𝔏 αἱ δαµάλεις αἱ χρυσαῖ Ant. 9:139 τὰς χρυσᾶς δαµαλεῖς Jehu rooted out the Baal worship, but kept “the golden calves (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘heifers’)”. See 1 Kgs 12:28 above.



VI – KINGS

133

2 Kgs 25:1 ‫ נבכדנאצר‬Jer 39(46):1 ‫𝔊𝔊 נבוכדראצר‬-𝔏𝔏 & Ant. 10:84 Ναβουχοδονόσορος. For the well-known king “Nebuchadnezzar”, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. have always “Nabuchodonosor(os)” (Vulg. Nabuchodonosor), a well-known name.

I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏

In the few instances listed below, we must suppose a communication between Josephus or later copyists and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, especially for hapaxes, but the direction of the influence is not very clear.

𝔊𝔊 καὶ ἐξανέστησαν οἱ κλητοί, 1 Kgs 1:49 ‫ויחרדו‬ Ant. 7:360 ἀναπηδήσαντες 𝔏𝔏 ἐξανέστησαν καὶ ἀνεπή‫ויקמו‬ Ἀδωνίας καὶ οἱ κεκληµένοι ‫כל־הק ֻראים וילכו‬ δησαν οἱ κεκληµένοι ἔφευγον πρὸς ἑαυτούς. Adonijah and his guests heard of Solomon’s new kingship, “and they were terrified, and all the guests arose, and they went”, everyone on his way; so 𝔐𝔐, with three verbs. Josephus has only two ones, without ‫ויחרדו‬: “Springing up, Adonijah and the guests fled to their homes.” Fear is not expressed, and we find the same feature in 𝔊𝔊, which has only καὶ ἐξανέστησαν “and they rose up” (= ‫;)ויקמו‬ 𝔏𝔏 displays a kind of doublet “and they rose up and sprang up”, with for the second part the same words as Josephus; this leads to a suspicion that it was corrected according to Ant., but without deleting ἐξανέστησαν (see § III.2). Now, Or. has ἐξέστησαν καὶ ἐξανέστησαν “they were confused and arose”, which matches 𝔐𝔐, though the verbs are quite similar in Greek, and one could imagine that the first one dropped before the 𝔏𝔏 correction. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐποίησεν δέκα χυ1 Kgs 7:38 ‫ויעשׂ עשׂרה‬ Ant. 8:85 κυθρογαύλους ‫כירות נחשׁת‬ τροκαύλους χαλκοῦς δέκα λουτῆρας χαλκοῦς. Hiram made “ten basins of bronze”; in this context only, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 uses four times the rare word χυτρόκαυλος, while the normal rendering of ‫ כיור‬is λουτήρ “basin” (including in the parallel 2 Chr 4:6 “he made 10 basins”). Here, Josephus has a doublet, which includes the normal λουτῆρας and a word of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 that he never uses elsewhere; thus, it is a gloss taken from 𝔊𝔊 (a redundancy omitted by Lat), probably inserted by copyists. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ποδιστῆρας καὶ ἀναληµπτῆρας = Ant. 8:88. 2 Chr 4:16 ‫ואת־הסירות ואת־היעים‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς λέβητας καὶ τὰς θερµάστρεις. 1 Kgs 7:45 ‫ואת־הסירות ואת־היעים‬ Among the ustensils made by Hiram were “cauldrons and shovels (1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘pans’)”, but 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. put “footbaths and buckets”, hapaxes in both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus. 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊 may have borrowed from Josephus instead of considering the parallel 1 Kgs. 1 Kgs 22:36 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויעבר ה ִרנּה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔστη ὁ στρατοκῆρυξ Ant. 8:416 δηλώσαντος (‫במחנה כבא השמש )לאמר‬ δύνοντος τοῦ ἡλίου δὲ τοῦ στρατοκήρυκος. Ahab was dead, and “the shout of joy (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘the herald of the army’, from ‫הר ֹנן‬, with a slight alteration, which is witnessed by targ. ‫‘ כרוז‬herald’) passed through”; the feminine ‫ה ִרנּה‬, with an article, is difficult. The word στρατοκῆρυξ, from the precise military vocabulary, is a hapax in both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus’ works; the shorter form κῆρυξ with this meaning occurs only at Dan 3:4 in the Bible, and 8 times with Josephus, hence a suspicion that 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 borrowed from Josephus.

134

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐

1 Kgs 1:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 ולא עצבו‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐκ ἀπεκώλυσεν αὐτὸν (= ‫)עצרו‬ Ant. 7:346 ταῦθ᾽ ὁρῶν ‫אביו מימיו‬ ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ οὐδέποτε οὐκ ἐπέπληττεν αὐτόν. Adonijah acted as David’s heir, and “his father never pained (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘checked’) him at any time”; Josephus, with “seeing this he did not rebuke him”, is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

1 Kgs 2:3 (‫𝔊𝔊 )למען תשׂכיל‬-𝔏𝔏 κατὰ πάντα ὅσα ἂν Ant. 7:385 ὁποῖον εἶναί τε δεῖ ‫את כל־אשׁר תפנה שׁם‬ ἐντείλωµαί σοι (= ‫)אצוך‬ κἀγὼ τὲ παρακαλῶ. David gives Solomon some advice “in order that you may succeed… wherever you turn (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘whatever I command you’, see 1 Kgs 3:1 ‫ויצו‬, ἐνετείλατο)”; Josephus, with “be as you should be and as I urge you”, is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (κατ)εφίλησεν αὐτήν 1 Kgs 2:19 ‫וישׁתחו לה‬ Ant. 8:7 περιπλακέντος. Bathsheba came to Solomon, who bowed before her (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘kissed her’, from ‫”)וישּׁק לה‬. 1 Kgs 2:29 ‫𝔊𝔊 והנה‬-𝔏𝔏 adds πρὸς Ιωαβ... Τί γέγονέν σοι; Ant. 8:13 ἀσφάλειαν ‫אצל המזבח‬ καὶ εἶπεν Ιωαβ... ἔφυγον πρὸς κύριον. ἐνόµιζεν ἐκ τῆς εὐσε‫וישׁלח שׁלמה‬ καὶ ἀπέστειλεν Σαλωµων βείας τοῦ βασιλέως. Joab fled “and behold, he is beside the altar, and Solomon sent”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds “to Joab, saying: What happened to you, that you fled to the altar? and Joab said: Because I was afraid of you, and fled for refuge to the Lord; and Solomon sent”; apparently, 𝔐𝔐 skipped from ‫ וישׁלח שׁלמה‬to ‫“ וישׁלח שׁלמה‬and Solomon sent”. Josephus has “he thought to be secure because of the king’s piety”, which reflects Joab’s reply as given in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 1 Kgs 2:37end 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ ὥρκισεν αὐτὸν Ant. 8:17 ὅρκους αὐτὸν προσὁ βασιλεὺς ἐν τῇ ἡµέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ προσηνάγκασε ποιήσασθαι. Solomon warns Shimei, and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds “and the king made him swear on that day” from ‫וישביעו המלך ביום ההוא‬, close to Josephus’ words “he obliged him to take an oath”. 1 Kgs 3:17 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ואלד עמה‬ἐτέκοµεν, 𝔏𝔏 ἔτεκον Ant. 8:27 ἐπὶ µιᾶς ἡµέρας 3:18 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויהי ביום השׁלישׁי‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀποτεκεῖν. (28) τρίτης 3:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימת בן־האשׁה הזאת‬-𝔏𝔏 ἡµέρας διελθούσης. The first harlot says: “I gave birth with her (𝔊𝔊 ‘we gave birth’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘I gave birth’)”; 𝔊𝔊 is a possible interpretation of 𝔐𝔐, and 𝔏𝔏 a correction prompted by the next verse (3:18) “it happened on the third day after I gave birth, that this woman also gave birth to a child” (the reminder of the verse gives no further information). For Josephus, she states that they gave birth on the same day, then (8:28) that the other woman’s child died “on the third day”; that is, he understood v. 17 like 𝔊𝔊, and read only the beginning of v. 18, just quoted. In fact, we may wonder whether the remainder of v. 18, unknown to Josephus, is genuine, for it disturbs the narrative flow. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 8:67 omit. 1 Kgs 6:11-14 ‫ ויבן את־הבית ויכלהו‬...‫ויהי דבר־יהוה אל־שׁלמה‬ This passage of 1 Kgs has a warning of God to Solomon; then it mentions the completion of the works, which is not the right place; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has it at 1 Kgs 8:50, followed by Josephus. 1 Kgs 7:1-12 the building of Solomon’s palace Ant. 8:130-140.



VI – KINGS

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𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 gives this passage after the completion of the temple furniture (7:38f), which is logical, but Josephus inserts it after the inauguration and Solomon’s second vision (1 Kgs 9:9); this seems to be a decision of his, in order to stress Solomon’s piety. To put it otherwise, his source probably displayed the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 order. 1 Kgs 7:2 (‫𝔊𝔊 וכ ֻרתות )ארזים‬-𝔏𝔏 ὠµίαι (= ‫ )כתרות‬Ant. 8:133 ἐστεγασµένον κορινθίως. For this contact between Ant. and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, see § II.2. 1 Kgs 7:27 (‫ )באמה ארך המכונה האחת‬4 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 5, Ant. 8:81 ἑκάστη µῆκος γεγόνει (‫ )באמה קומתה‬3 (‫ )באמה רחבה‬4 4, 6 πήχεις πήχεων 5, πλάτος 4, ὕψος 6. Every laver stand was “4 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘5’) cubits long, 4 cubits wide, 3 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘6’) cubits high”; thus, Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but in the same passage, he was able to understand ‫ מכונה‬contrarily to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (see § II.1). So, he follows the Hebrew source of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 λέβητας (= ‫)סירות‬ 1 Kgs 7:40 ‫)ויעשׂ חירום את( הכי ֹרות‬ Ant. 8:88 λέβητας. At the end of his works, “Hiram made the basins (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘the cauldrons’)”; at 1 Kgs 7:45 we read ‫הסירות‬, and the parallel 2 Chr 4:11 has ‫הסירות‬, too, as well as a fragment of 4QKgs ]‫הסיר‬.1 We can conclude that here 𝔐𝔐 is corrupt, all the more so that the basins have been described earlier. 1 Kgs 8:65 ‫𝔊𝔊 לפני יהוה אלהינו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐνώπιον κ’ θεοῦ ἡµῶν Ant. 8:123 πρὸ τοῦ ναοῦ om. ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ... λαµπρῶς ἐπὶ δὶς om. εὐφραινόµενος 7 ἡµέρας ἤγαγεν om. ἐνώπιον κ’ θεοῦ ἡµῶν σὺν ἅπαντι τῷ λαῷ ‫ יום‬14 ‫ ימים‬7-‫שׁבעת ימים ו‬ ἑπτὰ ἡµέρας κατευωχούµενος. Solomon made the Feast “before Yhwh our God (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘in the house… eating and drinking and rejoicing before Yhwh our God’) 7 days (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘and 7 days, 14 days’); it appears that 𝔐𝔐 skips from ‫ לפני יהוה אלהינו‬to ‫לפני יהוה אלהינו‬, but Josephus, with “splendidly before the temple for twice 7 days, feasting with all the people”, had the longer variant of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (as well as a longer variant of 𝔐𝔐 at the end, with “14 days”, see Chap. VII, § II). 1 Kgs 9:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואת‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ τὴν ἄκραν τοῦ περιφράξαι Ant. 8:150 τὰ τείχη πύργων ‫חומת ירושׁלם‬ τὸν φραγµὸν τῆς πόλεως Δαυιδ πρὸς Ἀσφάλειαν δεόµενα. Solomon levied forced labor for the buildings “and the wall of Jerusalem (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and the citadel to fortify the fence of the city of David’, from ‫ואת המלוא‬ ‫לחזק את גדר עיר דוד‬, probably a doublet developing ‫ ואת המלוא‬of 𝔐𝔐)”. For Josephus, Solomon saw that “the walls of Jerusalem needed towers” and other defences; thus, he agrees with the addition of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; we cannot be sure that he actually saw “the wall of Jerusalem” of 𝔐𝔐, because for him it would be redundant, since the “city of David” is Jerusalem. 1 Kgs 11:14 ‫ הדד האדמי‬...‫𝔊𝔊 שׂטן‬-𝔏𝔏 σαταν... τὸν Αδερ Ιδουµαῖον Ant. 8:199 Ἄδερον. In this verse, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds a summary on Hadad-ezer, another enemy of Solomon, which 𝔐𝔐 gives at v. 23-25; in spite of his transcription of Hadad as “Ader”, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus follows the order of 𝔐𝔐, see § II.2, 1 Kgs 11:22. 1 Kgs 11:26 ...‫𝔊𝔊 וירבעם בן־נבט‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιεροβοαµ υἱὸς Ant. 8:205 Ἱεροβόαµος υἱὸς ‫ושׁם אמו צרועה‬ Ναβατ... υἱὸς Ναβαταίου... ὑπὸ τοῦ πα‫אשׁה אלמנה‬ γυναικὸς χήρας τρὸς καταλειφθέντα. 1

See DJD 14, p. 175.

136

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

According to the verse, “Jeroboam son of Nebat, his mother’s name Zeruah (𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 om.), a widow”; 1 Kgs 12:24b 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is similar to 𝔐𝔐 here: “the name of his mother Sarira (Σαριρα), a harlot. Josephus says that Jeroboam was “left by his father”, and educated by his mother; this suggests that he knew of this variant, here or elsewhere. 1 Kgs 11:29 ‫𝔊𝔊 וימצא אתו‬-𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ ἀπέστησεν Ant. 8:206 αὐτὸν ἀπήγαγεν ‫אחיה השׁילני הנביא בדרך‬ αὐτὸν ἐκ τῆς ὁδοῦ ἐκ τῆς ὅδοῦ µικρόν. Jeroboam was out of Jerusalem, “and the prophet Ahijah the Shilonite found him on the road (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and removed him from the road’, from ‫ויסירהו מהדרך‬, see 1 Sam 18:3)”. Josephus has the same addition, with a different wording: “he led him a little away from the road”; his name transcriptions differ, too, see § II.1. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ὁ Αχιας 1 Kgs 11:29 ‫והוא מתכסה‬ Ant. 8:207 σχίζας... τὸ ἱµάτιον (‫)בשׂלמה חדשׁה‬ περιβεβληµένος ὅνπερ ἦν αὺτὸς περιβεβληµένος. Ahijah met Jeroboam on the road, “and he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Ahijah’) was covered with a new cloak”; 𝔐𝔐 is ambiguous, for the cloak could be Jeroboam’s. Josephus, with “(Ahijah) tearing the cloak he was covered with”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

1 Kgs 11:38 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ובניתי לך בית‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:208 γενήσθαι τηλικούτῳ ἡλίκον ‫𝔊𝔊 = נאמן כאשׁר בניתי לדוד‬-𝔏𝔏 οἶσθα Δαυίδην γενόµενον. ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ונתתי לך את־ישׂראל‬om. om. Ahijah reports God’s decision to Jeroboam, if he is faithful: “Then I will build you an enduring house as I built for David (𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏 add ‘and I will give you Israel’ and the whole v. 39)”. Josephus briefly renders: “to become as great as you know David to have been”; he had the shorter form witnessed by 𝔊𝔊.

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἦν ἐπαιρόµενος Ant. 8:209 ἀναπείθειν... καὶ ταρἐπὶ τὴν βασιλείαν άττειν εἰς αὐτὸν τὴν ἠγεµονίαν. According to 1 Kgs 11:40, Solomon wanted to put to death Jeroboam, who fled to Egypt, but no clear reason is given; previously (11:28), Solomon had given him a command in “the tribes of Joseph”, that is, around Shechem; then Jeroboam heard Ahijah’s prophecy (11:31), that he would rule over ten tribes. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 omits 1 Kgs 11:39, but 1 Kgs 12:24b summarizes, out of place, the story (without Ahijah) and ends with “and he was aspiring to the kingdom” (quoted here) maybe from ‫( וירם יד במלכות‬cf. 11:27); then 12:24c repeats 1 Kgs 11:40. Josephus explains that, after Ahijah’s prophecy, he entered into his command and began “to persuade the people to transfer the power to him”; he may well have read something like the end of 1 Kgs 12:24b just before 11:40. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἔρχονται οἱ υἱοὶ 1 Kgs 13:11 ‫ויבוא בנו‬ Ant. 8:236 τῶν παίδων (‫ויספר )לו את־כל־המעשׂה‬ αὐτοῦ καὶ διηγήσαντο δηλωσάντων τά... There was an old prophet at Bethel, “and his son (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘sons’) came, and told him the whole deed of the man of God”. But this contact against 𝔐𝔐 is not very significant, for the end of the 𝔐𝔐 verse has a plural (see following note). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐπέστρεψαν τὸ πρόσω1 Kgs 13:11 ‫ויספרום‬ Ant. 8:237 δείσας µὴ παρευ‫לאביהם‬ πον τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτῶν δοκιµήσειεν ὁ ξένος. The report of the sons (see previous note) ends with “they related that to (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘turned the face of’, from ‫ )ויסבו את פני אביהם‬their father”; 𝔐𝔐 is redundant, for everything has been told before, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 makes good sense; Josephus, with “fearing that the stranger might be more favored”, agrees more with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 1 Kgs 11:39end om.



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1 Kgs 15:25 (‫ בשׁנת שׁתים לאסא‬...‫ 𝔊𝔊 ונדב )מלך‬Ναβατ, 𝔏𝔏 Ναδαβ Ant. 8:287 Νάβαδος. After some digressions, 1 Kgs returns to king Nadab of Israel (2 Chr omits). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὀπίσω Θαµνι 1 Kgs 16:21 ‫)חצי העם היה( אחרי תבני‬ Ant. 8:311 Θαµαναῖον. After king Zimri’s death, “half the people were after Thibni (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Thamni’, from ‫”)תמני‬, while the others wanted Omri. In the context, however, Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐, see § II.2, 1 Kgs 16:22. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐφοβήθη 1 Kgs 19:3 (‫ויַרא )ויקם וילך‬ Ant. 8:348 φοβηθεὶς φεύγει. Jezebel wanted to kill Elijah, and he saw (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘feared’, from ‫ )ויִ ַרא‬and arose and went”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus chose the more obvious meaning. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τις 1 Kgs 19:5 (‫מלאך )נגע בו‬ Ant. 8:349 διεγείραντος αὐτόν τινος. Elijah was asleep, “and an angel (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘someone’) touched him”; at 19:7, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has ὁ ἄγγελος κυρίου “the angel of the Lord”. Regardless of 𝔐𝔐 or 𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏, Josephus is wont to avoid supernatural interventions; he omits the second appearance of the angel, playing down Elijah’s weakness; however, some 𝔏𝔏 mss have a similar omission, with a leap from ἔπιεν (v. 6) to ἔπιεν (v. 8). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἶπεν Ἐξελεύσῃ 1 Kgs 19:11 ‫ויאמר‬ Ant. 8:351 προσελθεῖν εἰς τὸ ‫צא ועמדת‬ αὔριον καὶ στήσῃ ὕπαιθρον τῇ ἐπιούσῃ. At Mount Horeb, God said to Elijah: “Go forth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘tomorrow’) and stand”; Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊: he was told “to come out into the open air on the following day”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὰ ἐπιθυµήµατα 1 Kgs 20:6 ‫כל־מחמד‬ Ant. 8:367 τὰ δ᾽ ἀπαρέσαντα (‫עיניך )ישׂימו בידם‬ ὀφθαλµῶν αὐτῶν σοὶ καταλείψουσιν. Ben Hadad warns Ahab: “All the desire of your eyes (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘their’, from ‫ עינם‬or ‫ )עיניהם‬they will put in their hand”. The 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 variant would imply that they will leave behind what they do not like, and so understood Josephus: “What does not please them, they will leave for you.” 1 Kgs 20:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׂימו‬-𝔏𝔏 οἰκοδοµήσατε χάρακα, Ant. 8:372 περιχαρακοῦν τὴν πόλιν ‫וישׂימו על־העיר‬ ἔθεντο χάρακα ἐπὶ τὴν πόλιν καὶ χώµατα βάλλεσθαι. In order to besiege Samaria, Ben-hadad tells his people: “Put (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘bulwark’, from ‫ )מצור‬and they put (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘bulwark’) against the city”. Josephus is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “Enclose the city with a bulwark, and throw up earthworks”. 1 Kgs 20:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימלט בן־הדד מלך ארם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:377 διασωθῆναι ‫𝔊𝔊 על־סוס ופרשׁים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐφ᾿ ἵππου ἱππέως µόλις ἐφ᾽ ἵππου. After his defeat, “Ben-hadad king of Aram escaped on a horse with horsemen (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘of horseman’, from ‫”)פרשׁ‬. Josephus, with “barely saved himself on a horse”, ignores any escort, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 κατεδήσατο τελαµῶνι 1 Kgs 20:38 ‫ויתחפשׂ‬ Ant. 8:390 καταδησά‫באפר על־עיניו‬ τοὺς ὀφθαλµοὺς αὐτοῦ µενος τὴν κεφαλήν. The prophet was voluntarily wounded, “and disguised himself (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘bound up himself’, from ‫ )ויתחבשׁ‬with a bandage over his eyes”; the context implies that he could not be recognized (v. 41). Josephus, assuming head injuries, says “having bound up his head”, close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. (𝔐𝔐 may be faulty, since ‫ התחפשׂ‬is more common, see 1 Sam 28:8, 1 Kgs 22:30.) 1 Kgs 21:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ספרים אל־הזקנים ואל־החרים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:358 γράµµατα πρὸς τοὺς (‫𝔊𝔊 אשׁר בעירו )הישׁבים את־נבות‬-𝔏𝔏 om. ὑπερέχοντας τῶν Ἰσραηλιτῶν.

138

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Jezebel sent “letters to the elders and to the nobles who were sitting with Naboth (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘in his city’)”; Josephus says that she sent “letters to the leaders of the Israelites”. If we accept this reading, and do not correct “Jezreelites”, it means that Josephus viewed Naboth as one of the sitting leaders of Israel (who should be at Samaria, the capital; according to 1 Kgs 22:37, Ahab was buried at Samaria, see § II.2, 1 Kgs 22:38 and Ant. 8:417); he adds that Naboth, of an illustrious family, was to preside over the assembly, which hints at Jezebel’s order “to seat him at the head of the people” (v. 9); in other word, Josephus did not see “in his city” of 𝔐𝔐. However, this phrase occurs again at v. 11, but see next note.

1 Kgs 21:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = והושׁיבו שׁנים אנשׁים בני־בליעל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:358 τρεῖς τολµηρούς τινας ‫ והוציאהו וסקלהו וימת‬...‫ 𝔊𝔊 נגדו ויעדהו‬om. καταµαρτυρήσοντας αὐτοῦ, v. 11-13 ‫ בני־בליעל‬...‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויעשׂו אנשׁי עירו‬om. ὡς τὸν θεὸν εἴη βλασφηµέσας... ‫ לאמר ברך אלהים ומלך‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁבו נגדו ויעדה‬-𝔏𝔏 (359) ὡς ἔγραψεν ἡ βασίλισσα, ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצאהו מחוץ לעיר ויסקלהו‬-𝔏𝔏 βαλλόµενος ἀπέθανεν. Jezebel sent orders: “And seat two worthless men (𝔊𝔊 adds ‘before him, and let them testify... and take him out and stone him to death; and the men of his city… and two worthless men came in’), and they sat before him, and they testified..., saying: Naboth cursed God and the king; and they took him outside the city and stoned him”; 𝔏𝔏 is close to 𝔐𝔐, and Sy., before the Or. correction, had an omission similar to 𝔊𝔊 (a leap from ‫בני־בליעל‬, v. 10, to ‫בני־בליעל‬, v. 13) so that the orders have to be extracted from their fulfillments. As for Josephus, he gives Jezebel’s orders and shortens their fulfillments “as the queen wrote”; he read a short version similar to 𝔊𝔊. He mentions “three unscrupulous men”, instead of “two”, which reflects the custom he knew about capital punishments (see Ant. 4:219 and Deut 17:6). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ εἶπεν 1 Kgs 22:30 ‫ויאמר )מלך ישראל‬ Ant. 8:412 συνέθεντο Ἄχαβος same as ‫אל־יהושׁפט( התחפשׂ‬ κατακαλύψοµαι καὶ Ἰωσάφατος ἀποθέσθαι 2 Chr 18:29 (‫)ובוא במלחמה‬ καὶ σὺ ἔνδυσαι σχήµα, (Ἰωσάφατον) τὴν ‫ואתה לבשׁ בגדיך‬ τὸν ἱµατισµόν µου αὐτοῦ στολὴν ἔχοντα. Before a battle for Ramot-gilead, “the king of Israel said to Jehosaphat: Disguise yourself (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘I will disguise myself’, from ‫ )אתחפש‬and come to the war, and you, put on your robes (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘my robe’, from ‫ 𝔐𝔐 ;)בגדי‬must be wrong, for actually Jehoshaphat is not disguised.2 Josephus is not very clear, but he seems to mean, in the line of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “Ahab and Jehoshaphat agreed to take off their garment, and that Jehoshaphat would have the other’s robe.” 1 Kgs 22:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 )והוציאני( מן המחנה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ τοῦ πολέµου Ant. 8:415 ἐξαγαγεῖν µάχης. Ahab, wounded, tells his driver: “Take me out from the camp (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘the battle’, from ‫”)מן המלחמה‬. 1 Kgs 22:36 (‫ לאמר‬...‫𝔊𝔊 )ויעבר הרנה‬-𝔏𝔏 ὅτι τέθνηκεν ὁ βασιλ. Ant. 8:416 δηλώσαντος ‫ וימת המלך ויבוא שמרון‬καὶ ἦλθον εἰς Σαµάρειαν ὅτι τέθνηκεν Ἄχαβος. The herald passed... saying (see § I.2) “and the king died (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘that the king died’, from ‫ ומת‬or ‫)כי מת‬, and he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they’) came to Samaria”, and buried him; 𝔐𝔐 is difficult, and Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Kgs 1:18a-d 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, 𝔐𝔐 om., but 2 Kgs 3:1-3 has a similar passage Ant. 9:27. For the reign of king Jehoram of Israel, Josephus follows the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 order. 2

The reading ‫ בגדיך‬is witnessed by 6QpapKgs, see DJD 3, p. 108.



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2 Kgs 1:18b 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου Ant. 9:27 ἦν τἀλλα πλὴν οὐχ ὡς οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ οὐδὲ ὡς ἡ µήτηρ αὐτοῦ δραστήριος. For the 𝔐𝔐 omission, see previous note. The summary of Jehoram’s reign includes: “He did evil in the sight of the Lord, only not as his brethren, nor as his mother” and he removed the pillars of Baal; Josephus says, maybe as an echo of this bright spot: “He was effective in other respects”. 2 Kgs 3:25 (‫𝔊𝔊 )עד־השׁאיר‬-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς λίθους τοῦ Ant. 9:41 τὰ τείχη ‫אבניה בקיר חרשׂת‬ τοίχου καθῃρηµένους καθεῖλον ἕως ἐδάφους. When the Israelites set off in pursuit of Moab and destroyed everything, “until they left its stones in Kir-hareseth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘left the stones of the wall destroyed’, from ‫הרושׂות‬/‫ הרוסות‬or ‫הרשׂת‬/‫ הרסת‬...‫”)אבניה‬. 𝔐𝔐 hardly makes sense, especially with a city name (Jer 48:31.36 mentions a city Kir-heres, ‫ 𝔊𝔊 קיר חרשׂ‬Κιραδας, from ‫)קיר חדש‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 conveys the idea of the ultimate destruction, as well as Josephus: “They razed the walls to the ground”; they likely had the same reading with -‫ ה‬instead of -‫ח‬, giving a defective ‫הרשׂת‬. 2 Kgs 3:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויהי‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐγένετο Ant. 9:43 παθόντες ἀνθρώπινόν (‫קצף־גדול )על־ישׂראל‬ µετάµελος µέγας τι καὶ ἐλεείνον διέλυσαν. The king of Moab sacrificed his eldest son, “and there was a great wrath against (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘repentance on’, maybe from ‫ נחומים‬or the like) Israel”; according to 𝔐𝔐, that the Israelites had prompted such a sacrifice was the cause of the wrath. But Josephus, with “feeling humanity and compassion, they raised the siege”, is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Kgs 6:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 מי ִמ ֶּשׁ ָלּנו‬-𝔏𝔏 τίς προδίδωσίν µε Ant. 9:52 αὐτοὺς ἔλεγε προδότας ‫אל־מלך ישׂראל‬ βασιλεῖ Ισραηλ τῶν ἀπορρήτων αὐτοῦ. The scheme of the king of Aram was foiled, and he asked his servants: “Which of us is for (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘who betrays me to’, from ‫ש ֶלני‬ ְ ‫ ) ַמ‬the king of Israel?” For Josephus, the king “said they were betrayers of his secrets”; like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, he understood quite naturally from the hifil ‫“ ִהשלה‬deceive, betray”, which does not make good sense with the plural suffix ‫נו‬-. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πάντας τοὺς λόγους 2 Kgs 6:12 ‫)אלישׁע יגיד למלך‬ Ant. 9:53 Ἐλισσαῖος ‫ישׂראל( את־הדברים אשר תדבר‬ οὓς ἐὰν λαλήσῃς πάντα µηνύων αὐτῷ. The king of Aram is told by a servant: “Elisha tells the king of Israel (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘all’) the words that you speak”; Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “Elisha is informing him of everything”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δύο ἐπιβάτας ἵππων 2 Kgs 7:14 ‫שׁני רכב סוסים‬ Ant. 9:83 δύο τῶν ἱππέων. In order to inspect the Syrian camp, the king decides to send “two chariots with horses (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘two horsemen’, from ‫ ;”)ר ֹ ְכבי סוסים‬the 𝔐𝔐 reading hardly makes sense for scouts. 2 Kgs 9:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 ונקמתי דמי‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκδικήσεις τὰ αἵµατα τῶν Ant. 9:108 ὅπως ἐκδικήσῃ ‫עבדי הנביאים‬ δούλων µου τῶν προφητῶν τὸ αἷµα τῶν προφητῶν. God gives Jehu a mission “that I (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘you’) may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets”; Josephus is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: Jehu is sent “to avenge the blood of the prophets”. The same feature appears at v. 8: 𝔐𝔐 has ‫ והכרתי‬against 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (and Ant.) ἐξολεθρεύσεις. 2 Kgs 9:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 אם־ישׁ נפשׁכם‬-𝔏𝔏 adds µετ᾿ ἐµοῦ Ant. 9:113 ἐπίδειξιν αὐτῷ τῆς εὐνοίας.

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Jehu explains the position to the people, and asks: “If your mind (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘is with me’)”, then do not go to Jezreel. For Josephus, this will be “a proof of their loyalty to him”, which is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Kgs 9:24 ‫)ויכרע( ברכבו‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ τὰ γόνατα αὐτοῦ Ant. 9:119 πεσὼν ἐπὶ γόνυ. Jehoram was hit by an arrow, “and he bowed down in his chariot (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘on his knees’, from ‫בברכו‬, with a metathesis)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Kgs 9:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר( מי‬-𝔏𝔏 τίς εἶ σύ; κατά- Ant. 9:122 ἐπυνθάνετο τίς εἴη καὶ κα‫אתי מי‬ βηθι µετ᾿ ἐµοῦ ταβᾶσαν ἥκειν πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐκέλευσε. Jehu saw Jezebel “and said: Who is with me, who?” 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: “Who are you? Come down with me”, from ‫ ;מי את רדי אתי‬it is close to Jusephus’ rendering: “He asked her who she was, and ordered her to come down to him”. 2 Kgs 9:33 (‫)ויז מדמה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πρὸς τοὺς ἵππους καὶ Ant. 9:123 συµπατηθεῖσα ‫ואל־הסוסים וירמסנה‬ συνεπάτησαν αὐτήν ὑπὸ τῶν ἵππων. Jehu had Jezebel thrown down “and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘together, they’) trampled her”; Josephus read a plural and understood easily: “She was trampled by the horses”. 2 Kgs 13:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויתן לישראל( מושׁיע‬-𝔏𝔏 σωτηρίαν Ant. 9:176 δίδωσιν αὐτῷ... ἄδειαν. Jehoahaz entreated help of God, “and he gave Israel a savior (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘salvation’, Ant. ‘security’)”. The “savior” of 𝔐𝔐 could have been Jeroboam II son of Jehoash (see 2 Kgs 14:27). 2 Kgs 17:24 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויבא מלך־אשׁור‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ Βαβυλῶνος Ant. 9:279 µεταστήσας ἄλλα ἔθνη (...‫ מבבל ומכותה )ומעוא‬τὸν ἐκ Χουνθα (𝔏𝔏 Χωθα) ἀπὸ Χούθου τόπου τινός. After the exile of Israel, “the king of Assur brought (people) from Babylon and (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the people’) from Kuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and Sepharvaim”; Josephus indicates only one region: “he removed other nations from a certain place, Kuthah-Chouthos”. We may observe that 𝔐𝔐 indicates five regions, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has only four, Kuthah being the only one clearly connected to Babylon. Moreover, the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 verse continues for the three other regions in a strange way, with ἀπό instead of ἐκ: καὶ ἀπὸ Αια καὶ ἀπὸ Αιµαθ καὶ Σεπφαρουαιν; it has been observed that Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim are places, probably in Syria, which Sennacherib subdued later by the time of his campagn against Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:34 and 19:13). Thus, we may suspect that these three were not in Josephus’source (see § III.2), hence the corrections in 2 Kgs here: a preliminary attempt in the source of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, with an accident (after τόν, a noun is missing), and a fuller expression in 𝔐𝔐. Later, Josephus mentions five peoples who came from Kutha (Ant. 9:288), which does not agree with the four of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; it is probably a gloss introduced by copyists, because of the description of the five cults at 2 Kgs 17:29-33, a passage that Josephus ignores, see § III.2, 2 Kgs 17:28. 2 Kgs 17:28 ...‫אינם יראים‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 αὐτοὶ φοβοῦνται Ant. 9:290 χρώµενοι τοῖς (...‫ וכתורה‬...) ‫ואינם עשׂים‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 αὐτοὶ ποιοῦσιν αὐτοῖς ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἔθεσι. On the faithfulness of the Samaritans, Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, see § III.2.

Ι.4 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 and/or 𝔊𝔊

1 Kgs 2:28 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )נטה אחרי אדניה‬ὀπίσω Αβεσσαλωµ ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ואחרי אבשׁלום לא נטה‬ὀπίσω Σαλωµων

Ant. 8:13 φίλον ἦν αὐτῷ µᾶλλον ἢ τῷ βασιλεῖ Σολοµῶνι.



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Joab was afraid of Adonijah’s death, for “he had turned after Adonijah, but he had not turned after Absalom (𝔏𝔏 ‘Solomon’)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔏𝔏: “He was friendlier to Adonijah than to king Solomon.” However, the variant “Solomon” of 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. might be a correction independantly prompted by the context.

𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ τὸ τεθνηκὸς ὁµοίως Ant. 8:31 προσέταξε ἀµφότερα διέλετε καὶ δότε ἀµφοτέραις διχοτοµῆσαι τὰ παιδία. Solomon orders to divide the living child in two, and 𝔏𝔏 adds “and divide the dead one the same way, and give to both”, followed by Josephus “he ordered to cut both children in halves”.

1 Kgs 3:25end

1 Kgs 16:34 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = בימיו בנה חיאל בית האלי את־יריחה‬ 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. 8:318 omit. In Ahab’s days, “Hiel the Bethelite had built Jericho; he founded it with Abiram his firstborn, &c.” This is the fulfillment of Joshua’s imprecation, see Chap. II, § II.1, Josh 6:26.

2 Kgs 1:17 ‫ וימלך יהורם תחתיו‬...‫𝔏𝔏 = וימת כדבר יהוה‬, 𝔊𝔊 om. Ant. 9:27 διαδέχεται ‫𝔊𝔊 בשׁנת שׁתים ליהורם בן־יהושׁפט מלך יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 om. τὴν βασιλεῖαν ὁ ‫𝔏𝔏 = כי לא־היה לו בן‬, 𝔊𝔊 om. ἀδελφός. ἄπαις γάρ. According to Elijah’s prophecy, “he died acccording to Yhwh’s word... (𝔏𝔏 adds ‘Jehoram became king in his place’, 𝔐𝔐 further adds ‘in the 2nd year of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah’)”; Josephus renders like 𝔏𝔏, without dating: “he was succeeded in the kingdom by his brother, for he was childless”. 2 Kgs 4:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 ותלך מאתו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀπῆλθεν παρ᾿ (𝔏𝔏 ἀπ᾽) αὐτοῦ Ant. 9:49 τῆς γυναικὸς τὰ 𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ ἐποίησεν οὕτως κελευσθέντα ποιησαµένης. Elisha gave the woman an advice, “and she went from him (𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and she did in this way’)”; Josephus, with “the woman did as he had ordered”, is close to 𝔏𝔏. 2 Kgs 9:25 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 בדקר )שׁלשׁו‬Βαδεκαρ, 𝔏𝔏 Βαδεκ Ant. 9:119 Βαδάκῳ τρίτης ἡγεµόνι. Jehu speaks to “Bidkar his fellow warrior”; Josephus calls him “commander of the third division”, as he does elsewhere, see § II.1, 2 Kgs 7:2. 2 Kgs 13:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁכב יואשׁ עם־אבתיו וירבעם ישׁב‬-(𝔏𝔏) Ant. 9:185 εἰς Ἰώασον ἡ ἀρχή. Like 𝔏𝔏, Josephus read this verse after 13:25, at the end of Jehoash’s stories in Israel: “Jehoash slept with his fathers, and Jeroboam” sat on his throne. Josephus says that after Jehoash’s death, “the power fell to his son Jehoash”, an obvious mistake. It is often difficult to disentangle the Israel and Judah dynasties. 2 Kgs 14:29 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁכב ירבעם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:215 Ἱερόβαµος τὸν βίον δια‫ 𝔏𝔏 עם־אבתיו* עם מלכי ישׂראל‬adds at * καὶ ἐτάφη γαγών, θάπτεται ἐν Σαµαρείᾳ. After a reign of forty years, “Jeroboam slept with his fathers (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. add ‘and he was buried in Samaria’, from ‫ )ויקבר‬with the kings of Israel”. In fact, the Hebrew sentence has two indirect objects of ‫וישׁכב‬, both with ‫עם‬, and a second verb is missing, so that the reading of 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. could be original. 2 Kgs 21:26 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )ויקבר אתו‬ Ant. 10:47 τῷ πατρὶ συν(‫ 𝔏𝔏 בקברתו )בגן־עזא‬ἐν τάφῳ τοῦ πατρός θάπτουσι τὸν Ἀµµῶνα. King Amon died “and they buried him in his (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘the father’s’, from ‫ )בקברת אביו‬grave, in the garden of Uzza”. Indeed, his father Manasseh was buried “in the garden of Uzza” (2 Kgs 21:18), so that 𝔏𝔏 and Josephus could reflect the original.

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IΙ – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊 and/or 𝔏𝔏 II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

1 Kgs 1:5 ‫ )𝔏𝔏( 𝔊𝔊 ואדניה בן־חגית‬Αδωνιας υἱὸς Αγγιθ Ant. 7:345 ἐκ Αἰγίσθης Ἀδωνίας. Adonijah son of Haggith has been mentioned at 7:21 (Chap. IV, § II.2). Ηere, 𝔏𝔏 has Ορνια, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 there. 1 Kgs 1:5‫ 𝔊𝔊 רצים לפניו‬παρατρέχειν ἔµπροσθεν, 𝔏𝔏 προτρέχοντας A. 7:345 προδρόµους. Adonijah had 50 men “running before him”. 1 Kgs 1:41 ‫𝔊𝔊 והם כלּו לאכל‬-𝔏𝔏 συνετέλεσαν φαγεῖν Ant. 7:359 µηδενὸς γευοµένου. Adonijah and his guests heard a noise outside, “and they had finished (‫ כלו‬piel) eating”; on the contrary, Josephus says that “no one tasted”; he may have read ‫ כלו‬as a qal. 1 Kgs 2:19 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויָשׂם )כסא‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐτέθη (= ‫)ויֻשׂם‬ Ant. 8:7 ἐκέλευσε ἕτερον (θρόνον). Solomon sat on his throne, “and he set a throne (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a throne was set’)” for the king’s mother. For Josephus, “he ordered another throne to be set”, which sounds somewhat closer to 𝔐𝔐 (cf. Caesar fecit pontem). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Α(χ)ινα(δ)αβ υἱὸς Αχελ 1 Kgs 4:15 ‫אחינדב בן־עדא‬ Ant. 8:36 Ἀχινάδαβος. One of Solomon’s deputies was “Ahinadab son of Iddo”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Σεµεει (Σαµαα) υἱὸς Ηλα 1 Kgs 4:18 ‫שׁמעי בן־אלא‬ Ant. 8:37 Σουµούις. Solomon’s deputy Shimei son of Ela should not be confused with Shimei son of Gera, whom Solomon put to death (Ant. 8:20). 1 Kgs 5:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ארזים( ברושׁים‬-𝔏𝔏 πεύκινα Ant. 8:54 ξύλα κέδρου καὶ κυπαρίσσου. Hiram sends Solomon “cedar and cypress (or ‘fir’, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘pine’) timber”; Josephus seems to agree with 𝔐𝔐 (elsewhere in 𝔊𝔊, ‫ עצי ברושׁים‬is rendered ξύλα πεύκινα or κυπάρισσοι). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αδωνιραµ 1 Kgs 5:28 (‫ואדנירם )על־המס‬ Ant. 8:59 ἐπίτροπος Ἀδώραµος. For the works, “Adoniram was over the forced labor”; Josephus has “Adoram”. The same officer is called “Adoram” at 1 Kgs 12:18, with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αδωνιραµ (and elsewhere, see Chap. IV, § II.22, 2 Sam 20:24). 1 Kgs 7:27 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויעשׂ את( המכנות )עשׂר‬-𝔏𝔏 µεχωνωθ Ant. 8:81 λουτέρων 10 βάσεις. For the lavers, Hiram made “ten stands”; so Ant., but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes. 1 Kgs 7:28 (‫𝔊𝔊 )מסגרת להם‬-𝔏𝔏 συγκλειστὸν ἀνὰ Ant. 8:81 τὰ πλευρὰ τῆς βάσεως ‫ומסגרת בין השׁלבים‬ µέσον τῶν ἐξεχοµένων ἐν αὑτοῖς ἐξηρµοσµένα. The description of the laver stands (unknown to 1 Chr 4:6) is difficult: “They had borders, and borders between the crossbars (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a socket between the ledges’).” Josephus renders: “The sides of the base exactly fitted in one another;” so, he understood the rare word ‫ שׁלבים‬as “sides”, unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 1 Kgs 7:36 ‫𝔊𝔊 וי ַפתּח על־הלחת‬-𝔏𝔏 ἠνοίγετο ἐπὶ τὰς Ant. 8:84 µεταξὺ τούτων φοί‫ ו ִתמ ֹר ֹת‬...‫ יד ֹתיה‬ἀρχὰς τῶν χειρῶν αὐτῆς νικες ἦσαν τετορευµένοι. For each wheel of the laver stands “he engraved on the plates (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘opened on the tops’, guessed from ‫ וי ְפתח על־הלחת‬read as a qal) of its stays... cherubim, lions and palm trees”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is somewhat meaningless. Josephus, with “inbetween



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were palm trees carved in relief”, understood like 𝔐𝔐, but carefully omitted cherubim and lions. 𝔊𝔊 Ασσουρ, Μαγδαν, Γαζερ 1 Kgs 9:15 ‫ואת־חצ ֹר‬ Ant. 8:151 Ἄσωρον, 𝔏𝔏 Ασσουδ, Μαγεδδο, Γαζερ ‫ואת־מגדו ואת־גזר‬ Μαγέδω, Γάζαρα. Solomon built or rebuilt three main cities: “Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer”. 1 Kgs 9:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואת־בית חרן תחתון‬-𝔏𝔏 Βαιθωρων τὴν ἀνωτέρω Ant. 8:152 Βητχώρα, 9:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואת־בעלת‬-𝔏𝔏 Βαλαθ, Ιεθερµαθ Βαλεθ. Solomon built other cities, “lower (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘upper’) Beth-horon, Baalat”; Josephus forgot he already mentioned Beth-horon (Ant. 5:60). For Thadmor-Palmyra at 9:18, see Chap. VII, § I. 1 Kgs 11:19 (‫𝔊𝔊 )את־אחות אשׁתו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀδελφὴν ΘεκεAnt. 8:201 τῆς αὐτοῦ γυναικὸς ‫אחות תחפניס הגבירה‬ µινας τὴν µείζω δοῦναι τὴν ἀδελφὴν Θαφίνην. Pharao gave Hadad-Hadar “the sister of his wife, sister of Thahpenes the queen (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the older sister of Thekemina-Thahpenes’)”; Josephus understood “the sister of his wife, Thahpenes”, omitting the second ‫אחות‬, probably out of absentmindedness. According to 1 Kgs 12:24e 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Susakim (Shishak), king of Egypt, “gave Jeroboam Ano, the older sister of his wife Thahpenes (Θεκεµινας)”; the stories of Hadad and Jeroboam are confused. 1 Kgs 11:29 ‫𝔊𝔊 אחיה השׁילני‬-𝔏𝔏 Αχιας ὁ Σηλωνίτης Ant. 8:206 ἐκ πόλεως Σιλὼ Ἀχία. The prophet Ahijah was from Shiloh, where Joshua had put the tabernacle (Ant. 5:68 Σιλοῦν), but Josephus does not make a connection. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πρὸς Σουσακιµ 1 Kgs 11:40 ‫)ויברח( אל־שׁישׁק‬ Ant. 8:210 πρὸς Ἴσακον. Fearing Solomon, Jeroboam “fled to Shishak (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Susakim’), king of Egypt”; at 7:105, Josephus wrote Σούσακος, so that here a σ has dropped after πρός (haplography). 1 Kgs 12:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 ָק ֳטנִּי‬-𝔏𝔏 µικρότης µου Ant. 8:217 τὸν βραχύτερον αὐτοῦ δάκτυλον ‫𝔊𝔊 = עבה ממתני אבי‬-𝔏𝔏 τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς ὀσφύος εἶναι παχύτερον. Following the advice of the youths, Roboam tells the people: “My little finger (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘my smalless’) is thicker than my father’s loins;” for the parallel 2 Chr 10:10, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 renders accurately ὁ µικρὸς δάκτυλός µου. Josephus paraphrases “his shorter finger is thicker than his father’s loins”, and agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 2 Chr 10:16 (‫𝔊𝔊 ראה ביתך )דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 βλέπε τὸν οἶκόν σου Ant. 8:219 παραχωρεῖν αὐτῷ 1 Kgs 12:16 (‫𝔊𝔊 ראה ביתך )דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 βόσκε τὸν οἶκόν σου µόνῳ τὸν ναόν... εἰπόντες. At Shechem, the people refused Roboam’s rule and told him: “Look after (1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘graze’, from ‫רעה‬, as well as targ. ‫‘ מלוך‬rule’) your own house, David”. For Josephus, “they said they would only leave him the temple”; he did not see 1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, and understood “house” as “temple” (like Rashi), preparing the northern religious split, while in the source it means “David’s dynasty”. 1 Kgs 13:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 )באה־אתי הביתה( וסעדה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀρίστησον Ant. 8:234 δειπνῆσαι παρ᾽ αὐτόν. Jeroboam invites the man of God (Jedo/Iddo): “Come home with me and refresh (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘take a midday meal’).” Josephus understood “to dine with him”, that is, to take the main meal, a normal meaning in Aramaic. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Νααµα 1 Kgs 14:21 (‫נעמה )העמנית‬ Ant. 8:212 ἐκ Ἀµµανίτιδος Νοοµᾶς. The name of Rehoboam’s mother was “Naamah the Ammonite”; the parallel 2 Chr 12:13 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 gives Νοοµµα ἡ Αµµανῖτις. In both cases, this notification is an appendix to a bright summary of Rehoboam’s reign, while as a rule the

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

mother’s name of a king is given at the beginning of his reign. So does Josephus here, giving the name of Rehoboam’s mother with his enthronement. Thus, it is possible that he just followed his source, or in other words, that a reminder of Solomon’s Ammonite wife may have been removed from the foreground in the Biblical text. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὴν Ραµα 1 Kgs 15:17 ‫)ויבן את( הרמה‬ Ant. 8:303 ἐπῆλθε Ἀρµαθῶνι. 1 Chr 16:1 has the same phrase. Josephus transcribes the article, as does sometimes 𝔊𝔊 for “Ramah” (e.g. 1 Sam 15:34). 1 Kgs 15:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 בעשׁא בן־אחיה‬-𝔏𝔏 Βαασα υ’ Αχια Ant. 8:288 Βασάνου Σειδοῦ παιδός. For the father of Baasha, it is difficult to explain Ant. Σειδοῦ (var. ειδου, ιλου). 1 Kgs 16:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויקשׁר עליו( זמרי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ζαµβρι Ant. 8:307 ἐξ ἐπιβουλῆς Ζαµα ‫ )שׁתה שׁכור( בית ארצא‬... 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ Ωσα ρίου,... τῷ οἰκονόµῳ Ὀλσᾶ. Elah was king of Israel, “and Zimri plotted against him... and he was drinking himself drunk in the house of Arza, his steward”; the transcriptions of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus differ. 1 Kgs 16:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וימלכו את( עמרי‬-𝔏𝔏 Αµβρι Ant. 8:310 Ἀµαρῖνον ἀπέδειξε βασιλέα. While in campaign at Gibbethon, the people “made Omri king”. 1 Kgs 16:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 בת־אתבעל‬-𝔏𝔏 θυγατέρα Ιεθεβααλ Ant. 8:317 θυγατέρα Εἰθωβάλου. Ahab’s wife Jezebel was “a daughter of Ethbaal”, king of the Sidonians, which for Josephus means “king of Phoenicia”; thus, he renders “king of the Tyrians and the Sidonians”, with two prominent cities. 1 Kgs 17:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 אליהו התשׁבי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ηλιου... ὁ Θεσβίτης Ant. 8:319 ἐκ Θεσσεβώνης ‫שׁבי גלעד‬ ַ ֹ ‫מת‬ ἐκ Θεσβων τῆς Γαλααδ τῆς Γαλααδίτιδος χώρας. Elijah is introduced by 𝔐𝔐 as “the Tishbite, of the settlers of Gilead”; both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus understood “of Tishbi (‫שׁבי‬ ְ ‫ )מ ִת‬of Galaad”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Σαρεπτα 1 Kgs 17:8 ‫)קום לך( צרפתה‬ Ant. 8:320 εἰς Σαριφθᾶ. The name of the city is “Zarphath” (cf. Obad 20), but both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus viewed the ending ‫ה‬- as a feminine mark. 1 Kgs 17:17 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויהי חליו חזק מאד‬πνεῦµα Ant. 8:325 ὡς καὶ τὴν ψυχὴν ‫ 𝔏𝔏 עד אשר לא־נותרה־בו( נשׁמה‬πνοὴ ζωῆς ἀφεῖναι, καὶ δόξαι νέκρον. The son of the woman fell sick, “and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him”; the context shows that he was dead, but Josephus minimizes the death, for he says: “he ceased to breathe, and seemed to be dead”. 1 Kgs 18:3 ‫ עבדיהו אשׁר על־הבית‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ויקרא‬-𝔏𝔏 Αβδιου Ant. 8:329 καλέσας Ὀβεδίαν. King Ahab called “Obadiah, who was over the household”. 1 Kgs 18:42 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויגהר )ארצה‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἔκυψεν Ant. 8:344 καθίσας ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς προσ(‫וישׂם פניו בין ברכי‬ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ηρείσατο τοῖς γόνααιν τὴν κεφαλήν. On Mount Carmel, Elijah “crushed (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘stooped’) down on the earth, and he put his face between his knees”; Elijah’s movements are not very clear, and Josephus interprets: “Sitting on the ground, leaned his head upon his knees.” 1 Kgs 19:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 )תחת( רתם אחד‬-𝔏𝔏 ραθµ(εν) Ant. 8:349 κατεκοιµήθη πρός τινι δένδρῳ. Elijah sat down “under a juniper”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus did not identify the tree; at 19:5, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 renders ‫ תחת רתם אחד‬with ὑπὸ φυτόν “under a plant”, like Josephus here. 1 Kgs 19:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 יהוא בן־נמשׁי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιου υἱὸν Ναµεσσι Ant. 8:352 Ἰηοῦν τὸν Νεµεσαίου.



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Elijah is ordered to anoint “Jehu son of Nimshi” king over Israel. At Ant. 9:105 (from 2 Kgs 9:2), Josephus writes τὸν Ἀµασῆ παῖδα Ἰηοῦν. 1 Kgs 20:30 (‫𝔊𝔊 )נס ויבא‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κοιAnt. 8:384 εἰς ὑπόγαιον ‫אל־העיר חדר בחדר‬ τῶνος εἰς τὸ ταµιεῖον οἶκον ἐκρύβη. After the destruction of Aphek, Ben-hadad fled and came into the city (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.), into a chamber in a chamber (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘into the house of the bedchamber’)”; both descriptions of the hiding place lack clarity. Josephus has: “He hid in an underground house”; it may be a tolerable interpretation of 𝔐𝔐, but it does not allude to “in the city (Aphek)”, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; however, we cannot be sure that Josephus had it in his source, for it does not fit in the context (Ben-hadad was supposed to be outside). 1 Kgs 20:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 וחוצות תשׂים‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐξόδους Ant. 8:387 Δαµασκὸν ὥστε ἐξε(‫ 𝔏𝔏( )לך בדמשׂק‬ἔξοδον) θήσεις λαύνειν εἰς αὐτήν,... ἀνήσειν. Ben-hadad offers to Ahab: “You shall set up streets (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘departure[s]’, targ. ‫‘ שוקין‬markets, bazaars’) for yourself in Damascus;” ‫ חוץ‬means “outside”, or “street” as a noun; here, the targ. interpretation makes sense, but 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 look awkward (a servile rendering of ‫חוץ‬, with no military overtone). Josephus understood “to open up an access to Damascus so that they may travel there”, which may suggest some trade. 1 Kgs 20:42 (‫𝔊𝔊 )יען שׁלחת‬-𝔏𝔏 ἄνδρα ὀλέθριον Ant. 8:392 Ἄδαδον τὸν βλασφηµή‫את־אישׁ־חרמי מיד‬ ἐκ χειρός σου σαντα πρὸς αὐτὸν µετελεύσεται. The prophet reproaches Ahab: “Because you have let go out of hand (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘your hand’) the man of my anathema (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘devoted to desruction’)”; unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus understood, in a religious way, that the anathema was a consequence of Ben-hadad’s blasphemy. 1 Kgs 21:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 לנבות היזרעאלי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ναβουθαι τῷ Ant. 8:355 Ναβώθης δέ τις ἐξ ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אשׁר ביזרעאל‬Ισραηλίτῃ 𝔏𝔏 Ιεζραηλ. Ἱζάρου (Ἰεζαρήλου) πόλεως. For “Naboth the Jezreelite”, 𝔐𝔐 has a doublet; the mistake of 𝔊𝔊 is common. 1 Kgs 22:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )מיכיהו( בן־ימלה‬Ιεµιας, Ιεµαα, 𝔏𝔏 Ναµαλει Ant. 8:403 Ὀµβλαίου. For the prophet “Mikaiah son of Imlah”, the parallel 2 Chr 18:7 has the same ‫מיכיהו בן ימלא‬, with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Μιχαιας υἱὸς Ιεµλα. 1 Kgs 22:34 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ואישׁ משׁך בקשׁת( ל ֻתמּו )ויכה‬-𝔏𝔏 εὐστόχως Ant. 8:414 Ἀµανός, τοξεύ2 Chr 18:33 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ואישׁ משׁך בקשׁת( ל ֻתמּו )ויך‬-𝔏𝔏 idem σας εἰς τοὺς πολεµίους. Ahab was disguised, “but a man drew with his bow at random (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘with a good aim’, from ‫)ל ַתמּו‬, and struck” him. Josephus is close to 𝔐𝔐, but with a less precise rendering: “Amanos, shooting arrows at the enemy”. He gives Ahab’s slayer a name, see § III.1. 2 Kgs 2:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר אלהם לכו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῇ (τῷ) Βααλ Ant. 9:19 πέµψαι πρὸς τὴν ‫דרשׁו( בבעל זבוב אלהי עקרון‬ µυῖαν θεὸν Ακκαρων Ἀκκάρων θεὸν Μυῖαν. Ahaziah sent servants: “He said to them: Go, inquire of Baal-zebub (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Baalfly’, the (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 masc. or fem.) god of Ekron”; Josephus renders: “Send to the goddess Fly of Ekron;” he understood “Baal” as “god, goddess”. 2 Kgs 4:2 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )כי אם‬ὃ ἀλείψοµαι ἔλαιον Ant. 9:48 ἔλαιον βραχὺ ‫ 𝔏𝔏 אסוך שׁמן‬ἀγγεῖον ἐλαίου ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ ὃ ἀλείψοµαι λίαν ἐν κεραµίῳ The woman has nothing at home “except a jar of oil (𝔊𝔊 ‘oil to anoint myself’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘a jar of oil at home to anoint myself’, double translation)”; ‫“ אסוך‬jar” is a ha-

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pax, while ‫“ סוך‬anoint” is not uncommon, but Josephus correctly understood “a very little oil in a jar”. The 𝔏𝔏 correction is independent of Ant. 2 Kgs 6:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 )כי־שׁם( ארם נחתים‬-𝔏𝔏 Συρία κέκρυπται Ant. 9:51 τινὰς ἐκεῖ λοχῶντας. (The first part of the story is missing in Ant., see § III.1, 1 Kgs 22:34.) Aram is to invade, and plans to encamp at an unnamed place, and Elisha warns the king of Israel not to go there “because Aram is coming (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘hidden’) there”; Josephus renders: “Some Syrians are lying in ambush”; both he and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 independently understood the rare ‫ נחתים‬from the context. 2 Kgs 7:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויען( השׁלישׁ‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ τριστάτης Ant. 9:73 ὁ τῆς τρίτης µοίρας ἡγεµών. When Elisha prophesied the end of the famine, “the officer replied”; he was a close assistant of the king. Josephus knows the meaning of ‫( שׁלישׁ‬lit. “third”) as one of the three-warrior team on a chariot (e.g. Ant. 12:371), that is, a minor position (as at 2 Sam 23:8, 1 Kgs 9:22, 2 Kgs 10:25), and he promotes him to be “the commander of the third division”. 𝔊𝔊 µαναα (𝔏𝔏 δῶρον) 2 Kgs 8:8 ‫)קח בידך( מנחה‬ Ant. 9:88 δῶρα κοµίζοντας. Ben-hadad sends Hazael to Elisha: “Take a gift (𝔊𝔊 transcribes, some 𝔏𝔏 mss have ‘gift’) in your hand”. When ‫ מנחה‬means “sacrifice”, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 translates θυσία, e.g. Ant. 9:37. 2 Kgs 8:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויע ֵמד את־פניו‬-𝔏𝔏 παρέστη τῷ Ant. 9:90 ὁ οἰκέτης τοῦ βασιλέως (‫)וישׂם עד־בשׁ‬ προσώπῳ αὐτοῦ ἐλυπεῖτο ταῦτα ἀκούσας. Elisha told Hazael that Ben-hadad would die, “and he made his face stand fast (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘he stood before him’, from ‫ )ויעמ ֹד‬and he set until he was ashamed”; for 𝔐𝔐, this refers to Elisha, but for 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Hazael comes more naturally as subject, all the more so that the end of the verse has “and the man of God wept”. Josephus, with “the king’s servant was grieving at what he had heard”, is close to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Kgs 8:22 & 2 Chr 21:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 לבנה‬-𝔏𝔏 Kgs Λοβενα, Chr Λοµνα Ant. 9:98 Λαβίναν. Libnah (close to Hebron, Josh 21:13) revolted against Judah under king Joram. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Γοθολια 2 Kgs 8:26 ‫ושׁם אמו עתליהו בת־עמרי‬ Ant. 9:96 Ὀθλία. Queen Athaliah, mother of Ahaziah, was “a daughter of Omri”, but sometimes his granddaughter, as a daughter of Ahab. For her name, the Ant. mss are often corrected after 𝔊𝔊. 2 Kgs 10:16 (‫𝔊𝔊 וירכבו )אתו ברכבו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπεκάθισεν Ant. 9:134 ἀναβὰς εἰς τὸ ἅρµα. Jehu met Jonadab “and they (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘he’, from ‫ )וירכב‬seated him in his chariot”; Josephus has “he got up into the chariot”, reading ‫ויִר ַכב ִאתו‬. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ τὴν Βασαν 2 Kgs 10:33 ‫והבשׁן‬ Ant. 9:159 καὶ Βαταναίαν. For “Bashan”, Josephus has “Batanaea”, an Aramaic equivalent, see Ant. 4:173. 𝔊𝔊 Ιωαχας, 𝔏𝔏 Ιωαχαζ 2 Kgs 10:35 (‫)וימלך( יהואחז )בנו תחתיו‬ Ant. 9:160 Ἰώαζον. After Jehu’s death, “Jehoahaz became king in his place”; as usual, Josephus does not transcribe ‫( ח‬here and at Ant. 9:173), but the copyists often correct. See Chap. VII, § III.3, 2 Chr 21:17. 2 Kgs 12:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 ושׁם אמו צביה מבאר שׁבע‬-𝔏𝔏 Αβια, 2 Chr 24:1 Σαβια Ant. 9:157 Σαβιά. Jehoash’s “mother name was Zibiah, from Beersheba”. 2 Kgs 14:9 (‫𝔊𝔊 החוח )אשׁר בלבנון‬-𝔏𝔏 ακ[χ]αν (2 Chr 25:18 αχουχ) Ant. 9:197 ἄκανος. King Jehoash of Israel sent Amaziah of Judah a parable about “a thorn bush (𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 transcribes) that was in Lebanon”; Josephus understood “thistle”.



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2 Kgs 14:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 וינגף )יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔπταισεν Ant. 9:199 τὸ Ἀµασίου στράτευµα φό2 Chr 25:21(‫𝔊𝔊 לפני ישׂראל וינסו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐτροπώθη βος αἰφνίδιος... εἰς φύγην ἔτρεψε. The battle was about to start, “and Judah was smitten (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 2 Kgs ‘defeated’, 2 Chr ‘turned away’) before Israel, and fled”; Josephus introduces a kind of panic: “A sudden terror... turned Amaziah’s army to flight”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Λαχις 2 Kgs 14:19 ‫)קשׁר בירושׁלם וינס( לכישׁה‬ Ant. 9:203 εἰς Λάχισαν. Against Amaziah, there was “a plot in Jerusalem and he fled to Lakish”. Josephus seems to have understood here “Lakishah”; he has mentioned “Lakish” among the cities built by Roboam in Judah (Ant. 8:246), but he does not know its location, and omits it at the time of Sennacherib’s campaign (Ant. 10:1). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ιωνα Ant. 9:206 προεφήτευσε τις Ἰωνᾶς. 2 Kgs 14:25 (‫יונה )בן־אמתי הנביא‬ Jonah prophesied under king Jeroboam II of Israel. See Chap. VIII, § I. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αιµαθ 2 Kgs 14:25 (‫)גבול ישׂראל מלבוא‬ Ant. 9:206 ἕως Ἀµάθου πόλεως 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αραβα ‫חמת )עד־ים( הערבה‬ ἕως τῆς Ἀσφαλτίτιδος λίµνης. Jeroboam II restored “the border of Israel from the entrance of Hamath as far as the sea of the Arabah (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes; some 𝔏𝔏 mss have πρὸς ἑσπέραν ‘toward the west’)”; normally, the “Arabah” is the plain or steppe of the Jordan rift, so that the “sea” is the Dead Sea, or Lake Asphaltitis, as Josephus understood. The 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcription does not actually convey this meaning, and the 𝔏𝔏 correction (in fact, a common rendering of 𝔊𝔊 elsewhere) would imply the Mediterranean, which is probably better, since “Dead See” would imply that Jeroboam invaded Judah! 2 Chr 26:3 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( יכליה )מן־ירושׁלם‬Χααια, 𝔏𝔏 Ιεχελια Ant. 9:216 µητρὸς ὢν 2 Kgs 15:2 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( יכליהו )מירושׁלם‬Χαλια, 𝔏𝔏 Ιεχελια Ἀχίας, ἀστῆς τὸ γένος. The name of Uzziah-Azariah’s mother was “Jechiliah, from Jerusalem”; 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊 has an error A instead of Λ. 2 Chr 26:21 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׁב בית( החפשׁות )מצרע‬-𝔏𝔏 αφφουσιων Ant. 9:227 διῆγεν ἔξω τῆς πό2 Kgs 15:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׁב בבית( החפשׁית‬-𝔏𝔏 αφφουσωθ λεως ἰδιώτην ἀποζῶν βίον. King Uzziah became a leper, “and he lived in the house of freedom (the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 mss transcribe in various ways) as a leper (2 Kgs om.)”; Josephus interprets after the laws of the lepers (see Ant. 3:261): “He dwelt outsite the city, living the life of a private citizen”. 2 Kgs 15:14 ‫( מתרצה‬...‫ 𝔊𝔊 )מנחם‬Θαρσιλα, 𝔏𝔏 Θερσα Ant. 9:229 ἐν Θάρσῃ πολει. Against king Shallum rose “Menahem from Thirzah”, from a former capital of Israel. Josephus does not know the place, for he wrote ἐν Θαρσάλῃ at Ant. 8:299 (from 1 Kgs 15:33, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Θερσα); ἐν Ἀρσῇ at Ant. 8:307 (from 1 Kgs 16:9); εἰς Θαρσήν at Ant. 8:310 and ἐν Θάρσῳ at 8:312 (from 1 Kgs 16:17 and 23). 𝔊𝔊 Θερσα, 𝔏𝔏 Ταφωε 2 Kgs 15:16 ‫)אז יכה־מנחם את( תפסח‬ Ant. 9:229 εἰς Θαψάν. Menahem has become king of Israel, “then he smote Thiphsah (𝔊𝔊 mistook with Thirzah, see previous note)”; 𝔏𝔏, with Tappuah (cf. Josh 17:8), is wrong, though it maintained Θερσα at the end of the verse. 2 Kgs 15:37 (...‫)אז יעלה( רצין )מלך־ארם‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ραασσων Ant. 9:244 Ῥαάσης. After the bad deeds of king Ahaz, “then Rezin (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 from ‫ )רצון‬king of Aram... came up”; the form of Ant. seems to be closer to 𝔐𝔐. 2 Kgs 17:3 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )וישׁב לו( מנחה‬µαναα, 𝔏𝔏 δῶρα Ant. 9:259 φόρους ἐπέταξεν αὐτῷ. King Hoshea of Israel became a servant of Shalmaneser, “and returned him a

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tribute”; for Josephus, he “imposed a (fixed) tribute on him”. For the transcription µαναα, see above 2 Kgs 8:8. 2 Kgs 18:17 ‫ רב־סריס‬,‫𝔊𝔊 תרתן‬-𝔏𝔏 Θανθαν, Ραφεις Ant. 10:4 Θαρατὰ καὶ Ἀνάχαρις. Sennacherib sent “Tartan and Rab-saris” (and Rab-shakeh) to Jerusalem. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐξῆλθον πρὸς αὐτὸν 2 Kgs 18:18 ‫ויצא אלהם‬ Ant. 10:5 Ἐλικίαν, Σου‫ ויואח‬,‫ ושׁבנה‬,‫אליקים‬ Ελιακιµ, Σοµνας, Ιωας (𝔏𝔏 Ιωαχ) βαναῖον, Ἰώαχον. Instead of meeting himself Sennacherib’s messengers, Hezekiah sent “Eliakim, Shebnah and Joah”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 συριστί, 2 Kgs 18:26 ‫)דבר־נא( ארמית‬ Ant. 10:8 Ῥαψάκην ἑβραιστὶ ‫)ואל־תדבר עמנו( יהודית‬ ἰουδαιστί λέγοντα, συριστὶ φράζειν ἠξίου. Hezekiah’s delegates ask Rab-shakeh: “Please speak in Aramaic (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Syrian’), and do not speak in Judean”; Josephus never uses ἰουδαιστί, and 𝔊𝔊 never uses ἑβραιστί (it only occurs at Sir 0:22, in the translator’s prologue). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Θαρα(κα) 2 Kgs 19:9 (‫תרחקה )מלך־כושׁ‬ Ant. 10:17 βασιλέα Θαρσίκην. The king of Ethiopia, “Thirhakah (Ant. ‘Tharsike’)” came to help the Egyptians; Josephus’ spelling may depend on either a slight Hebrew error ‫תרסקה‬, or an uncial mistake ΘΑΡCΙΚΗΝ for ΘΑΡΕΙΚΗΝ (suggested by Schlatter). 2 Kgs 19:37 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 משׁתחוה בית נסרך‬Εσδραχ, 𝔏𝔏 Ασραχ Ant. 10:23 ἀπὸ Ἀνδροµάχου, ‫𝔊𝔊 ואדרמלך ושׂראצר בניו הכהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Αδραµελεχ, Σαρασαρ Σελευκάρου, ἐν Ἀράσκῃ. Sennacherib “was worshipping at the temple of Nisroch, and his sons (Ket omits) Adrammelech and Sharezer smote him”; for the sons, Ant. has “Andromachos and Seleukaros”, probably altered by copyists after well-known Greek names. As for Sennacherib’s god, both Josephus and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 depend on a spelling ‫ יסרך‬or ‫אסרך‬, without -‫( נ‬maybe with a shortened ‫)נ‬. Josephus did read “his sons”, like Qer and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, because he says, following the verse, that “Esarhaddon inherited the kingdom, disregarding the rights of Sennacherib’s other sons”. 2 Kgs 22:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( ידידה‬Ιεδεια, 𝔏𝔏 Ιεδδια Ant. 10:48 ἐκ Βοσκέθι, ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )בת( עדיה מבצקת‬Εδεινα, 𝔏𝔏 Οζιου; Ἰέδις δὲ τοὐνοµα. Josiah’s mother was “Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath”; Josephus, with “Iedis” took the mother instead of the daughter, a confusion witnessed by 𝔊𝔊, too. For the city name, see § II.2. 2 Kgs 23:30 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 יהואחז‬Ιωαχας, 𝔏𝔏 Ιωαχαζ Ant. 10:81 ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ Ἰώαζος. ‫𝔊𝔊 חמוטל מלבנה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αµιταλ; 𝔊𝔊 Λεµνα, 𝔏𝔏 Λοβεννα Ἀµιτάλης ἐκ Τοµάνης. “Jehoahaz (1 Esd 1:32 Ιεχονιαν)” succeeded Josiah, and his mother was “Hamutal (2 Kgs 24:18 Ket and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Hamital’), the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah”; according to Jer 22:11 Josiah’s successor was Shallum; for 1 Chr 3:15 Josiah’ firstborn was Johanan, and Shallum was the fourth. As for the mother’s birth place, 𝔊𝔊 elsewhere renders ‫“ לבנה‬Libnah” in various ways: Λεµνα, Ληµνα, Λοµνα, Λεµβνα, Λοβενα. Josephus’ “Tomane” resists tolerable explanations, all the more so that he knows the city (Ant. 9:98); a possible ‫ תמנה‬could lead to Θοµνη, but the initial T- is difficult. 2 Kgs 23:36 [‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( זבידה ]זבודה‬Ιελδαφ, 𝔏𝔏 Αµιταλ Ant. 10:83 Ζαβουδᾶ ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )בת־פדיה מן( רומה‬Ρουµα, 𝔏𝔏 Λοβεννα ἐκ πόλεως Ἀβουµᾶς. Jehoiachin’s mother was “Zabidah (Qer and Ant. ‘Zabudah’; 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has Ζαχωρα, from ‫ )זכורה‬the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah”; 𝔏𝔏 has mistakenly confused with Jehoahaz’s mother (see previous note).



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2 Kgs 24:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( נחשׁתא‬-𝔏𝔏 Νεσθα Ant. 10:98 Ἰωακίµος ἐκ µητρὸς Νοόστης. Jehoiachin became king, “and his mother’s name was Nehushtha”.

II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 Against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δεῦρο 1 Kgs 1:53 (‫לך )לביתך‬ Ant. 7:362 εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν οἰκίαν ἀπελθεῖν. Solomon pardoned Adonijah and said: “Go (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘come’) to your house”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 implies that Solomon’s house is his, contrarily to 𝔐𝔐 and Ant. “to go back to his own house”. Here, the dwelling place of Solomon is not clear. 1 Kgs 2:35 ‫𝔊𝔊 בניהו‬-𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ ἡ βασιλεία Ant. 8:16 Βαναίας στρατη‫על־הצבא‬ κατωρθοῦτο ἐν Ιερουσαληµ γὸς πάσης τῆς δυνάµεως. 2:46 ‫𝔊𝔊 והממלכה‬-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:21 ἤδη τὴν βασιλείαν ‫נכונה ביד־שׁלמה‬ βεβαίως ἔχων Σολόµων. After Joab’s death, David appointed “Benaiah over the army”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds “and the kingdom was established in Jerusalem”; moreover 𝔊𝔊, mostly followed by 𝔏𝔏, has a long passage after this addition (v. 35a-o Ra.); later, after Shimei’s death, 𝔐𝔐 has “and the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon”, unknown of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. Josephus ignores the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 additions, but after Shimei’s death, he concludes like 𝔐𝔐: “Solomon having now a firm possession of the kingdom”. 1 Kgs 3:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויתחתן שׁלמה את־פרעה‬-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:21 ἄγεται τὴν Φαραώθου θυγατέρα. After establishing his kingdom, “Solomon made himself a son-in-law of Pharaoh” followed by Josephus “he married Pharaoh’s daughter”; in fact, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has this verse after 1 Kgs 5:14, with possibly a different Hebrew source: καὶ ἔλαβεν Σαλωµων τὴν θυγατέρα Φαραω. 1 Kgs 3:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 תבאנה אל־המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 ὤφθησαν (= ‫)תראנה‬ Ant. 8:27 ἧκον ἐπ’ αὐτόν. The story of the two harlots begins: “then they came to (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘appeared before’) the king”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐. The difference between the Hebrew variants is slight (‫ר‬/‫)ב‬. 1 Kgs 4:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 בענא בן־אחילוד‬-𝔏𝔏 Βακχα υἱὸς Αχαβ... Ant. 8:36 ὑπὸ Βαναίᾳ Ἀχίλου. One of Solomon’s deputies was “Baana son of Ahilud”; according to 1 Kgs 4:4 “Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud the recorder” was one of Solomon’s servants. 1 Kgs 4:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 יהושׁפט בן־פרוח‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιωσαφατ υἱὸς Φουασουδ Ant. 8:37 Σαφάτης. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 puts the deputy Jehoshaphat at v. 19, after Shimei and Geber; Josephus follows the 𝔐𝔐 order. 𝔊𝔊 καὶ νασιφ, 𝔏𝔏 καὶ νασειβ 1 Kgs 4:19 ‫ונציב אחד‬ Ant. 8:37 ἐπὶ τούτων εἷς 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἷς ἐν γῇ Ιουδα ‫אשׁר בארץ‬ πάλιν ἄρχων ἀποδέδεικτο. At the end of the list of the 12 deputies of Solomon, we read “and one deputy (𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 transcribe) who was in the land (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘of Judah’)”. For 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, there was someone else in the land of Judah, who would be a 13th; 𝔐𝔐 can be undestood that the last deputy named, Geber, was the only one who was in the country; but Josephus, following 𝔐𝔐, renders more clearly “one more was appointed as ruler over these”, that is, a kind of supervisor. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 οm. 1 Kgs 4:20 ‫אכלים ושׁתים ושׂמחים‬ Ant. 8:38 εἰρήνης ἀπολαύοντες. 𝔐𝔐, followed by Josephus, offers a bright picture of the prosperity of the country under Solomon’s government; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has a very similar statement at 1 Kgs 2:46a (Ra.), that is, before Solomon’s prayer for wisdom and his government organisation.

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1 Kgs 5:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 מושׁל בכל־הממלכות‬-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:39 ἡγεµόνες οἱ τῆς Σύρων γῆς καὶ ‫מן־הנהר ארץ פלשׁתים‬ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων, ἥτις ἦν ἀπ᾽ Εὐφρά‫ועד גבול מצרים‬ του µέχρι τῆς Αἰγυπτίων, ἐπῆρχον. After having organized his own kingdom, Solomon was “ruler over all the kingdoms, from the river, the land of the Philistines, to the border of Egypt”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has the same half verse (with “kings”) at 2:46k (Ra.), which is given at 2 Chr 9:26, too. Josephus, following the 𝔐𝔐 order, says that Solomon had other “governors, who ruled the land of the Syrians and the foreigners, extending from the Euphrates to Egypt”, and adds like 𝔐𝔐 that they collected tribute. For the Philistines, Josephus always transcribes Παλαιστῖνοι “Palestinians”, and never uses the typical 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 rendering ἀλλόφυλοι “aliens”, see Chap. III, § II.1 Judg 3:3. 1 Kgs 5:2-7 ‫𝔊𝔊 ליום אחד‬-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:40-41 συνετέλουν τῇ τραπέζῃ καθ᾽ ἡµέραν... Solomon’s deputies and governors (see previous notes) supplied dayly food; then the strength of his army is described. Josephus follows accurately the sequence and content of 𝔐𝔐, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has similar verses at 2:46e, f, i (Ra.). 1 Kgs 5:11 ‫ )𝔏𝔏( 𝔊𝔊 מאיתן‬Γαιθαν (Αιθαν), Αιναν (Αιµαν), Ant. 8:43 Ἄθανος, Αἰ‫והימן וכלכל‬ Χαλκαδ (Χαλκαχ), Δαραλα (Δαραε), µανός, Χάλκεος, Δάρ‫ודרדע בני מחול‬ υἱὸς Μαλ (υἱὸν Μααλα) δανος, υἱοὶ Ἡµάωνος. Solomon was wiser than “Ethan, Heman, Kalkol, Darda, sons (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘son’) of Mahol”; Josephus, with a plural “sons of Mahol”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 5,000 1 Kgs 5:12 ‫שׁירו חמשׁה ואלף‬ Ant. 8:44 περὶ ᾠδῶν καὶ µελῶν 1,005. Solomon said 3,000 proverbs, and “his songs were 1,005 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 5,000)”. 1 Kgs 5:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׁלח חירם( אל‬-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς παῖδας αὐτοῦ Ant. 8:50 Εἴρωµος ἀκούσας... ‫ שׁלמה כי שׁמע כי אתו משׁחו‬χρῖσαι τὸν Σαλωµων πέµψας πρὸς αὐτὸν ἠσπάζετο. The embassy of the king of Tyre is given in two different forms: for 𝔐𝔐 and Ant., “Hiram sent his servants to Solomon for he had heard that they had anointed him”; for 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, they were sent “to anoint Solomon”, which would imply that he was Hiram’s vassal. According to Ant. 7:358 (and 1 Kgs 1:39), Solomon was anointed by the priest Zadok. 1 Kgs 5:32 (‫𝔊𝔊 בנֹ י )שׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 υἱοί bis Ant. 8:60 οὐ παρὰ τῶν ἐγχωρίων µόνον, ἀλλὰ ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ובנֹ י )חירום( והגבלים‬εβαλαν, 𝔏𝔏 ἐνέβαλον καὶ ὧν Εἴρωµος ἔπεµψε τεχνιτῶν. The works began, and “Solomon’s builders (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sons’) and Hiram’s builders (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sons’) and the Gebalites (𝔊𝔊 transcribes ‘ebalan’, and 𝔏𝔏 corrects ‘introduced’)” cut the stones, etc.”; in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, the meaning is awkward, and the sentence is put at 1 Kgs 6:1b (Ra.). Josephus understood rightly: the work was done “not only by the native builders, but also by those sent by Hiram”. There is no 2 Chr parallel. 1 Kgs 7:2 (‫𝔊𝔊 ארבעה )טורי עמודי ארזים‬-𝔏𝔏 τριῶν Ant. 8:133 κίοσι τετραγώνοις ἀνει(‫𝔊𝔊 וכ ֻרתות )על־העמודים‬-𝔏𝔏 ὠµίαιληµµένον, ἐστεγασµένον κορινθίως.3 The main hall of Solomon’s palace had “four (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘three’) rows of cedar pillars with cedar beams (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘shoulders, capitals’, from ‫ )כתרות‬on the pillars”. Josephus renders “held by quadrangular cedar columns, roofed in Corinthian style”; the awkward “quadrangular columns” should be understood as “four rows”, in accordance with 𝔐𝔐. As for the “Corinthian style”, it implies capitals, as suggested by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; in fact, the difficult ‫ כרתות‬of 𝔐𝔐 (lit. “cut off”) should be viewed as a simple misspelling of ‫“ כתרות‬capitals”.



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𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 omits 1 Kgs 7:7 ‫וספון בארז‬ Ant. 8:134 τὰ λοιπὰ... οἰκηµατα ἐστρωµένα ‫מהקרקע עד־הקרקע‬ πάντα σανίσιν τετµηµέναις ἐκ κέδρου. The special chambers of Solomon’s palace were “paneled with cedar from floor to floor (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.)”; Josephus understood it of the private chambers: “All of the other chambers were floored with boards cut out of cedar.” 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ιαχουµ 1 Kgs 7:21 ‫)ויקרא שׁם־הימיני( יכין‬ Ant. 8:78 καλέσας Ἰαχείν 𝔊𝔊 Βολωζ, 𝔏𝔏 Βααζ (2 Chr 3:17) ‫)ושׁם השׂמאלי( בעז‬ ὀνοµάσας Ἀβαίζ. The two pillars of the house porch were given names: on the right “Jachin (2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 translates ‘stability’)”, on the left “Boaz (2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 translates ‘strength’)”. In the context, Josephus follows 1 Kgs (see Chap. VII, § II, 1 Kgs 7:14), but he summarizes the description of the pillars of 1 Kgs 7:16-22, which is not clear. He makes no verbal connection with Boaz, Naomi’s relative (see Chap. III, § II.2, Ruth 2:1). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. 1 Kgs 7:23 ‫)ויעשׂ את־הים( מוצק‬ Ant. 8:79 λούτηρ... κεχωνευµένος. Hiram “made the Sea of cast (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.) bronze”; the parallel 2 Chr 4:2 has the same Hebrew, but 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 renders accurately ἐποίησεν τὴν θάλασσαν χυτήν, without omission; Josephus has “the bronze laver... was cast”, with a different wording; in the context, he follows 1 Kgs. 1 Kgs 7:30 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וארבעה אופני נחשׁת למכונה האחת‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:83 τὸ δὲ πᾶν ἔργον v. 31 ‫ לא עגלות‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ופיהו מבית לכתרת ומעלה באמה‬-𝔏𝔏 om. ἐπὶ 4 τροχῶν εἱστήκει... v. 32a ‫𝔊𝔊 וארבעת האופנים למתחת למסגרות‬-𝔏𝔏 om. πήχεως καὶ ἡµίσους v. 32b ‫ וקומת האופן האחד אמה וחצי‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וידות האפנים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔχοντες τὴν διάµητρον. The description of the laver stands is complex and lengthy in 𝔐𝔐, and not very clear in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “And 4 wheels for each stand, and bronze *implements, and their 4 parts, and shoulders under the lavers (𝔐𝔐 has, from *, ‘axles, and its 4 feet had supports; beneath the laver, cast supports with wreaths at each side; its opening inside the crown at the top, a cubit, and its opening was round like the design of a pedestal, one cubit and a half; and also on its opening, engravings, and their borders were square, not round; the 4 wheels were underneath the borders’), and the axles of the wheels on the stand... and the height of each wheel one cubit and a half.” So, it appears that 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has a shorter form of v. 30, then omits v. 31-32a. Josephus has a shorter description, too, but different from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “The whole thing stood upon 4 wheels..., with hubs and rims, one cubit and a half in diameter.” He was following 𝔐𝔐, and skipped from ‫“ וארבעה אופני‬4 wheels” (v. 30) to ‫“ וארבעת האופנים‬4 wheels” (v. 32). 1 Kgs 9:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויקרא להם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκάλεσεν Ant. 8:142 προσηγορεύθησαν Χαβαλὼν γῆ, ‫ארץ כבול‬ αὐτάς Ὅριον κατὰ Φινίκων γλῶτταν οὐκ ἀρέσκον. Hiram of Tyre refused the cities Solomon gave him, “and he called them Chabul (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Border’, from ‫ ;”)גבול‬according to Josh 19:27 Chabul (𝔊𝔊 A Χαβωλ, B Χωβα) was a city of Zabulon. Josephus, with “they were called the land of Chabal, according to the Phonician tongue not pleasant”; ‫ כבל‬means “fetters”, with no Biblical corresponding verb, and Josephus’ Phoenician interpretation seems to be a guess from the verse “the cities did not please Hiram” (see Chap. VII, § II, 1 Kgs 9:12). 1 Kgs 9:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואת־הכנעני הישׁב‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:151 (Φαραώ) ἀποκτείνας ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בעיר הרג‬ἐν Μεργαβ, 𝔏𝔏 ἐν Αροαβ πάντας, δωρεὰν ἔδωκε ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויתנה שׁלחים לבתו אשׁת שׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 θυγατρὶ Σολοµῶνι γεγαµηνένῃ.

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Pharao took Gezer and burnt it, “and killed the Canaanite dwelling in the city (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and the Canaanite dwelling in Mergab/Aroab’, from a corruption of ‫)הרג‬ and gave it (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘them’) as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon’s wife”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 hardly makes sense, and locates the passage at 1 Kgs 5:14b (Ra.) just before Hiram’s first greetings to Solomon (5:15, see Ant. 8:50). Here Josephus, with “(Pharao) killing all its inhabitants and giving it as a gift to his daughter, Solomon’s wife” agrees with 𝔐𝔐 and its order; the wedding has been mentioned earlier, Ant. 8:21. According to Josh 16:10 Ephraim “did not dispossess the Canaanite living in Gezer”, and 𝔊𝔊 adds a mention of Pharao’s campaign. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. 1 Kgs 9:23 550 ‫ לשׁלמה‬...‫שׂרי הנצבים אשׁר‬ Ant. 8:162 ἄρχοντας 550. On Josephus’ agreement with 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 against 2 Chr, see Chap. VII, § II. 1 Kgs 10:27 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויתן המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 τὸ χρυσίον Ant. 8:188 τοῦ ἀργυρίου πλῆθος..., (‫ את־הכסף )בירושׁלם כאבנים‬καὶ τὸ ἀργύριον ὅσον ἦν καὶ τῶν λίθων. On the riches of Jerusalem, it is said: “And the king made silver (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and gold’) like stones”; the parallel 2 Chr 9:27 has the same 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but 2 Chr 1:15 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 gives the same sentence with “gold”, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 here. Josephus says: “silver was abundant like stones”, in agreement with 𝔐𝔐. 1 Kgs 10:29 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ותעלה ותצא‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀντὶ Ant. 8:189 τὸ ἅρµα σὺν ἵπποις ‫ כסף‬600-‫)מרכבה ממצרים( ב‬ 100 ἀργυρίου δύσιν 600 δραχµῶν ἀργυρίου. With the king’s merchants, “a chariot came up and went out from Egypt for 600 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘100’) silver”; the verse is missing after 2 Chr 9:28, but it is given in a similar form at 2 Chr 1:17, with both 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 “600 silver”. Josephus has “a chariot with two horses for 600 drachmas of silver”, close to 𝔐𝔐; his “two horses” may be the product of a misreading, because the end of the verse has “horse for 150 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘50’) silver”, to which he does not allude. 1 Kgs 11:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 מואביות עמניות‬-𝔏𝔏 Μωαβίτιδας, Αµµανίτιδας, Ant. 8:191 γήµας ‫אדמי ֹת‬ Σύρας καὶ Ιδουµαίας, Σιδωνίας, Τυρίας, Ἀµ‫צדני ֹת חתי ֹת‬ Χετταίας καὶ Αµορραίας µανίτιδας, Ἰδουµαίας. Solomon took many foreign wives, “Moabites, Ammonites, (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘Syrians’, from ‫)ארמיות‬, Edomites, Sidonians (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.), and Hittites (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Hittites, and Amorites’)”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 depends on a double reading ‫ארמיות‬/‫אדמיות‬. Josephus, who gives a shorter list, has not seen the “Syrians” of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, – and omits the Canaanite women, who are supposed to have disappeared! 1 Kgs 11:18 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )ויתן־לו בית‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:201 οἶκον τε αὐτῷ δίδωσι ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = )ולחם אמר לו( וארץ נתן לו‬om. καὶ χώραν εἰς διατροφήν. Pharao received young Hadad, “and gave him a house, and assigned him food (𝔐𝔐, 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. add ‘and gave him land’)”. 1 Kgs 11:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁלח תשׁלחני‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:203 συγχωρήσαν om. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀνέστρεψεν εἰς τὴν γῆν αὐτοῦ τος τοῦ Φαραῶom. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐβαρυθύµησεν ἐν Ισραηλ, νος, Ἄδερος ἦκεν om. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐβασίλευσεν ἐν γῇ Εδωµ εἰς Ἰδουµαίαν. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. v. 23-25 Rezon συµβαλὼν Ῥααζάρῳ... v. 25end ‫ויקץ בישׂראל‬ λῃστεύοντι τὴν χώραν, ‫וימלך על־ארם‬ βασιλεὺς ἀποδείκνυται. According to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Hadar-Hadad urged Pharao to release him, “and he returned to his country, and he was a bitter enemy of Israel, and he reigned in the land of Edom”. 𝔐𝔐 is more complicated: the story of Rezon is inserted before “and he



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reigned in Aram (Syria)”. Josephus had the longer story of 𝔐𝔐, but he tried to combine the Hadad and Rezon parts into one plot during Solomon’s life. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δύο σκῆπτρα 1 Kgs 11:32 ‫והשׁבט האחד‬ Ant. 8:207 µίαν φυλὴν καὶ ‫יהיה־לו‬ ἔσονται αὐτῷ τὴν ἑξῆς αὐτῆς δίδωσι. Ahijah tells Jeroboam that he is to receive ten tribes, “and one (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘two’) tribe will be for Solomon’s son”; 𝔐𝔐 is difficult, for Ahijah tore his cloak into twelve pieces. Josephus has: “(God) gives him one tribe and that adjoining it”; instead of mentioning a plain “two tribes”, he said “one tribe” like 𝔐𝔐, and the context prompted him to add another one. He already made the same correction in God’s warning to Solomon (Ant. 8:198 “two tribes” against 1 Kgs 11:13); thus, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 “two” here should be viewed as a correction, too. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. 1 Kgs 12:2 ‫וישׁב ירבעם במצרים‬ Ant. 8:212 πέµψαντες εἰς Αἴγυπτον... For the position of Jeroboam when he was summoned, see Chap. VII, § II. 1 Kgs 12:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 ובני ישׂראל הישׁבים‬-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:221 ἡ Ἰούδα φυλὴ καὶ ἡ Βενια‫בערי יהודה וימלך עליהם רחבעם‬ µίδος χειροτονοῦσιν αὐτὸν βασιλέα. At Shechem, “the sons of Israel who were living in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 omits the verse, and Josephus puts its content after Rehoboam’s return to Jerusalem (12:18), adapting it to the context: “The tribes of Judan and Benjamin elected him king;” he might have read ‫“ וימל)י(כו‬made him king”, instead of ‫וימלך‬, but this is unlikely, because he was concerned about David’s legitimate descent, against the schismatic northern kingdom. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὸ κόψα1 Kgs 13:31 (‫)ויהי אחרי‬ Ant. 8:242 πολυτελους κηδείας (‫קברו אתו )ויאמר אל בניו‬ σθαι αὐτόν ἠξίωσε ἐντειλάµενος τοῖς παισί. The old prophet of Bethel received the body of the man of God (Jeda), “and after he had buried (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘lamented’, from ‫ )ספדו לו‬him, he said to his sons” to bury him in the same grave. Josephus renders: “He honored him with a costly funeral, ordering his sons;” he agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. 1 Kgs 14:20 ‫והימים אשׁר מלך ירבעם‬ Ant. 8:287 ἐτελεύτησε δὲ καὶ ‫עשׂרים ושׁתים שׁנה‬ Ἱεροβόαµος ἄρξας ἐτη 22. The summary of Jeroboam’s reign, 22 years, is given only by 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 and Ant. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ignores 1 Kgs 14:1-20, but has a parallel story at 12:24g-h, which Josephus ignores. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπέθανεν Θαµνι καὶ 1 Kgs 16:22 ‫וי ָמת תבני‬ Ant. 8:311 ἀποκτείνουσιν om. Ιωραµ ὁ ἀδελφὸς αὐτοῦ τὸν Θαµαναῖον. For the succession of Zimri, Omri won, “and Thibni (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Thamni and Joram his brother’) died”; Josephus, with “they killed Thamni”, is close to 𝔐𝔐 (in spite of Thamni”, see § I.3, 1 Kgs 16:21) but he understood a passive form ‫ויֻמת‬. 1 Kgs 17:22 ‫ותשׁב נפשׁ‬... 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐγένετο οὕτως, καὶ Ant. 8:327 παρὰ πᾶσαν ‫הילד על־קרבו ויחי‬ ἀνεβόησεν τὸ παιδάριον προσδοκίαν ἀνεβίωσεν. God heard Elijah’s prayer “and the soul of the child returned within him, and he lived”; so 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus, who renders “beyond all expectation he lived again”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: “And it was so, and the child cried out.” 1 Kgs 18:21 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויִ ַגשׁ )אליהו אל־כל־העם‬-𝔏𝔏 προσήγαγεν Ant. 8:337 σταθεὶς Ἠλίας. King Ahab summoned all Israel to Mount Carmel, “and Elijah approached (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and he brought Elijah near’, from ‫ )ויַ ֶגשׁ‬all the people”; Josephus, with “Elijah stood up”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐.

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1 Kgs 18:27 ‫וכי־דרך לו‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:339 ἢ γὰρ ἀποδη‫אולי ישׁן‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἢ µήποτε καθεύδει µεῖν ἢ καθεύδειν. Elijah mocks the prophets of Baal: “He is on a journey (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.), maybe he is asleep”. Josephus has: “Either they are on a journey, or they sleep”; though he puts a plural “deities”, he broadly agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 1 Kgs 18:28 ‫ויתגדדו‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 κατετέµνοντο Ant. 8:340 τεµνόντων αὑτούς, ‫כמשׁפטם‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. κατὰ τὸ πάτριον ἔθος. The prophets of Baal “gashed (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘cut down’) themselves according to their custom (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “Cut themselves according to the ancestral custom.”

1 Kgs 18:32 ‫ויעשׂ תעלה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐποίησεν Ant. 8:341 δεξαµένην (‫)כבית סאתים זרע‬ 𝔊𝔊 θααλα, 𝔏𝔏 θάλασσαν ὤρυξε βαθυτάτην. Around his altar, Elijah “made a channel (𝔊𝔊 transcribes, 𝔏𝔏 ‘sea’, maybe alluding to Solomon’s device), able to hold some two seahs of seed”; Josephus, with “he dug a very deep trench”, correctly understood ‫תעלה‬. 1 Kgs 18:39 ‫𝔊𝔊 וירא כל־העם ויפלו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔπεσεν πᾶς ὁ λαός Ant. 8:343 ἰδόντες ἔπεσον. When the fire came from heaven, “all the people saw (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.) and they fell on their faces”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “They saw and fell.” 1 Kgs 20:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ובן־הדד‬υἱὸς Αδερ Ant. 8:363 ὁ τοῦ Ἀδάδου υἱος ‫ 𝔏𝔏 מלך־ארם‬υἱὸς Αδερ βασιλεὺς Συρίας βασιλεύων τῶν Σύρων. For “Ben-hadad, king of Aram”, Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐 (and partly with 𝔏𝔏). 1 Kgs 20:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 אם־ישׂפק‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰ ἐκποιήσει Ant. 8:371 τὴν στρατιὰν ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )עפר שׁמרון( לשׁעלים‬ταῖς ἀλώπεξιν, 𝔏𝔏 δράξι κατὰ δράκα λαµβάνουσαν. Ben-hadad swears that “the dust of Samaria will suffice for the handfuls (𝔊𝔊 ‘foxes’, from ‫ ”)שועלים‬of all his people; the metaphor his not very clair, and Josephus, following the 𝔐𝔐 reading, ventured another image: “Each man of his army, taking a handful of dust”, will erect an earthwork higher than the city walls. We can hardly fathom a different Hebrew source. 1 Kgs 20:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אל־יתהלל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:372 µὴ καυχᾶσθαι καθωπλισµένον, ‫𝔊𝔊 חגר כמפתח‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ κυρτὸς ὡς ὁ ὀρθός ἀλλὰ τῇ µάχῃ κρείττω γενόµενον. Ahab replied to Ben-hadad: “Do not let boast him who girds his armor like the one who takes it off (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the hunchback like the right-backed’, maybe from a different Hebrew).” Josephus, with “no boasting when taking armor, but after having prevailed in battle”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 1 Kgs 20:16 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויצאו )בצהרים‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐξῆλθεν Ant. 8:374 ἀνοίξας τὰς πύλας ‫𝔊𝔊 = ובן־הדד שׁתה שׁכור‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐξέπεµπε τοὺς παῖδας. After Ben-hadad’s threats, Ahab took the initiative, “and they (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘he’) went out at noon, and Ben-hadad was drunk”; for 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Ahab went out, but Josephus says: “He opened the gates, and sent out the children”, which is closer to 𝔐𝔐. 1 Kgs 20:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויאמרו אליו‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς Ant. 8:385 τούτων... φησάντων..., εἰ ‫עבדיו הנה־נא שׁמענו‬ παισὶν αὐτοῦ Οἶδα συγχωρήσειεν... ἀπελθεῖν, ἀφῆκεν. Ben-hadad was hidden, “and his servants said to him: Behold, we have heard (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and he said to his servant: I know’, from ‫ ”)ויאמר לעבדיו ידעתי‬that the kings of Israel are merciful. Josephus follows 𝔐𝔐 and expands: “These (servants) told him that the kings… and if he would allow them (to go to Ahab); and he let them go”.



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1 Kgs 21:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויהי כשׁמע‬-𝔏𝔏 adds διέρρηξεν τὰ ἱµάτια ἑαυ- Ant. 8:360 ὁ δὲ Ἄχαβος ‫אחאב כי מת נבות‬ τοῦ καὶ περιεβάλετο σάκκον ἥσθη τοῖς γεγενηµένοις. Naboth was stoned, and “when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘he rent his garments and put on sackcloth’, similar to 21:27, after God’s warning, Ant. 8:362, see next note)”, he arose &c.; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 introduces a mourning time between Naboth’s death and Ahab’s taking over his field. Josephus did not see this feature, for he rendered: “Ahab was pleased at what happened.” 1 Kgs 21:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וישׂם־שׂק על־בשׂרו‬-𝔏𝔏 + καὶ ἐπορεύετο κλαίων Ant. 8:362 σακκίον ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויצום וישׁכב בשׂק‬-𝔏𝔏 (...περιεβάλετο σάκκον) ἐνδυσάµενος γυµνοῖς 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 + ἐν τῇ ἡµέρᾳ ᾗ ἐπάταξεν... τοῖς ποσὶ διῆγεν οὐχ ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויהלך אט‬καὶ ἐπορεύθη, 𝔏𝔏 om. ἁπτόµενος τροφῆς. When he heard God’s warning, Ahab tore his clothes “(𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and he went weeping’) and he put on sackcloth, and fasted, and lay (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘wrapped’) in sackcloth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘in the day when he smote Naboth’), and went about (𝔏𝔏 om.) softly (𝔊𝔊 om., Or. κεκλιµένος ‘bent’, targ. ‫‘ יחיף‬barefoot’, see 2 Sam 15:30)”. Josephus does not know the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 variants, and renders (partially): “Putting on sackcloth, went barefoot, not touching food”; for the difficult ‫( אט‬not rendered in Greek), he agrees with targ. “barefoot”, but this was a normal penance custom, all the more that he adds that Ahab “confessed his sins” (as in the Kippur rite). 1 Kgs 22:26 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )והשׁיבהו אל( אמן‬πρὸς Σεµηρ, 𝔏𝔏 (Σ)εµµηρ Ant. 8:410 ἀπαχθέντα 2 Chr 18:25 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )והשׁיבהו אל( אמן‬πρὸς Εµηρ, 𝔏𝔏 Σεµµηρ πρὸς Ἀχάµωνα. The governor of Samaria is “Amon”; Josephus’ mss poorly transcribe “Achamon”, while the 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 forms witness either a Hebrew ‫אמר‬, with a dittography of σ-, or else ‫שמר‬, with a haplography (possibly connected with Shemer, the early owner of the hill of Samaria city, see 1 Kgs 16:24 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Σεµηρ). 1 Kgs 22:38 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁטף את־הרכב‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἀπένιψαν Ant. 8:417 τὸ ἅρµα ἀποπλύναντες (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )על ברכת שׁמרון‬τὸ αἷµα, 𝔏𝔏 + τοῦ ἅρµατος ἐν τῇ Ἱεζερήλα κρήνῃ. After Ahab’s funeral, “he (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they’) washed the chariot (𝔊𝔊 ‘the blood’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘the blood of the chariot’, a correction) by the pool of Samaria”; Josephus, with “they washed the chariot in the pool of Jezreel”, agrees more with 𝔐𝔐; he has “Jezreel” instead of “Samaria”, not because a variant, but in order to fulfill Elijah’s prophecy, for he thought that Naboth had been stoned at Jezreel, his city, see Ant. 8:361-363. 2 Kgs 1:3 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = המבלי אין־אלהים בישׂראל‬προφήτην Ant. 9:20 εἰ θεὸν ὁ λαὸς οὐ ἔχει. Elijah is sent to ask Ahaziah: “Is it because there is no God (𝔏𝔏 ‘prophet’) in Israel?” Josephus renders: “Whether the people do not have God?” 2 Kgs 3:4 (‫𝔊𝔊 ומישׁע )מלך־מואב‬-𝔏𝔏 Μωσα Ant. 9:29 τῶν Μωαβιτῶν βασιλέα Μεισάν. For “Mesha, king of Moab”, the Mesha stele only displays a defective ‫משׁע‬. 2 Kgs 3:18 (‫𝔊𝔊 ונתן )את־מואב בידכם‬-𝔏𝔏 παραδώσω Ant. 9:36 κρατήσετε τῶν ἐχθρῶν. Elisha prophesies, in the name of God: “And he will give (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘I will deliver’) Moab into your hand;” like 𝔐𝔐, Josephus does not give God’s words in direct speech: “You shall conquer the enemies.” 2 Kgs 3:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 )והכיתם( כל־עיר מבצר‬-𝔏𝔏 πᾶσαν πόλιν ὀχυρὰν Ant. 9:36 καλλίστας ‫𝔊𝔊 וכל־עיר מבחור‬-𝔏𝔏 om. καὶ ὀχυρωτάτας πόλεις λήψεστε. Elisha’s prophecy continues: “And you shall strike every fortified city (𝔏𝔏 adds ‘in Moab’, 𝔐𝔐 adds ‘and every choice city’)”. Josephus, with “you shall take the fairest and strongest cities”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐.

156

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

2 Kgs 7:8 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = )וילכו( ויטמנו )וישׁבו‬om. Ant. 9:79 ἔξω τῆς παρεµβολῆς ἔκρυψαν. The four lepers went into the Syrian camp, they robbed everything, “and they went and they hid (𝔊𝔊 om.) and they returned”; 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏 imply, as Josephus understood, that “they hid outside the camp”. 𝔊𝔊 ἵππευσεν, 𝔏𝔏 ἐπέβη 2 Kgs 9:16 (‫וירכב )יהוא‬ Ant. 9:114 καθίσας ἐπ᾽ ἅρµατος. Jehu decided to go to Jezreel “and he rode in a chariot (𝔊𝔊 ‘a horse’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘he went over’, omitting any vehicle)”. Josephus, with “he sat in a chariot”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐.

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἶδεν τὸν 2 Kgs 9:17 ‫וירא את‬ Ant. 9:114 ἱδὼν µετὰ πλήθους (‫שׁפעת יהוא )בבאו‬ κονιορτὸν Ιου προσελαύνοντα τὸν Ἰηοῦν. The watchman was on a tower “and he saw the multitude (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘dustcloud’, maybe from ‫אבקת‬, a misreading of the rare ‫ )שׁפעת‬of Jehu as he came”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “Seeing Jehu advancing with a multitude.” 2 Kgs 13:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וימת חזאל וימלך( בן־הדד‬-𝔏𝔏 υἱὸς Αδερ (Α Αζερ) Ant. 9:184 εἰς Ἀδδάν. After Elisha’s death, “Hazael died, and Ben-hadad his son became king”. Josephus, who consistently omits “Ben” in such names, hardly distinguishes between him and his grandfather Ben-hadad; the same can be said of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, see above 1 Kgs 20:1. 2 Kgs 14:29 ‫𝔏𝔏 = זכריה בנו‬, 𝔊𝔊 Αζαριας υἱὸς Αµεσσιου Ant. 9:215 ὁ υἱὸς Ζαχαρίας. Zechariah succeeds his father Jeroboam II of Israel. 𝔊𝔊 has mistakenly “Azariah son of Amaziah”, the king of Judah introduced in the next verse (15:1). 2 Kgs 16:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 = השׁיב רצין מלך ארם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:245 λαβὼν τὴν πόλιν Ἠλαθούς, (‫𝔊𝔊 )את( אילת )לארם‬-𝔏𝔏 Αιλαθ ἐγκατῴκισεν αὐτῇ Σύρους, ‫𝔊𝔊 )וינשׁל את־היהודים( מאילות‬-𝔏𝔏 Αιλαθ τοὺς πέριξ Ἰουδαίους διαφθείρας. During his war against Judah, “Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram, and cleared the Judeans out of Eloth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Elath’). For Josephus, “he took the city of Elath, settled there Syrians-Arameans, and destroyed the Judeans in the vicinity”; his distinguishing between Elath and the “vicinity” indicates that he read ‫אילות‬, like 𝔐𝔐. The end of the verse, not rendered by Josephus, has: “The Edomites (𝔐𝔐 Ket ‘Arameans’) came to Elath and have lived there to this day.” Josephus avoids the confusion, but that ending is puzzling. Indeed, according to 1 Kgs 9:26, Solomon built a fleet of ships at “Ezion-geber near Eloth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αιλαθ) on the shore of the Read Sea, in the land of Edom”; at 2 Kgs 14:22, we learn that “king Uzziah built Elath and restored it to Judah”. To sum up, “Edom” makes more sense here than “Aram”, but Josephus was content to follow his source. This was somehow necessary, for there is a discrepancy: this Rezin story of 2 Kgs, ignored by 2 Chr, does not mention king Ahaz, but after it, Josephus switches back to 2 Chr 28:5, which reports Ahaz’s capture by the king of Aram, who is not named. The common denominator of the two stories is the presence of king Pekah of Israel, who fights against Judah. 2 Kgs 17:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 קשׁר )אשׁר שׁלח‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀδικίαν Ant. 9:277 πέµψας κρύφα πρὸς Ὤαν (‫ 𝔊𝔊 מלאכים אל( סוא )מלך־מצרים‬Σηγωρ, 𝔏𝔏 Αδραµελεχ παρακαλῶν ἐπὶ συµµαχίαν. The king of Assyria found with Hosea of Israel “a conspiracy (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘iniquity’, maybe from a misreading ‫)פשׁע‬, who had sent messengers to So (𝔊𝔊 ‘Segor’, from ‫צער‬, cf. Gen 14:8; 𝔏𝔏 ‘Adramelech the Ethiopian dwelling in Egypt’, a detail of unknown origin, for according to 2 Kgs 19:37, Adrammelech was Sennacherib’s son) king of Egypt”. For both variants, Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “He had se-



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cretly sent to Soa, asking for an alliance” against the king of Assyria”; in he phrase πρὸς Ὤαν, a σ fell by haplography. 2 Kgs 21:18 and 2 Chr 33:20 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אמון‬Αµως, 𝔏𝔏 Αµων Ant. 10:46 Ἀµµῶν, Amon. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐκ Βασουρωθ 2 Kgs 22:1 ‫)ושׁם אמו ידידה( מבצקת‬ Ant. 10:48 ἐκ Βοσκέθι. Josiah’s mother Jedidah was from “Bozkath (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Basuroth’, from ‫בצרות‬, ‘fortified places’, with a slight alteration ‫רו‬/‫”)ק‬. 2 Kgs 23:33 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מאה ככר־כסף‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:82 100 ἀργυρίου ‫ 𝔊𝔊 וככר זהב‬100, 𝔏𝔏 10 τάλαντα χρυσίου τάλαντα, ἓν δὲ χρυσίου. Nechao imposed a fine upon the land, “one hundred talents of silver and one (𝔊𝔊 ‘100’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘10’) talent of gold”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐.

III – Josephus’ Own Variants

III.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H 1 Kgs 2:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בחברון שׁבע שׁנים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:389 βασιλεύσας 7 ἔτη ἐν Χεβρῶνι ‫ובירושׁלם שׁלשׁים ושׁלשׁ‬ καὶ µῆνας 6, ἐν Ἱεροσολύµοις 33. 1 Kgs states that David reigned 40 years, “7 in Hebron, and 33 in Jerusalem”; Josephus says “7 years and 6 months in Hebron and 33 years in Jerusalem”, which agrees with 2 Sam 5:4-5 “he reigned 40 years, at Hebron 7 years and 6 months, and in Jerusalem 33 years (𝔏𝔏 corrects ‘32 years and 6 months’). At Ant. 7:60, Josephus did not report this chronology, for he switched from 1 Chr 12:40 to 2 Sam 5:6. Here, he probably had a gloss “7 years and 6 months”, which prevented him to give a wrong total of 40 years. 1 Kgs 4:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁנים־עשׂר נצבים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:35 στρατηγοὶ αὐτῷ καὶ ἡγεµόνες ἦσαν. Solomon had 12 deputies over all Israel; Josephus, with “he had commanders and officers”, does not give the number; then he names only ten, omitting Benhesed (v. 10) and Ahimaaz (v. 15, see next note). 1 Kgs 4:14 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ אחינדב‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:36 Ἀχινάδαβος, συνοικῶν 4:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ אחימעץ לקח את בשׂמת בת שׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 θυγατρὶ Σολόµωνος Βασίµᾳ. One of Solomon’s deputies, “Ahimaaz married Basemath, daughter of Solomon”, but Josephus says it of Ahinadab: he leapt from -‫ אחי‬to -‫אחי‬, himself or more probably his vorlage, for he was unable to find twelve deputies (see previous note). 1 Kgs 10:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׁנהבים‬-𝔏𝔏 λίθων τορευτῶν Ant. 8:181 καὶ πολὺς ‫וקופים ותוכּיים‬ καὶ πελεκητῶν ἐλέφας, Αἰθίοπές 2 Chr 9:21 𝔐𝔐 idem 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ὀδόντων ἐλεφαντίνων καὶ πιθήκων τε καὶ πίθηκοι. Beyond gold and silver, the Tarshish ships brought “ivory and monkeys and peacocks (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 1 Kgs ‘carved and hewn stones’, with hapaxes; 2 Chr ‘ivory and monkeys’)”. Josephus puts “ivory, Ethiopians and monkeys”; he did not see either form of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, and his strange “Ethiopians” comes from a misreading ‫כושים‬ for ‫( תוכים‬targ. ‫ טווסין‬and some 𝔏𝔏 mss ταώνων “peacocks”); he may have thought that Tarshish was close to Africa, because of the harbor Elath. 1 Kgs 11:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ סגר את־פרץ עיר דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:205 τῆς τῶν τειχῶν ‫𝔊𝔊 = וירא שׁלמה כי־עשׂה מלאכה הוא‬-𝔏𝔏 οἰκοδοµίας ἐπιµελητήν. ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויפקד אתו לכל־סבל בית יוסף‬-𝔏𝔏 στρατηγίαν ἐπὶ τῆς Ἰωσήπου φυλῆς.

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Solomon “closed the breach (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the wall’) of the city of David… and Solomon saw that Jeroboam was a doer of work, and he appointed him over all the labor (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘levies’) of the house of Joseph”. Josephus combines, maybe from a somewhat different text: “Solomon appointed him for the building of the walls, then rewarded him with the command over the tribe of Joseph.” 1 Kgs 11:42 & 2 Chr 9:30 ‫ שׁנה‬40 = 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:211 βασιλεύσας 80 ἔτεσι. Solomon reigned “40 years”, but Josephus puts “80 years”, maybe in order to remove an inconsistency: according to 1 Kgs 14:21 Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, became king aged 41 (Ant. 8:264), so that he would have been born while David was still alive. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καθήµενον 1 Kgs 13:14 (‫)וימצאהו‬ Ant. 8:238 καταλαβών... ὑπὸ δένδρῳ ‫ישׁב תחת האלה‬ ὑπὸ δρῦν βαθεῖ καὶ σκιὰν ἔχοντι δρυός. Following the man of God, the false prophet “found him sitting under the terebinth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘oak’, from ‫האלון‬, which is graphically close)”; the terebinth is not a big, shadow-giving tree like the oak. Josephus’ rendering is lengthy and somewhat embarassed: “coming upon him, who was under a thick tree that had shadow like an oak”; he probably read ‫“ האלה‬the terebinth” in his source, and ‫האלון‬ or ‫“ כאלון‬like an oak” in a gloss. 1 Kgs 13:31end Ant. 8:242 adds ὑβρισθήσεσθαι οὐδὲν σὺν ἐκείνῳ ταφείς. (2 Kgs 23:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וימלטו עצמתיו את עצמות הנביא אשׁר־בא משׁמרון‬-𝔏𝔏) The false prophet tells his sons to bury him, when he dies, with the man of God (Jeda). Josephus adds: “So, he would suffer no mutilation after death if he is buried with him”; this alludes to a later story: when king Josiah came to Bethel and burned the bones on the altar, he learnt of the mixed bones “and they let his (Jeda’s) bones escape with the bones of the prophet who came from Samaria” (2 Kgs 23:18). But when he expounds Josiah’s reforms, Josephus omits this line (Ant. 10:67), which suggests that here he had a gloss akin to it. 1 Kgs 17:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ופנית לך( קדמה‬-𝔏𝔏 κατὰ ἀνατολάς Ant. 8:319 ἀνεχώρησεν πρὸς νότον. God said to Elijah: “Go and turn eastward.” But according to Josephus, “he withdrew towards the south”; this a correction of his own, for Gilead, Elijah’s city, was beyond the Jordan, and God told him to hide by a brook facing the Jordan. 1 Kgs 18:22 (‫𝔊𝔊 )אני נותרתי נביא‬-𝔏𝔏 adds καὶ οἱ προAnt. 8:338 µόνος ὢν προφή50-‫ ו‬400 ‫ ונביאי הבעל‬φῆται τοῦ ἄλσους 400 της, ἐκείνων 400 ἐχόντων. On Mount Carmel, Elijah says: “I am left one prophet of Yhwh, and the prophets of Baal are 450 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and the prophets of the Grove-Asherah, 400’, from ‫ ;”)ונביאי האשׁרה‬the shorter 𝔐𝔐 may be an abbreviation of the full phrase “450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah”, given at 8:319. As for Josephus, he had the longer 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 form, but he leapt from (‫ ארבע־מאות )וחמשׁים‬to ‫ארבע מאות‬. 1 Kgs 19:16 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 מאבל מחולה‬Εβαλµαουλα, 𝔏𝔏 Αβελµ. Ant. 8:352 ἐκ πόλεως Ἀβέλας. “Abel” or “Abil” is the first part of several compound place names, which Josephus often shortens, e.g. Ant. 4:176 Ἀβίλα for “Abel-shittim” (Deut 32:49). 1 Kgs 20:30 ‫ אפקה אל־העיר‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וינסו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:383 εἰς Ἀφεκὰ πόλιν αὐτῶν. After their defeat, Ben-hadad’s surviving troops “fled to Aphek, into the city”. Josephus renders “to Aphek their city”, apparently from ‫ ;אפקה עירם‬this must



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have been a misreading, since according to the context Aphek was not in Syria, but within the territory of Israel. 1 Kgs 20:35 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואישׁ אחד מבני הנביאים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:389 προφήτης τις Μιχαίας τοὔνοµα. There appears “one man of the sons of the prophets”. Josephus gives his name, Mikaiah, who according to 1 Kgs 22:8 was Ahab’s adversary (see § II.1, Ant. 8:403 and the following note); he probably had it as a gloss. (Rabbinic tradition offers the same plausible identification, b.Sanh 89a.) 1 Kgs 20:42end Ant. 8:392 adds παροξυνθεὶς πρός..., φυλάττεσθαι ἐκέλευσε. After the prophet’s speech, Ant. adds that Ahab “was infuriated by him; he ordered him to be locked up”; Josephus identifies the prophet with Mikaiah (see previous note); however, at 1 Kgs 22:27 Ahab orders to put the same Mikaiah in jail (‫ ;)שׂימו את־זה בית הכלא‬we may surmise that here Josephus read a similar gloss. 1 Kgs 22:2 ‫ אל־מלך ישׂראל‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁנה השׁלישׁית‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:400 φιλία... ἐπὶ τρία ἔτη. Down to Ant. 8:398 Josephus has reported Jehoshaphat’ story according to 1 Chr 17:1-18:2, ignoring 1 Kgs. Here, he introduces a detail (friendship between Ahab and Ben-hadad, see Ant. 8:387) that 1 Kgs alone witnesses; from this point on, he returned to 1 Kgs 22, which is closely parallel to 2 Chr 18 (till Ahab’s death). See Chap. VII, § I, 2 Chr 18:2. 1 Kgs 22:19 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר( לכן )שׁמע‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐχ οὕτως Ant. 8:406 Μιχαία εἰπόντος ὡς 2 Chr 18:18 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ויאמר( לכן )שׁמעו‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐχ οὕτως προσῆκεν ἀκροᾶσθαι τῶν ὑπὸ θεοῦ. Mikaiah spoke against the false prophets, “and he said: Therefore (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘not so’, from ‫לא כן‬, a common variant), hear” Yhwh’s word. Josephus renders: “Mikaiah replied that it was a duty to listen to God’s words”; this seems closer to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but he may have known both variants. 1 Kgs 22:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 ואישׁ משׁך בקשׁת‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐνέτεινεν εἷς τὸ τόξον A. 8:414 Ἀµανός, τοξεύσας. Josephus adds the name of Ahab’s slayer, Amanos (see § II.1); it should be viewed as a gloss, maybe from “Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Aram” (2 Kgs 5:1); the targ. of 2 Chr 18:33 offers the same identification. At Ant. 9:51, all the mss omit 2 Kgs 4:8-6:7, which includes Naaman’s story; this must be accidental, for Ant. resumes in the middle of a passage, see § II.1, 2 Kgs 6:9. 1 Kgs 22:42 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( עזובה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αζουβα, Αζαεβα Ant. 8:315 ἐκ γυναικὸς Ἀβιδᾶς. Here and at 2 Chr 20:31, the name given to Jehoshaphat’s mother is “Azubah”, which means “abandoned, forsaken”, a somewhat odd name; Josephus puts “Abida”, which has the same meaning in Aramaic (‫)אבידה‬. Thus, he read the Hebrew, understood, and inadvertently translated into his own language. 2 Kgs 4:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואשׁה אחת צעקה אל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:47 τὴν Ὀβεδίου τοῦ Ἀχάβου οἰκονόµῳ ‫אלישׁע לאמר עבדך אישׁי מת‬ γυναῖκα. ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς τοὺς προφήτας περιέσωσεν. ‫והנשׁה בא לקחת את־שׁני ילדי‬ αὐτοῦ δανεισαµένου τραφῆναι. νῦν ὑπὸ δανειστῶν. Then “one woman of the wives of the sons of prophets cried out to Elisha, saying: Your servant my husband is dead, and the creditor came to take my two sons”; building upon this debt, which is not explained, Josephus develops: She was “the wife of Obadiah, Ahab’s steward; her husband saved the prophets, and borrowed money to feed them; now the creditors, etc.” Josephus has reported Obadiah’s story (8:329-330, from 1 Kgs 18:3-6), by the time of Elijah; here, he may have had a gloss explaining the debt.

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2 Kgs 6:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לא תכה האשׁר שׁבית‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:58 τοὺς νόµῳ ληφθέντας πολέµου ‫בחרבך ובקשׁתך אתה מכה‬ ἀποκτείναι ἔλεγεν εἶναι δίκαιον. Elisha replies to Jehoram, who wanted to kill the enemies trapped in Samaria: “You shall not smite; Would you smite those you have captured with your sword and bow?” On the contrary, Josephus renders: “He said it was right by the law of war to kill the captives”; he did not see the interrogative -‫( ה‬maybe dropped after ‫ תכה‬by haplography), and understood the first proposition as an interrogation “would you not smite those you have captured?” 2 Kgs 6:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כי־שׁלח בן־המרצח הזה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:68 Ἰώραµος ὁ τοῦ φονέως υἱός. Elisha was aware of the king’s threat and said: Did you see that “this son of a murderer sent” to take off my head? The phrase “son of a murderer” could be either a Semitism for “murderer”, or an allusion to “son of Ahab”, that is, Jehoram, king of Israel; so understood Josephus, for no king is named in the passage, and he may have read “Jehoram” in a gloss. 2 Kgs 7:6 (‫𝔊𝔊 )שׂכר־עלינו את־מלכי‬-𝔏𝔏 Χετταίων Ant. 9:77 συµµάχους τὸν Αἰγυπτίων ‫החתים )ואת־מלכי( מצרים‬ Αἰγύπτου βασιλέα καὶ τὸν τῶν νήσων. The Syrians are led to think that Jehoram “hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings od Egypt”; for Josephus, “he hired as allies the king of Egypt and the king of the Islands”; these “Islands” may come from a misreading ‫הכתים‬ “Kittim” instead of ‫החתים‬, for he knows nothing about the Hittites, see Ant. 1:139 & 7:131. In his paraphrase of Gen 10:4 (“The sons of Javan, Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim ‫ כתים‬and Dodanim/Rodanim”), he explains (Ant. 1:128): “Kittim (Χέθιµος) held the island of Kittima (Χέθιµα) – the modern Cyprus –, and from it all the islands and most maritime countries were named Kittim (Χεθίµ).” This extension of ‫ כתים‬to all the Mediterranean islands is witnessed, too, by Jubilees 24:28-29 & 37:10.3 2 Kgs 8:15 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויקח( המכבר‬µαχµα, χαββα, ναβρα Ant. 9:92 δίκτυον ἐπιβά(‫ 𝔏𝔏 )ויטבל במים ויפרשׂ על פניו‬στρῶµα, Sy. µαχβαρ (= 𝔐𝔐) λων αὐτῷ διάβροχον. After Hazael came back, “he took the cover (= 𝔏𝔏 and targ. ‫גונב‬, 𝔊𝔊 transcribes but the mss hesitate), and dipped it in water, and spread it on his face” and he died; there is no subject, so that Ben-hadad, who was sick, may have killed himself. For Josephus, Hazael was the murderer; he renders “(Hazael) spread a net dipped in water” and suffocated him; the “net” hardly translates ‫מכבר‬, but would match a reading ‫“ מכמר‬net” (corresponding to 𝔊𝔊 µαχµα), see Isa 51:20, Psa 141:10; it must be a misreading, for “dipped in water” is meaningless for suffocating with a net. 2 Kgs 9:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 והמנהג כמנהג‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ ἄγων ἦγεν τὸν Ιου ὅτι Ant. 9:117 σχολαίοτερον ‫יהוא כי בשׁגעון ינהג‬ ἐν παραλλαγῇ ἐγένετο καὶ µετ᾽ εὐταξίας ὥδευεν. The watchman says: “The driving is like Jehu’s driving, for he drives furiously”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: “The driver drove Jehu, for he was in separation (from ‫ ;המנהג ינהג יהוא כי בשגעון הוא‬παραλλαγή is a hapax)”, that is, Jehu was unable to drive, for he was somehow upset; the transformation can be explained as a mistake of the Hebrew: there was first ‫ ינהג‬instead of ‫( כמנהג‬as in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏) and the latter word was a marginal explanation; then it was introduced into the text, and ‫ינהג‬ was rejected at the end of the verse.4 Josephus does not follow 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, since he 3 4

See Étienne NODET, “Les Kittim, les Romains et Daniel”, RB 118 (2011), p. 260-8. See Frank ZIMMERMANN, “The Perpetuation of Variants in the Massoretic Text”, JBL 55 (1936), p. 458-74, who gives several examples.



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renders: “He was going along slowly and in good order”, with apparently a misreading of the rare ‫( שׁגעון‬related to ‫)?שקט‬, for he knows the verb ‫“ שׁגע‬be mad”, see Ant. 6:245, about David feigning madness. The targ. follows 𝔐𝔐, but translates ‫ בשׁגעון‬into ‫“ בניח‬calmly”, like Josephus (maybe its source). 𝔊𝔊 Μαγεδδων, 𝔏𝔏 Μαγεδδω 2 Kgs 9:27 ‫)וינס( מגדו‬ Ant. 9:121 εἰς Μαγιαδδώ. Josephus knows Megiddo, see § II.1, 1 Kgs 9:15; here, he read ‫מגידו‬. 2 Kgs 11:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 השׂדרות‬-𝔏𝔏 σαδηρωθ Ant. 9:151 εἰς τὴν φάραγγα τὴν Κεδρῶνος. Athaliah is to be brought out “in the ranks (of soldiers, see v. 8; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes)”; the parallel 2 Chr 23:14 has the same word, which is ignored by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. Josephus speaks of “the valley of Kedron”, from a reading ‫ ;הקדרון‬he may have been influenced by the “gate of the horses (or mules) of the king’s house”, where she was killed, see chap. VII, § I, 2 Chr 23:15. 2 Kgs 13:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂה הרע בעיני יהוה לא סר מחטאות ירבעם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:178 ἀγαθὸς ἦν. King Jehoash of Israel “did evil in the sight of Yhwh; he did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam”, but Josephus states that “he was good”. We can hardly imagine another form of the verse as Josephus’ source; it rather seems that he discarded it because of Jehoash’s good deeds (a visit to dying Elisha, victories over Aram). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ιωαδιν 2 Kgs 14:2 (Qer ‫ושם אמו יהועדין )יהועדן‬ Ant. 9:186 Ἰωάδης, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ιωαδεν 2 Chr 24:1 ‫שם אמו יהועדן‬ Ἰωδάδης. Amaziah became king of Judah, “and his mother’s name was Jehoaddin (Qer and 2 Chr ‘Jehoaddan’)”; Josephus may have read ‫יהועד‬, or ‫ יהועדן‬while viewing ‫ן‬- as an ending. Then he moves to 1 Chr, with Amaziah’s army and his attempt to hire soldiers from Israel (Ant. 9:187). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ιερουσα 2 Kgs 15:33 ‫)מלך בירושׁלם‬ Ant. 9:236 ἐκ µητρὸς ἀστῆς γε(‫ושׁם אמו( ירושׁא )בת־צדוק‬ γωνὼς καλουµένης Ἰεράσης. Jotham became king and “reigned in Jerusalem, and his mother’s name was Jerusha, the daughter of Zadok”; the parallel 2 Chr 27:1 has ‫ירושה‬. Josephus renders: “(Jotham was) born from a mother called Jerase, a native of the capital”; he read ‫ירשה‬, and the last detail is an addition. We can suspect that his source had a marginal correction -‫ירושׁ‬, which, by analogy with Uzziah’s mother, he understood as ‫“ ירושׁלם‬Jerusalem”, hence “the capital”. 2 Kgs 16:9 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויַ ְג ֶל ַה( קירה‬om., 𝔏𝔏 τὴν πόλιν Ant. 9:253 ἀπῴκισεν εἰς τὴν Μηδίαν. The king of Assyria went up against Damascus “and exiled it (𝔏𝔏 om. ‘it’, reading ‫ )ויַ ְג ֶלה‬to Kir (𝔏𝔏 ‘the city’, from ‫”)קריה‬. Josephus has “he exiled (the Damascenes) to Media”, from ‫ ;מדיה‬he read ‫דיה‬- (close to 𝔏𝔏), and guessed according to the parallel story at 2 Kgs 18:11 (see below). The mistake or correction was already in the summary (9:s14), where he says, too, that the ten tribes of Israel were exiled to Media (s16). 2 Kgs 17:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁלח יהוה בהם את־האריות‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:289 λοιµὸς αὐτοῖς ἐνέσκηψεν. The new settlers did not worship God, “and Yhwh sent the lions among them”; Josephus says that “a pestilence fell upon them”; a variant has λοιµόν, hence “God brought upon them a pestilence”; in any case, this is most probably Josephus’ reworking, and not another reading (‫ ֶד ֶבר‬, θάνατος). 2 Kgs 17:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הליכו שׁמה אחד מהכהנים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:289 ἐδέοντο ἱερεῖς... ἀποστεῖλαι. The king of Assur ordered: “Take there one of the priests”; no request is reported, but Josephus restores it: “They asked him to send priests”. The plural is

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likely Josephus’ interpretation, for the sake of verisimilitude. We may wonder why they did not contact the Jerusalem priests, supposed to have the same God and worship. 2 Kgs 17:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אשׁר צוה יהוה את־בני יעקב‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:291 ὡς ἐξ Ἰωσήπου φύντες. The Samaritans are supposed to observe the precepts “that Yhwh commanded the sons of Jacob”. For Josephus, they pretend “to descend from Joseph”, that is, from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh”, a tolerable interpretation; he has explained how the new settlers have replaced the tribes, see § III.2, 2 Kgs 17:28. 2 Kgs 18:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הכה את־פלשׁתים עד־עזה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:274 ἀπὸ Γάζης µέχρι Γίττης. Hezekiah “smote the Philistines as far as Gaza” and its territory. Josephus has “from Gaza to Gath”; “Gath” may be either an interpretation of the “territory” (but it was already subdued by Hazael, see Chap. VII, § II, 2 Kgs 12:18), or else a misreading in the source, with a marginal correction, hence a kind of doublet. 2 Kgs 18:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויגל את־ישׂראל אשׁורה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:278 πάντα τὸν λαὸν µετῴκισεν ‫( וערי מדי‬...‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׁב אתם‬-𝔏𝔏 ὄρη Μήδων εἰς τὴν Μηδίαν καὶ Περσίδα. The king of Assur “exiled Israel to Assur, and settled them... and in the cities (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Syr. ‘mountains’, from ‫ ;והרי‬some mss have ὁρίοις ‘territories’) of the Medes”; Josephus omits the first three places of exile, but adds “Persia”, maybe thinking already of Cyrus. 2 Kgs 18:13 ‫כל־ערי יהודה הבצרות‬ Ant. 10:13 Ἰούδα φύλης καὶ Βενιαµίτιδος. Sennacherib came up against “all the fortified cities of Judah”; Josephus adds “and Benjamin”, as he did at Ant. 9:247, since the kingdom of Jerusalem contained the two tribes. 2 Kgs 20:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ שׁלח בראדך בלאדן‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:30 ὁ τῶν Βαβυλωνίων βασιλεὺς ‫בן־בלאדן מלך־בבל ספרים ומנחה‬ Βαλάδας πέµψας πρὸς Ἐζεκίαν. After the sign performed by Isaiah, “Berodach-baladan (𝔐𝔐; all the other witnesses read ‘Merodach-b.’) son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µαναα) to Hezekiah”. Josephus has “Baladas, king of Babylon”; the shortened name might be a mere mistake, of Josephus or his source, but it probably comes from the historian Berossus, whom Josephus alludes to. 2 Kgs 23:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ונשׂא את־עפרם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:65 τὴν σποδὸν αὐτῶν διέσπειρε. Josiah burnt the pagan items “and carried their dust (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὸν χοῦν αὐτῶν)”. Josephus has: “He scattered their ashes”; he read or understood ‫ אפר‬instead of ‫עפר‬. 2 Kgs 23:31 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ושׁלשׁה חדשׁים מלך בירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:83 µῆνας 3 ἡµέρας 10. Jehoahaz “reigned three months in Jerusalem”; Josephus has “three months and ten days”, like Jehoiachin’s reign according to 2 Chr 36:9 (see next note); he may have read a gloss of doubtful origin. 2 Kgs 24:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ושׁלשׁה חדשׁים מלך בירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:98 µῆνας 3 ἡµέρας 10. Jehoiachin “reigned three months in Jerusalem”; Josephus has “three months and ten days”, which agrees with the parallel 2 Chr 36:9 (and 1 Esd 1:42); for the story of Jehoiachin, he follows 2 Kgs, and he may have read “and ten days” in his source. 2 Kgs 24:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂ הרע בעיני יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:100 φύσει χρηστὸς ὢν καὶ δίκαιος. King Jehoiachin “did evil in the sight of Yhwh”; so 2 Kgs as well as 2 Chr 36:9, but Josephus states the opposite: “Being kind and just.” At War 6:103, in an ad-



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dress to John of Gischala, Josephus already mentioned the noble example of Jeconiah (‫יכניה‬, Ιεχονια, the other name of Jehoiachin, see Jer 27[34]:20; 1 Chr 3:16), who with his family endured voluntarily captivity, hoping to save the city (see the next note). 2 Kgs 24:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצא יהויכין מלך־יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:100 ἐπάρας τὴν µητέρα καὶ τοὺς ‫הוא ואמו ועבדיו ושׂריו וסריסיו‬ συγγενεῖς παραδίδωσι τοῖς πεµφθεῖσιν. Jerusalem was besieged, “and Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out..., he and his mother and his servants and his captains and his eunuchs”. Josephus renders in a similar way (“removing his mother and relatives he delivers them to the envoys”), but adds that Jehoiachin did so after the Babylonians swore to spare the city, a free interpretation, maybe prompted by a story of a Manasseh-like conversion of Jehoiachin. According to 2 Kgs 25:27 Jehoiachin was in prison 37 years, and b.Sanh 37b states that such an ordeal prompted his conversion. 2 Kgs 24:14 10,000 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = והגלה את־כל־ירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:101 ἅπαντας τοὺς ἐν τῇ 24:16 7,000 ‫ואת כל־אנשׁי החיל‬ πόλει ἄγειν, ἦσαν εἰς 10,832. The deportation and plundering of Jerusalem, in Nebuchadnezzar’s 8th year, is given at 2 Kgs 24:13-16, with at least 17,000 deported people. Josephus renders 24:14 only (“and he led away into exile all Jerusalem... 10,000 captives”), and adds 832 people, apparently from the second item of the summary of Jer 52:2830 𝔐𝔐 (𝔊𝔊 omits): “These are the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away into exile: in the 7th year 3,023 Judeans; in the 18th year of Nebuchadnezzar 832 persons from Jerusalem; in the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile 745 Judeans; there were 4,600 persons in all”. Josephus’ combination is strange, for it disregards the dates; he may have read some gloss. 2 Kgs 25:3 ‫ שׁנה למלך‬11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = במצור עד‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:146 ἀνῆψε τὸν ναὸν ‫ לחדשׁ‬9-‫𝔊𝔊 = צדקיהו ב‬-𝔏𝔏 µηνὶ 5 τῇ νουµηνίᾳ, 11 ἔτει 2 Kgs 25:8 (‫ )לחדשׁ‬7-‫( ב‬5 ‫“ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = )ובחדשׁ‬9” τῆς Σαχχίου βασιλείας, 18 ‫ למלך נבכדנאצר‬19 ‫𝔊𝔊 = היא שׁנת‬-𝔏𝔏 τῆς Ναβουχοδονοσόρου. Josephus says that Nebuzaradan “set fire to the temple on the new moon of the 5th month in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign, the 18th of Nebuchadnezzar’s”. It is a blend of various sources: Zedekiah’s year comes from the end of the siege (25:3 “until the 11th year of king Zedekiah, on the 9th day”; the parallel Jer 52:6 adds “of the 4th month”); the temple fire happened “on the 7th (𝔏𝔏 ‘9th’, Jer 52:12 ‘10th’) of the 5th month, in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar”, and Josephus’ new moon suggests that he misread the phrase ‫ובחדשׁ החמישׁי בשׁבעה לחדשׁ‬, somehow skipping from ‫ חדשׁ‬to ‫חדשׁ‬, hence “the 5th new moon”; his 18th year, instead of the 19th, may have come mistakenly from the summary of Jer 52:28-30 𝔐𝔐, in which Nebuchadnezzar’s second campaign was in his 18th year, and Nebuzaradan’s in the 23rd (see Chap. VIII, § III.4, Jer 52:4). It could be Josephus’ plain carelessness, but at AgAp 1:154 he repeats that “Nabuchodonosor in the 18th year of his reigh devastated our temple”; he adduces several quotations from Greek-speaking historians, which obviously afford no proof. Thus, he may have had a diffent version of the summary of Jer 52 𝔐𝔐.

III.2 Actual Readings of H 1 Kgs 1:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ושׁמעי‬Σεµει καὶ Ρηι Ant. 7:346 Σιµούεις H ‫ושמעי‬ ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ורעי‬Σεµει καὶ οἱ ἕταιροι αὐτοῦ (= ‫)ורעיו‬ Δαβίδου φίλος ‫רעו‬

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Among the opponents to Adonijah were “Shimei and Rei (𝔏𝔏 ‘and his companions’, from ‫ ורעיו‬or ‫ ;”)ורעו‬similarly to 𝔏𝔏, Josephus has “Shimei, David’s friend (from ‫”)רעו‬, but apparently he has not yet read 1 Kgs 2:9, where in his last speech David orders Solomon to put Shimei to death. (In fact, Josephus has replaced that piece with the instructions given at 1 Chr 22:6-16, see Ant. 7:337342.) 1 Kgs 1:49 ‫ ויחרדו ויקמו‬Ant. 7:360 ἀναπηδήσαντες Ἀδωνίας καὶ H ‫ויקמו‬ ‫כל־הקראים וילכו‬ οἱ κεκληµένοι ἔφευγον πρὸς ἑαυτούς ‫כל־הקראים וילכו‬ For 𝔊𝔊, 𝔏𝔏, and a discussion of this passage, see § I.4. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Βαινωρ, Βαιωρ 1 Kgs 4:8 ‫בן־חור‬ Ant. 8:35 Οὔρης H ‫חור‬ For “Ben-hur”, Josephus has “Hur”, but he makes no connection with Hur, grandfather of Bezalel (Exod 17:10; 31:2). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 υἱὸς Ρηχαβ, Ρηχας 1 Kgs 4:9 ‫בן־דקר‬ Ant. 8:35 Διόκληρος H ‫דקר‬ 1 Kgs 4:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 בן־אבינדב‬-𝔏𝔏 Χιναδαβ, Εναδαβ Ant. 8:35 Ἀβινάδαβος H ‫אבינדב‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 υἱὸς Γαβερ 1 Kgs 4:13 ‫בן־גבר‬ Ant. 8:36 Γαβάρης H ‫גבר‬ Josephus may have himself suppressed “son”, since a majority of the 12 deputies are not named “son of”, see previous notes. 1 Kgs 12:32 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂ ירבעם חג בחדשׁ השׁמיני‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:230 ἑβδόµῳ µηνί H ‫השביעי‬ In order to prevent the people from going to Jerusalem, “Jeroboam made a feast in the 8th month… like the feast in Judah”. This hardly makes sense, and Rabbinic tradition suggests that it was just an additional feast (j.AbodZ 1:1, 39b), allowing the possibility to go to Jerusalem for the traditional gathering of the 7th month. This view is somewhat related to 2 Chr 11:13-16, which ignores Jeroboam’s feast, but states that the priests and Levites of all Israel came to Judah and Jerusalem, as well as the pious people who did not accept Jeroboam’s idolatry. Anyway, Josephus wrote here “in the 7th month”, which must have been the original reading, though v. 33 explains, somewhat clumsily, “the month he had devised frm his own heart”, which should be viewed as a gloss. 1 Kgs 13:3 (‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ )זה המופת אשׁר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:232 ἵνα πιστεύσωσι... H ‫דבר יהוה‬ (‫דבר יהוה )הנה המזבח נקרע‬ σηµεῖον αὐτοῖς προερῶ ‫למען תדעו כי שלחני יהוה‬ The man of God (Jedo/Iddo) has prophesied the destruction of Jeroboam’s shrine, then he adds: “This is the wonder that Yhwh has spoken (targ. adds ‫‘ דתידעין די שלחני יהוה‬so that you may know that Yhwh sent me’, from ‫למען תדעו כי‬ ‫)שלחני יהוה‬: behold, the altar is split apart.” Josephus, with “so that they may believe... I shall foretell to them a sign”, displays an addition similar to targ., which may have reflected a longer original Hebrew, if we consider that 𝔐𝔐 – and later 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 – skipped from ‫ יהוה‬to ‫יהוה‬. It is unnecessary to conjecture that Josephus had a written targ. 1 Kgs 14:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 בעת ההיא חלה אביה בן־ירבעם‬-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 8:266 Ὁβίµην H ‫אבים‬ After the story of the false prophet at Bethel (Ant. 8:236f), “at that time, Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. the whole story, 14:1-20)”; Josephus calls him “Obimes”, from ‫אבים‬, a name that should not be confused with another Abijah, the son and successor of Rehoboam, see Chap. VII, § I, 1 Kgs 14:31. 2 Kgs 6:33 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )והנה( המלאך )ירד אליו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:70 Ἰώραµος... ἀφικόµενος H ‫המלך‬ The king has sent a messenger (‫ )מלאך‬to kill Elisha, but the latter was aware that “the sound of his master’s feet is behind him” (v. 36); then “the messenger



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came down to him (Elisha)”; Josephus understood that “Jehoram, repenting of his wrath against the prophet, arrived”; thus, he read ‫ המלך‬instead of ‫המלאך‬. 2 Kgs 17:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ )ויבא מלך־אשׁור( מבבל ומכותה ומעוא ומחמת וספרוים‬-𝔏𝔏 H ‫מבבל מכותה‬ See discussion § I.3. Maybe a noun like ‫ גוי‬or ‫ שם‬should be inserted between ‫ מבבל‬and ‫מכותה‬. 2 Kgs 17:28 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויהי מורה אתם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:290 τὸν θεὸν H = 𝔐𝔐 ‫איך ייראו את־יהוה‬ θρησκεύουσιν φιλοτίµως. 17:29-33 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויהיו עשׂים‬-𝔏𝔏 om. H om. 17:34 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = עד היום הזה‬-𝔏𝔏 χρώµενοι τοῖς H = 𝔐𝔐 (‫ 𝔏𝔏≈𝔊𝔊 אינם יראים )את־יהוה‬αὐτοὶ φοβοῦνται αὐτοῖς ἔτι H = ‫הם יראים‬ (...‫ וכתורה‬...) ‫ 𝔏𝔏≈𝔊𝔊 ואינם עשׂים‬αὐτοὶ ποιοῦσιν καὶ νῦν ἔθεσι H = ‫והם עושים‬ ‫𝔊𝔊 = אשׁר צוה יהוה את־בני יעקב‬-𝔏𝔏 διατελοῦσιν. H = 𝔐𝔐 This is a description of the early Samaritan worship (see also Chap. II, § I.1): 1) After a crisis among the new settlers, a priest was sent back, “and taught them how they should fear Yhwh”; this was done at Bethel, and not at the city of Samaria. Josephus speaks of “priests” and indicates that this was successful: “They worshipped God with great zeal”, which means that he agrees with the 𝔊𝔊 version, against 𝔐𝔐. (𝔏𝔏 somewhat combines 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔐𝔐.) 2) Josephus does not know the passage 17:29-33, which expounds the idolatry of the settlers: they combine it with an additional worship of Yhwh, the deity of the land. 3) Then verse 34 summarizes: “To this day... they do not fear (𝔊𝔊 ‘they fear’) Yhwh, and they do not act (𝔊𝔊 ‘they act’) according to... the law that Yhwh commanded he sons of Jacob” (see § III.1, 2 Kgs 17:34); Josephus has a short expression that agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “The same rites have continued in use even to this day”. There is no hint at any Samaritan syncretism.

IV – Conclusions There are two major features in Josephus’ rendering of the parts of 1-2 Kgs that have no parallel in 2 Chr: first, the exchange of the 1 Kgs chapters 20–21, in which he agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; second, the absence of 2 Kgs 17:29-33, a passage that shows a Samaritan syncretism (§ III.2). Other lesser details are omitted or expanded with personal comments and references to Greek historians. Many close contacts between Josephus and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 are inconsequential, but some draw attention (§ I.2): for 1 Kgs 7:38, Ant. 8:85 has a double rendering, including a word common to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but Josephus never uses it elsewhere; this is certainly a gloss due to copyists. In two cases, we find the same words in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant., but they are hapaxes in both: 1 Kgs 7:45 and 22:36; we may wonder in which direction was the borrowing, but in the second instance, the word of Josephus is more frequent in his phraseology. Some contacts are best explained by a Hebrew variant reading or an accidental omission in 𝔐𝔐 (§ I.3). Several contacts with 𝔏𝔏 are interesting (§ I.4), because

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two of them solve a little difficulty, so that they may reflect the original: 2 Kgs 14:29 and 21:26. In numerous instances, Josephus’ renderings are independent from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (§ II.1); he does not know the many additional verses of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; the contacts with 𝔐𝔐 are very numerous, sometimes against a shorter 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (§ II.2); a number of his strange renderings are best explained by Hebrew misreadings, or sometimes glosses (§ III.1); finally, in several cases, Josephus’ wording reflects a true Hebrew variant. To sum up, there is no objection to Josephus’ exclusive use of a Hebrew source. Incidentally, this suggests that the origin of the two Greek hapaxes common to Ant. and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 should be ascribed to Josephus. An additional clue can be added: 1 Kgs 22:42 gives the name of Jehoshaphat’s mother, “Azubah”, which means “abandoned” in Hebrew; Josephus rendered it as “Abida”, the Aramaic equivalent. In other words, Josephus read that very unusual name in Hebrew, understood it, and spontaneously translated it into his own language. The few contacts with the targum (e.g. § III.1: 2 Kgs 9:20; 2 Kgs 24:9) should not be overrated, because there is no indication that any written targums were extant by Josephus’ time, all the more so that they heavily depend on 𝔐𝔐.

CHAPTER SEVEN KINGS AND CHRONICLES For 1 Esd 1, which is another translation of 2 Chr 35-36 (with several different verses), see Chap. IX, introduction.

I – Josephus with 2 Chronicles against 1-2 Kings 2 Chr 1:5 ‫ ומזבח הנחשׁת‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וילכו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:22 ἐπὶ τοῦ χαλκοῦ θυσιαστηρίου 1 Kgs 3:4 ‫ גבענה לזבח‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וילך‬-𝔏𝔏 καταστευασθέντος ὑπὸ Μωυσέως. Solomon “went to Gibeon to sacrifice there”, according to 1 Kgs; 2 Chr is much longer (v. 3-6): “he went with all the congregation to the high place at Gibeon, for the tent of meeting was there, but David had brought the Ark to Jerusalem..., now the bronze altar was there before the tent... and Solomon went before Yhwh... and offered”. Josephus, with “he decided to go to Gibeon and sacrifice upon the bronze altar built by Moses”, ignores the “congregation” of 2 Chr but agrees with it otherwise; he shortens the story of the discrepancy between what David had done in Jerusalem, and Moses’ bronze altar at Gibeon. 2 Chr 1:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = חכמה ומדע תן־לי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:23 δός µοι νοῦν ὑγιῆ καὶ 1 Kgs 3:9 ‫ להבין בין־טוב לרע‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ונתת לב‬-𝔏𝔏 φρόνησιν ἀγαθήν, οἷς ἂν κρίνοιµι. Solomons prayer is reported in two different ways: 1) a longer form in 1 Kgs 3:6-9; beginning with a praise an ending with a request “You will give your servant a hearing heart to juge your people, to discern between good and evil, (for, he explains, ‘Who will be able to judge your people?’)”; 2) a shorter form in 1 Chr 1:8-10, beginning with a more concise praise, and ending with a request “Now give me wisdom and knowledge, that I may go out and come in before this people, (for Who will judge your people?)”. Josephus omits the praise and renders “Give me a sound mind and a good understanding, with which I may judge”, a wording closer to 2 Chr. 2 Chr 2:16 (‫ דויד‬...‫𝔊𝔊 )ויספר שׁלמה( הגירים )אחרי‬-𝔏𝔏 προσηλύτους Ant. 8:59 παροίκων 1 Kgs 5:29 om. οὓς Δαυίδης καταλελοίπει. Here, Josephus’ narrative flow follows 1 Kgs, but he recalls what he has said previously (7:335, from 1 Chr 22:2) on the aliens numbered by David. 2 Chr 3:14 ‫ ויעל עליו כרובים‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂ את־הפרכת‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:72 κατεπέτασε ὕφεσιν εὑ1 Kgs 6:32 om. ανθέστατοις. ἀνέθηκε Χερουβεῖς. In his description of the temple, Josephus mainly paraphrases 1 Kgs, but after the Holy of Holies, he introduces the “curtains, brightly colored, etc.” and adds “he set up the Cherubim”; both items come from 2 Chr 3:14, and Josephus may have read that verse in the margin, or perhaps in the text itself, for these items are missing in the narrative flow of 1 Kgs.

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2 Chr 4:5 ‫ יכיל‬3,000 ‫𝔊𝔊 בתים‬-𝔏𝔏 χωροῦσαν µετρητὰς 3,000 Ant. 8:80 ἐδέχετο ἡ 1 Kgs 7:26 ‫ בת יכיל‬2,000 = 𝔏𝔏; 𝔊𝔊 om. θάλασσα βάδους 3,000. For 1 Kgs, the Sea “could hold 2,000 baths (𝔊𝔊 omits)”, but “3,000” for 2 Chr and Ant. 2 Chr 4:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לרחצה בהם את־מעשׂה העולה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:87 τὴν θάλασσαν ἀπέδειξεν εἰς ‫ידיחו בם והים לרחצה לכהנים בו‬ τὸ νίπτειν τοὺς ἱερεῖς..., τοὺς λου1 Kgs 7:39 om. τῆρας εἰς τὸ καθαίρειν τὰ ἐντός... According to 2 Chr, the basins were made “to rinse things for the burnt offering, and the Sea for the priests to wash in”; 1 Kgs omits, but Josephus explains, in the reverse order and with a reminder of the priestly rules (Exod 40:31): “He set the Sea apart, for the priests to wash their hands and feet when entering the temple, and the lavers to clean the entrails of the sacrifices”. 2 Chr 7:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = והאשׁ ירדה מהשׁמים ותאכל העלה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:118 πῦρ ἐξ ἀέρος..., πάντων 1 Kgs 8:54 om. ὁρώντων, ἅπασαν τὴν θυσίαν... κατεδέσατο. When Solomon finished his prayer, 1 Kgs 8:55 says “he stood up and blessed the assembly” (the blessing, ignored by 2 Chr, is summarized by Josephus, 8:119-121), but here 2 Chr 7:1-3 inserts “the fire came down from heaven and devoured... the sacrifices...; all the sons of Israel, seeing the fire..., bowed down... and gave praise”. Josephus has this supplement: “a fire from the air..., in the sight of all, consumed... the whole sacrifice”. But it is not consistent with the sequel: according to 2 Chr 7:4 (// 1 Kgs 8:62 and Ant. 8:122), “the king and all the people offered sacrifices before Yhwh”. 2 Chr 8:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויבן את־תדמר במדבר‬-𝔏𝔏 Θεδµορ Ant. 8:154 Θαδάµοραν ὠνόµασε, 1 Kgs 9:18 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ואת־תמר במדבר בארץ‬Ιεθερµαθ, 𝔏𝔏 Τοδµορ οἱ Ἔλληνες, Παράµαλλαν. According to 2 Chr, Solomon “built Thadmor-Palmyra in the wilderness”, that is, in Syria, for in the sequel it mentions “all the storage cities which he had built in Hamath” in Syria, too (v. 4). 1 Kgs is different: “and Thammar (Ket, Qer ‫ תדמ ֹר‬and 𝔏𝔏 ‘T[h]admor’) in the wilderness in the land”, that is, in the wilderness of Judea (see Gen 15:47; Ezek 47:19). Josephus is closer to 2 Chr, for he struggles to explain why Solomon founded a city in such a place, Palmyra in the Syrian wilderness; he makes no connection between ‫“ תמר‬palm-tree” and Palmyra. 2 Chr 9:29 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ובחזות( יעדו )החזה על־ירבעם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιωηλ Ant. 8:231 ἐξ Ἱεροσολύµων 1 Kgs 13:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = והנה אישׁ אלהים בא מיהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 προφήτης Ἰάδων ὄνοµα. When Jeroboam was about to worship at Bethel, “there came a man of God from Judah”, who is not named (1 Kgs); Josephus has “a prophet named Iadon”; he mainly follows 1 Kgs for Jeroboam’s life, which 2 Chr ignores after the split. However, in the summary of Solomon’s life, we read at 2 Chr 9:29: “And the visions of Jedo the seer concerning Jeroboam”; moreover, Abijah was Rehoboam’s successor, and in the summary of his life, contrarily to the parallel 1 Kgs 15:7, 2 Chr 13:22 says: “His ways and his words are written in the midrash of the prophet Iddo (‫עדו‬, Αδδω)”, who probably was the same person. Now, Josephus did not see either passage of 2 Chr, but he must have read ‫( יעדו‬like 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐) in his source, or in a marginal gloss. 2 Chr. 12:16 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וימלך( אביה )בנו תחתיו‬-𝔏𝔏 Αβια Ant. 8:264 διεδέξατο δ᾽ αὐτοῦ 1 Kgs 14:31 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וימלך( אבים )בנו תחתיו‬-𝔏𝔏 Αβιου τὴν βασιλείαν ὁ υἱὸς Ἀβίας. The son and successor of Rehoboam is called “Abijah” in 2 Chr and Ant. 1 Kgs has “Abijam (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Abiou’, from ‫אבים ;”)אביהו‬, with its strange meaning “father



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of the sea”, should be held as an alteration of ‫ אביהו‬or ‫אביה‬. There may have been a confusion with Abijah, son of Jeroboam, see 1 Kgs 14:1. 2 Chr 16:4 ‫ אבל מים‬,‫ דן‬,‫𝔊𝔊 עיון‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιων, Δαν, Αβελµαιν Ant. 8:305 Ἰωάνου, 1 Kgs 15:20 ‫ אבל בית מעכה‬,‫ דן‬,‫𝔊𝔊 עיון‬-𝔏𝔏 Αιν, Δαν, Αβελµαα Δάνα, Ἀβελάνην. Of the cities taken by the king of Damascus, Josephus mentions only three; for the first and last ones, he is closer to 2 Chr; he does not identify it with Abel Beth-maakah of 2 Sam 20:14, which he transcribes Ἀβελωχέᾳ (Ant. 7:288, see Chap. IV, § II.1). 2 Chr 18:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויתחתן לאחאב‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:398 ἠγάγετο τῷ παιδὶ 2 Kgs 8:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כי בת־אחאב היתה־לו לאשׁה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ἰωράµῳ τὴν Ἀχάβου 2 Kgs 8:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ושׁם אמו עתליהו בת־עמרי מלך ישׂראל‬-𝔏𝔏 θυγατέρα, Ὀθλίαν. Josephus states that Jehoshaphat “married his son Joram to the daughter of Ahab, Athaliah”, but the Biblical authority is not clear: Josephus has just paraphrased Jehoshaphat’ story according to 2 Chr 17-18, and it is said in the middle (18:1) that “he allied himself by marriage with Ahab”, without naming the young couple. The parallel 1 Kgs 22:1 ignores the marriage, but 2 Kgs 8:18 confirms later that “Yehoram’s wife was Ahab’s daughter”; however, according to 2 Kgs 8:26 (and 2 Chr 22:2), Ahaziah succeeded his father Jehoram, “and his mother’s name was Athaliah, daughter of Omri, king of Israel”; the usual correction is “granddaughter of Omri” (Ahab’s father). Here, for the names “Jehoram” and “Athaliah”, Josephus’ source (2 Chr 18:1) must have had marginal glosses extracted from the 2 Kgs 8 verses. 2 Chr 18:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וירד לקץ שׁנים אל־אחאב לשׁמרון‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:398 πορευθέντα µετὰ χρόνον 1 Kgs 22:2 ‫ אל־מלך ישׂראל‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁנה השׁלישׁית‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Σαµάρειαν Ἄχαβος ὑπεδέξατο. After a peaceful period, Jehoshaphat “some years later went down to Ahab at Samaria”, and Ahab sacrificed for him and his people, etc. According to 1 Chr, followed by Josephus, who avoids alluding to a formal worship: “He went after some time to Samaria, and Ahab received him”, and entertained splendidly his army. 1 Kgs is different: “In the third year..., he came down to the king of Israel”, with no sacrifices. However, at Ant. 8:400, Josephus somehow alludes to it, see Chap. VI, § III.1. 2 Chr 18:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויסיתהו לעלות אל־רמות גלעד‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:398 παρεκάλεσε συµµαχῆσαι..., (1 Kgs 22:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויאמר מלך־ישׂראל אל־עבדיו‬-𝔏𝔏) ἵνα ἐν Γαλαδηνῇ Ἀραµαθὰ ἀφέληται. Jehoshaphat arrived at Samaria, and Ahab “induced him to go up against Ramot-gilead” (2 Chr), followed by Josephus: “He invited him to form an alliance..., in order to recover Ramot-gilead”. 1 Kgs is different: “The king of Israel said to his servants.” 2 Chr 18:31 (‫𝔊𝔊 = ויסבו )עליו להלחם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:413 ὅρµησαν ἐπ᾽αὐτὸν 1 Kgs 22:32 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויסרו )עליו להלחם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκύκλωσαν αὐτόν καὶ περικυκλωσάµενοι. The captains of Ben-hadad thought they had spotted Ahab “and they encircled (1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 ‘turned aside towards’, from a slight erasure of ‫ )ב‬him to fight”; Josephus, with “they rushed upon him, and surrounding”, agrees with 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐. 2 Chr 21:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ולא־אבה יהוה להשׁחית את‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:96 διὰ τὴν πρὸς Δαυιδην ‫בית דויד למען הברית אשׁר כרת לדויד‬ ὀµολογίαν οὐκ ἐβούλετο 2 Kgs 8:19 ‫ להשׁחית את־יהודה למען דוד‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ולא‬-𝔏𝔏 τούτου τὸ γένος ἐξαφανίσαι. Jehoram of Judah was wicked, but “Yhwh did not want to destroy Judah (2 Chr ‘the house of David’) for the sake of David (2 Chr ‘of the covenant that he had made with David’)”; Josephus, with “because of the promise toward David, he

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did not want to destroy his line”, agrees with 2 Chr; he never mentions any covenant. 2 Chr 21:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויעבר יהורם עם־שׂריו וכל־הרכב‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:97 µετὰ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν ἱπ2 Kgs 8:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויעבר יורם צעירה וכל־הרכב‬-𝔏𝔏 πέων καὶ τῶν ἁρµάτων... ἐνέβαλε. Edom revolted, “and Jehoram crossed over to Zair (𝔏𝔏 from Zion’, 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐 ‘with his commanders’, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘all the cavalry with him’) and all the chariots”; Josephus renders “with his horsemen and chariots... invaded”, and agrees with 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. The place name “Zair” is not clear (some view it as Seir-Edom). 2 Chr 21:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקברהו בעיר דויד ולא בקברות המלכים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:104 ὡς ἰδιώτην 2 Kgs 8:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקבר עם־אבתיו בעיר דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔθαψαν. After Jehoram’s death, “he was buried (2 Kgs adds ‘with his fathers’) in the city of David (2 Chr adds ‘but not in the tombs of the kings’); Josephus did not see 2 Kgs: “They buried him like a commoner”. 2 Chr 22:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימליכו יושׁבי ירושׁלם את־אחזיהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:104 παραδέδωκε τὴν ἀρχὴν 2 Kgs 8:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימלך אחזיהו בנו תחתיו‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ δῆµος τῷ παιδὶ αὐτοῦ Ὀχοζίᾳ. After Jehoram’s burial “and Ahaziah his son became (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the inhabitants of Jerusalem made’) king”; Josephus agrees with 2 Chr: “the people of Jerusalem delivered the power over his son Ochozias-Ahaziah”. 2 Chr 22:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ותקם( ו ְת ַדבר )את־כל־זרע‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἀπώλεσεν Ant. 9:140 µηδένα (‫הממלכה לבית יהודה‬ τῶν ἐκ τοῦ Δαυίδου 2 Kgs 11:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ותקם ותאבד את כל־זרע הממלכה‬-𝔏𝔏 καταλιπεῖν οἴκου. Athaliah “rose and destroyed (2 Chr 𝔐𝔐 ‘spoke’, should be read ‫‘ ו ַת ְד ֵבר‬subdued’) all the royal offspring (2 Chr adds ‘of the house of Judah’)”; for Josephus, she strove “to leave nobody of the house of David alive”, in agreement with 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Chr 22:11 (‫𝔊𝔊 יהושׁבעת )בת־המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιωσαβεθ Ant. 9:141 ἦν Ὀχοζίᾳ ‫ אחות אחזיהו‬...‫ אשׁת יהוידע הכהן‬...‫יהושׁבעת בת‬ ἀδελφὴ Ὠσαβεέθ. συνῆν 2 Kgs 11:2 (‫𝔊𝔊 יהושׁבע )בת־המלך־יורם אחות אחזיהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ιωσαβεε ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς Ἰώδας. After Athaliah’s deeds, there is an intervention of “Jehoshabeath (2 Kgs ‘Jehosheba’), the daughter of the king (2 Kgs adds ‘Jehoram, sister of Ahaziah’)”; but 2 Chr later goes on, without 2 Kgs parallel: “Jehoshabeath, the daughter..., the wife of Jehoiada the priest…, the sister of Ahaziah”. Josephus has “Ahaziah-Ochozias had a sister Jehoshabeath; she was married to the high priest Jehoiada-Jodas”; he agrees with 2 Chr (with mss distortions). 2 Chr 23:1 (five names) -‫𝔊𝔊 = את־שׂרי המאות ל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:143 κοινολογησάµενος 2 Kgs 11:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 = את־שׂרי המאות לכרי ולרצים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ἰώδας πέντε ἑκατοντάρχοις. In the seventh year Jehoiada took “the centurions of the Karites and the Runners (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὸν Χορρι καὶ τὸν Ρασιµ)”; instead of these two, 2 Chr puts five other names, which agrees with Josephus’ figure: “He took into his confidance five centurions” (no name is given). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µαχαίρας, 2 Chr 23:9 ‫ מגנות‬,‫חניתים‬ Ant. 9:148 δόρατα, φα‫שׁלטים‬ θυρεούς, ὅπλα ρέτρας, εἴ τι ἕτερον 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 σειροµάστας, τρισσούς 2 Kgs 11:10 ‫ שׁלטים‬,‫חנית‬ εἶδος ὅπλου. The conspirators were to use “the spears and shields (2 Chr ‘shields and shields’ or ‘large and small shields’); Josephus, with “spears and quivers and whatever kind of weapon”, agrees with 2 Chr, with three items, although the terminology is imprecise, see § II, 2 Chr 12:9.



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2 Chr 23:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעמד את־כל־העם ואישׁ שׁלחו בידו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:148 καθωπλισµένους 2 Kgs 11:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעמדו הרצים אישׁ וכליו בידו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔστησεν ἐν κύκλῳ. Jehoiada organizes Jehoash’s enthronement: “He stationed all the people, each man with his weapon in his hand”; 1 Kgs is different: “The Runners stood each with his weapons in his hands”. Josephus, with “(the officers) once armed, he stationed them in a circle”, is closer to 2 Chr, replacing “all the people” with the officers, since only they were bearing arms, according to the context. 2 Chr 23:12 ‫ והמהללים‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ותשׁמע עתליהו את־קול העם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:150 τῶν ἐπαίνων 2 Kgs 11:13 ‫ העם‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ותשׁמע עתליהו את־קול‬-𝔏𝔏 Ὀθλία ἀκούσασα. After Jehoash’s enthronement, “Athaliah heard the noise of the people (2 Chr adds ‘praising the king’)”; Josephus, with “Athaliah hearing the acclamations”, depends on 2 Chr. 2 Chr 23:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מבוא שׁער־הסוסים בית המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:152 ἐπὶ τὴν πύλην τῶν ἡµι2 Kgs 11:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מבוא הסוסים בית המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 όνων τοῦ βασιλέως ἤγαγον. Athaliah fled and arrived “at the entrance of (2 Chr adds “the gate of’) the horses of the king’s house”. For Josephus, “they led her to the gate of the king’s mules”, close to 2 Chr; the “mules” may reflect a memory of his, e.g. the entrance of animals laden with supplies. 2 Chr 23:20 (‫𝔊𝔊 האדירים )והמושׁלים‬-𝔏𝔏 πατριάρχας Ant. 9:156 µετὰ τῶν ἑκατοντάρ2 Kgs 11:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואת־הכרי ואת־הרצים‬-𝔏𝔏 χων, ἡγεµόνων, λαοῦ παντός For Jehoash’s formal enthronement, Jehoiada summoned the centurions, “the nobles (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘patriarchs’), the rulers” and the people of the land; so 2 Chr and Josephus (“with the centurions, the rulers, and all the people”), whereas 2 Kgs has “the Karites and the Runners” (see above 2 Chr 23:1). 2 Chr 24:1-2 om. 2 Kgs 12:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁנת־שׁבע ליהוא מלך יהואשׁ‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:157 om. 2 Kgs 12:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = רק הבמות לא־סרו עוד העם מזבחים ומקטרים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:157 om. According to 2 Kgs, “in the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king” and “only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense”; the two details are omitted by both 2 Chr. and Ant. 2 Chr 24:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כל־ימי יהוידע הכהן‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:157 τῶν νόµων φυλακήν... 2 Kgs 12:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כל־ימיו אשׁר הורהו יהוידע הכהן‬-𝔏𝔏 παρὰ τὸν χρόνον ὃν Ἰώας ἐβίωσεν. Jehoash was faithful “all the days of (2 Kgs ‘all his days, when instructed him’) Jehoiada the priest”; for Josephus, he was faithful “to observe the laws... all the time that Jehoyada lived”; he agrees with 2 Chr. 2 Chr 24:2 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׂא( לו )יהוידע נשׁים שׁתים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἑαυτῷ Ant. 9:158 ἔγηµε γυναῖκας δύο, 2 Kgs 12:4 om. δόντος τοῦ ἀρχιερέως. After Jehoash’s enthronement, “Jehoiada took for him (in fact ‘for himself’, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; some 𝔏𝔏 mss read αὐτῷ ‘for him’, somewhat ambiguous) two wives”. Unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus states clearly that Jehoash “married two women, the high priest having given”. Jewish tradition considers, like Josephus, that the high priest cannot have two wives at the same time (cf. m.Yoma 1:1). 2 Chr 24:6 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = מדוע לא־דרשׁת על־הלוים להביא מיהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:162 ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς 2 Kgs 12:5 om. τοῦτο οὐκ ἐποίησε. King Jehoash has ordered the high priest to collect money for the temple, and he asks him: “Why have you not required the Levites to bring in from Judah and Jerusalem”. Josephus interprets: “The high priest did not do that”; however, he

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adds “the twenty-third year of the king”, a detail given at 2 Kgs 12:6. Since in the whole passage he follows 2 Chr (see previous and next notes), we may surmise that he read it in a gloss, or else, that it was in his copy of 2 Chr. 2 Chr 24:7 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ עתליהו המרשׁעת בניה פרצו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:161 τοῦ ναοῦ καταλυθέντος 2 Kgs 12:6 om. ὑπὸ Ἰωράµου καὶ Ὀθλίας. King Jehoash explains that “the wicked Athaliah (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and’) her sons broke down” the house of God; Josephus says similarly that “the temple having been broken down by Joram and Athaliah”. 2 Chr 24:10 (‫𝔊𝔊 וישׂמחו )כל־השׂרים וכל־העם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔδωκαν Ant. 9:163 πρὸς τοῦτο πᾶς 2 Kgs 12:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ונתנו הכהנים את־הכסף בית־יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ λαὸς εὖ διετέθη. Jehoash devised a chest to collect money, “all the officers and all the people rejoiced” and brought in their levies, according to 2 Chr and Josephus, who has “to this all the people were well disposed; one the contrary, 2 Kgs directly speaks of the result of the collection: “The priests put the money which was brought into the house of Yhwh”. 2 Chr 24:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויערו את־הארון וישׂאהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:164 εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁיבהו אל־מקמו כה עשׂו ליום ביום‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐτίθεσαν τόπον. τοῦτο 2 Kgs 12:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצרו וימנו את־הכסף הנמצא בית־יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐποίουν ἑκάστης ἡµέρας. Money was collected, “and they would empty the chest, take it (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.), and return it to its place; they did so dayly”, according to 2 Chr, which is close to Josephus’ rendering: “…they put it back to the same place; they would do that every day”. 2 Kgs is different: “They tied up (the money in bags), and counted the money that was found in the house of Yhwh.” 2 Chr 24:12 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויתנהו המלך ויהוידע‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:164 ἔπεµψαν µισθούµενοι... ὁ ἀρ2 Kgs 12:12 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = ונתנו את־הכסף‬-𝔏𝔏 χιερεὺς Ἰώδας καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰώασος. The collection was successful, “and they (2 Chr ‘and the king and Jehoiada’) gave the money” to hire workers; Josephus agrees with 2 Chr. 2 Chr 24:14 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁאר הכסף ויעשׂהו כלים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:165 τὸν ὑπολειφθέντα χρυσόν... 2 Kgs 12:14 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = אך לא יעשׂה ספות כסף‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς κρατῆρας... κατεχρήσαντο. Afer completing the main work of the temple, “money was left and it was made into ustensils”, according to 2 Chr, followed by Josephus, whereas 2 Kgs states the opposite: “But it was not made for silver cups” and other ustensils. 2 Chr 24:14-22 sacrifices, death of Jehoiada aged 130, decline = Ant. 9:165-167 2 Kgs 12:14-17 details on the workers and the use of money. 2 Chr 24:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ובלכתם ממנו כי־עזבו אתו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:171 πεισθείς (Ἀζάηλος)... οὐκ ‫במחלוים רבים התקשׁרו עליו עבדיו‬ ἐπήγαγεν εἰς τὰ Ἱεροσόλυµα. νίσῳ ‫בדמי בני יהוידע הכהן ויהרגהו על־מטתו‬ χαλεπῇ περιπεσὼν Ἰώασος... ἐπε2 Kgs 12:21 ‫ ויכו את־יואשׁ‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקמו עבדיו‬-𝔏𝔏 βούλευσαν τῷ βασιλεῖ... διεφθάρη. According to 2 Kgs, Jehoash sent everything to Hazael, who left his campaign, “then his servant made a plot and smote Jehoash”. 1 Chr is different: “When (Aram) had gone from him – for they left him very sick–, his own servants conspired against him... and murdered him on his bed”. Josephus, who has followed 2 Kgs 12:19, comes back to 2 Chr, with some editing: “Hazael, persuaded by the money, did not lead his army to Jerusalem; Jehoash, stricken by a serious illness..., they plotted against him... and he was destroyed”. 2 Chr 24:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקברהו בעיר דויד ולא בקברות המלכים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:172 θάπτεται οὐκ ἐν 2 Kgs 12:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקברו אתו עם־אבתיו בעיר דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 ταῖς θήκαις τῶν προγόνων.



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After king Jehoash’s murder, “they buried him in the city of David, with his fathers (2 Chr and Ant. ‘not in the tombs of the kings’)”. 2 Chr 25:11(‫𝔊𝔊 )ויביאום לראשׁ( הסלע )וישׁליכום‬-𝔏𝔏 κρηµνοῦ Ant. 9:191 ἐπὶ τὴν µεγάλην 2 Kgs 14:7 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ותפשׂ את( הסלע )במלחמה‬-𝔏𝔏 πέτραν πέτραν, κατεκρήµνισεν. Amaziah’s men won a war, took captives, “and brought them on top of the Rock, and threw them down”; so 2 Chr as well as Ant. “he led them over the great Rock, and hurled them”; whatever was the meaning of the verse, it is not clear whether in following his source Josephus has recognized Petra, a place he knew very well (see Ant. 4:82 and 18:109). 2 Kgs, which does not report the details of the war, is different: “He took the Rock by war.” 2 Chr 25:20 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ולא־שׁמע אמציהו כי מהאלהים היא למען‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:199 τοῦ θεοῦ παρ2 Kgs 14:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ולא־שׁמע אמציהו‬-𝔏𝔏 ορµῶντος αὐτὸν οἶµαι. Jehoash of Israel objected to Amaziah’s proposal to avoid a war, “and Amaziah would not listen (2 Chr adds ‘for it was from God, that he might give them in the hands’ of Jehoash’)”; Josephus used this longer form, with his usual reservations: “God urged him to that, I think.” 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Οζιαν 2 Chr 26:1 ‫)ויקחו כל־עם יהודה את( עזיהו‬ Ant. 9:204 διαδέχεται 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αζαριαν 2 Kgs 14:21 ‫)ויקחו כל־עם יהודה את( עזריה‬ αὐτὸν ὁ παῖς Ὀζίας. After Amaziah’s murder, “all the people of Judah took Uzziah (2 Kgs ‘Azariah’)”; without mentioning the people’s choice, Josephus says that “his son Uzziah succeeded him”. For 2 Chr 26:17 (without parallel in 2 Kgs), Azariah was the high priest who tried to stop the king from worshipping. 2 Chr 26:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויקברו אתו עם־אבתיו( בשׂדה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ Ant. 9:227 ἐκηδεύθη (‫הקבורה )אשׁר למלכים כי אמרו מצורע הוא‬ τῆς ταφῆς µόνος ἐν τοῖς 2 Kgs 15:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקברו אתו עם־אבתיו בעיר דוד‬-𝔏𝔏 ἑαυτοῦ κήποις. Uzziah died “and they buried him with his fathers in the field of the grave, which belonged to the kings, for they said: He is a leper”, according to 2 Chr, and Josephus loosely depends on it, with “his was buried alone in his own gardens”, omitting “with his fathers”. 2 Kgs is different (with Azariah): “They buried him with his fathers in the city of David.” In fact, 2 Chr entails a contradiction, for Uzziah was not buried “with his fathers”; in reworking the sentence of 2 Kgs, the author of 2 Chr should have omitted the phrase, as Josephus did. 2 Chr 27:3 ‫ ובחומת העפל בנה לרב‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = את־שׁער‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:237 τὰ καταπεπτωκότα 2 Kgs 15:35 ‫𝔊𝔊 = את־שׁער בית־יהוה העליון‬-𝔏𝔏 τῶν τειχῶν ἀνέστησε. King Joram built “the upper gate of the house of Yhwh”, and 2 Chr adds “in the wall of the Ophel he built extensively”. Josephus renders “he put the fallen walls back up”, like 2 Chr; he avoids restricting Jerusalem to the Ophel (the city of David). 2 Chr 27:8 ‫ שׁנה מלך‬16 ‫ שׁנה היה במלכו‬25 ‫ = בן‬Or., 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 9:243 Ἰώθαµος ἔτη 2 Kgs 15:37 om. βιώσας 41, βασιλεύσας 16. King Jotham “was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned 16 years”; this verse of 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐 was known to Josephus. 2 Chr 28:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 מסכות )עשׂה לבעלים‬-𝔏𝔏 γλυπτά Ant. 9:243 βωµοὺς ἐν Ἱεροσο(‫ 𝔊𝔊 והוא הקטיר( בגיא )בן־הנם‬γαι, 𝔏𝔏 φάραγγι λύµοις, θύων τοῖς εἰδώλοις. 2 Kgs 16:3 om. King Ahaz “made molten (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘carved’) images for the Baals, and he burned incense in the valley (𝔊𝔊 ‘transcribes) of Ben-hinnom”. Josephus follows 2 Chr:

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“He set up altars in Jerusalem and sacrificed on them to idols.” In the sequel, he says Ahaz sacrificed “his own son”, like 2 Kgs 16:3, while 2 Chr 28:3 has “his sons”; but we can hardly conclude on his exact reading, for he may have been under the influence of story of the king of Moab, who had sacrificed his own son (see Ant. 9:43). 2 Chr 29:1 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( אביה )בת־זכריה‬-𝔏𝔏 Αββα, Αββουθ Ant. 9:260 Ἀχάζου υἱὸς 2 Kgs 18:2 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ושׁם אמו( אבי )בת־זכריה‬Αβου, 𝔏𝔏 Αβουθ καὶ Ἀβίας ἀστῆς τὸ γένος. Hezekiah became king aged 25, “and his mother’s name was Abijah (2 Kgs ‘Abi’), daughter of Zechariah”; for Josephus, he was “son of Ahaz and Abijah, from the capital”; this origin is not scriptural, and no prominent Zechariah of Jerusalem is known (there was a king Zechariah in Israel); Josephus may have introduced the “capital” by analogy with previous kings, see Chap. VI, § III.1, 2 Kgs 15:33. 2 Chr 32:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויושׁע יהוה את‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:27 Ἐζεκίας παραδόξως ἀπαλλαγείς... ‫יחזקיהו ואת ישׁבי ירושׁלם‬ µηδεµιᾶς ἄλλης αἰτίας... ἢ τῆς 2 Kgs 19:37 om. συµµαχίας τῆς ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ. Sennacherib left and died, “and Yhwh saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem”. Josephus has a loose paraphrase: “Hezekiah, unexpectedly delivered from the fear... no other cause... than the alliance with God”; it may be a transition coined by Josephus, who reports Hezekiah’s story according to 2 Kgs, because he ignores the whole passage 2 Chr 32:23-31, on Hezekiah’s successes and wealth, which is a kind of insertion in the narrative of 2 Kgs. 2 Chr 33:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויתע מנשׁה את־יהודה וישׁבי ירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:37 µιᾶναι τὸν ναὸν καὶ 2 Kgs 21:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויתעם מנשׁה‬-𝔏𝔏 τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὴν χώραν. After king Hezekiah, “Manasseh seduced them (2 Chr ‘Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem’)” to do more evil. Josephus, with “to pollute the temple and the city and the country”, agrees with 2 Chr. 2 Chr 33:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויקברהו( ביתו‬-𝔏𝔏 παραδείσῳ οἴκου αὐτοῦ Ant. 10:46 ἐν τοῖς 2 Kgs 21:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ויקבר בגן־ביתו בגן( עזא‬-𝔏𝔏 Οζα αὐτοῦ παραδείσοις. Manasseh died, “and they buried him in (2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 2 Kgs add ‘the garden of’, from ‫ )בגן‬his house (2 Kgs adds ‘in the garden of Uzza’)”; 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐 conveys an awkward meaning (or may be understood “his household buried him”), and seems to be faulty. Josephus has “in his gardens”, agreeing with 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Chr 34:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מצא חלקיהו את־ספר תורת־יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:58 προσκοµίζων τὸν χρυσὸν 2 Kgs 22:7 om. Ἐλιακίας ἐντυγχάνει ταῖς βίβλοις. When he was handling the money collected for the temple, “Hilkiah found the book of Moses’ law”; 2 Kgs has no parallel to 2 Chr 34:12-14. Josephus, with “in bringing out the gold, Hilkiah found the sacred books”, agrees with 2 Chr. 2 Chr 35:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ולא־נעשׂה פסח כמהו מימי שׁמואל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:72 µηδεµίαν ἄλλην οὕτως 2 Kgs 23:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = לא נעשׂה כפסח הזה מימי השׁפטים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀχθῆναι ἀπὸ Σαµουήλου χρόνων. About Josiah’s reform, “a Passover like this (2 Kgs ‘such a Passover’) was not made since the days of Samuel (2 Kgs ‘the Judges’)”. Josephus agrees with 2 Chr: “No other had been celebrated this way since the time of Samuel.” 2 Chr 35:19a-d 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ≈ 2 Kgs 23:24-27 both 1 Esd 1:19 and Ant. 10:73 omit. The passage omitted deals with Josiah’s further reforms and the inexorable fate of Judah, but in the context, Josephus follows 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐 (the story of Josiah’s sin and death).



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2 Chr 36:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מרד אשׁר השׁביעו באלהים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:102 Σαχχίαν ἀπέδειξε βασιλέα 2 Kgs 24:20 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימרד צדקיהו‬-𝔏𝔏 ὅρκους παρ᾽ αὐτὸν λαβών. Zedekiah was made king but “he rebelled (2 Chr adds ‘though Nebuchadnezzar had made him swear allegiance by God’)”; Josephus is close to 2 Chr: “He appointed Sacchias (Zedekiah) as king, after taking his oath.” At War 5:391 we read that king’s name as Σεδεκίας, and the origin of the spelling “Sacchias” in Ant. is not clear (cf. Schlatter, Schalit).

II – Josephus with 1-2 Kings Against 2 Chronicles 2 Chr 1:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ החכמה והמדע נתון לך‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:24 σύνεσιν καὶ σοφίαν 1 Kgs 3:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ לב חכם ונבון אשׁר כמוך לא־היה לפניך‬-𝔏𝔏 οἵαν οὐκ ἄλλος τις ἔσχεν. God promises Solomon wisdom in two different ways: according to 1 Kgs “a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, (nor shall one like you arise after you)”; according to 2 Chr, “wisdom and knowledge are given to you”. Josephus, with “intelligence and wisdom such as nobody else has had”, agrees with 1 Kgs. 2 Chr 1:12 om. Ant. 8:24 φυλάξειν τοῖς ἐκγόνοις 1 Kgs 3:14 ‫ והארכתי את ימיך‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ואם תלך בדרכי‬-𝔏𝔏 τὴν βασιλείαν, ἂν δίκαιος διαµένῃ. To his gifts to Solomon, God adds a warning, which 2 Chr omits: “If you walk in my ways... (like David), then I will prolong your days”. For Josephus, God promises “to preserve the kingdom for his descendants (a very long time), if he would continue to be righteous”; he depends on 1 Kgs, with a slight distortion, for he alludes to Nathan’s prophecy about David’s descendants (see Ant. 7:94). 2 Chr 1:13 ‫ ירושׁלם‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויבא שׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:24 ταῦτα τοῦ θεοῦ ἀκούσας ἀνε1 Kgs 3:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויקץ שׁלמה והנה חלום ויבוא ירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 πήδησεν εὐθὺς ἐκ τῆς κοίτης. For 1 Kgs, after the vision, “Solomon awoke, and behold, it was a dream, and he came to Jerusalem”, then offered sacrifices and made a feast; 2 Chr omits the dream and the sacrifices in Jerusalem, but Josephus, with “having heard this, he at once leapt from his bed (then returned to Jerusalem, etc.)”, agrees with 1 Kgs and stresses that the dream has become reality. 2 Chr 1:19-2:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וישׁלח שׁלמה אל־חורם לאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:51-52 βασιλεὺς Σολόµων 1 Kgs 5:16-24 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וישׁלח שׁלמה אל־חירם לאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 Εἰρώµῳ βασιλεῖ· ἴσθι πατέρα... Solomon’s letter to Hiram of Tyre has a longer form in 2 Chr than in 1 Kgs; then a convention is sealed up. Josephus, with a shorter form, follows 1 Kgs. 2 Chr 2:9 ‫ ושׁמן‬,‫ ויין‬,‫ שׂערים‬,‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ לכרתי העצים נתתי חטים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:57 κατ᾽ ἔτος, 1 Kgs 5:25 ‫ שׁנה בשׁנה‬,‫ שׁמן‬,‫ חטים‬,‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ושׁלמה נתן לחירם‬-𝔏𝔏 σίτου, ἐλαίου, οἴνου. According to 1 Chr, Solomon gave the workers “wheat, barley, wine, oil”; for 1 Kgs, he gave Hiram “wheat, oil, every year”; Josephus obviously follows the latter, but adds “wine”; however, after a statement on the quantities of wheat and oil, the addition appears in a separate sentence “he also furnished the same measure of wine”; this suggests either that Josephus read a gloss, or that the sentence was itself a gloss resulting from a revision. 2 Chr 2:15 om. 1 Kgs 5:26-28 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויכרתו ברית שׁניהם‬-𝔏𝔏 ‫ויעל שׁלמה מס מכל־ישׂראל‬

Ant. 8:58-59 Εἰρώµου φιλία καὶ Σολόµωνος ηὔξησε... εἰς ἅπαν, ἐργασίαν κατέστησε µερίσας.

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According to 1 Kgs only, after Hiram and Solomon peacefully agreed on the works, “both made a covenant”, then “Solomon raised up forced laborers from all Israel”; Josephus has these two steps: “The friendship of Hiram and Solomon increased… for ever” and “he imposed a levy on the people”. 2 Chr 2:17 om. Ant. 8:60 προστετάχει λίθους... 1 Kgs 5:31-32 ...‫ בני שׁלמה ובני חירום‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויצו המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 Εἴρωµος ἔπεµψε τεχνιτῶν. For 1 Kgs only, Solomon orders the builders to work; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has a different wording, and adds “they prepared the work during three years”; for other 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 variants, see Chap. VI, § II.2.

2 Chr 3:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויחל לבנות את־בית־יהוה בהר המוריה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:61 τῆς οἰκοδοµίας τοῦ 1 Kgs 6:1 ‫ ויבן הבית ליהוה‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויהי בשׁמונים שׁנה‬-𝔏𝔏 ναοῦ Σολόµων ἤρξατο... 1 Kgs and Ant. give a detailed dating of the beginning of the works, while 2 Chr states that the place was Mount Moriah. Josephus forgot that he had alluded to Mount Moriah in this sense at 7:333.

2 Chr 2:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בן־אשׁה מן־בנות דן ואביו אישׁ־צרי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:76 µητρὸς Νεφθαλίδος, 1 Kgs 7:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בן־אשׁה ממטה נפתלי ואביו אישׁ־צרי‬-𝔏𝔏 πατρὸς Οὐρίου Ἰσραηλίτου. Solomon appointed one Hiram of Tyre, who was “a woman’s son from the tribe of Nephthali (2 Chr ‘from the daughters of Dan’), and his father was a Tyrian”; Josephus agrees with 1 Kgs for the mother, but he says that “the father was Uri, an Israelite”, which is obviously wrong: he may have read ‫ אורי‬for ‫צרי‬, but “Israelite” is either a plain mistake, or from a comment suggesting that Hiram was an Israelite like his father. 2 Chr 2:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ בזהב־ובכסף בנחשׁת בברזל באבנים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:76 µάλιστα δὲ τεχνίτης ‫ובעצים בארגמן בתכלת ובבוץ ובכרמיל‬ ἦν χρυσὸν ἐργάζεσθαι 1 Kgs 7:14 ‫ לעשׂות כל־מלאכה בנחשׁת‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = חרשׁ נחשׁת‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἄργυρον καὶ χαλκόν. According to 2 Chr, Hiram of Tyre was able to work “in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone and wood, and in purple, violet, linen and crimson fabrics, etc.”, while 1 Kgs mentions only bronze, and indeed all the artifacts he made were of bronze. Josephus says that “he was skilled in all kinds of works, but he was especially expert in working gold, silver and bronze”; this wholesale statement seems very close to 2 Chr. However, his narrative there follows the order of 1 Kgs, and the best explanation is that his version of 1 Kgs had a gloss akin to 2 Chr (see previous and following notes). 2 Chr 3:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 = עמודים שׁנים אמות‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:77 στύλους δύο 1 Kgs 7:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׁני העמודים נחשׁת‬-𝔏𝔏 adds τῷ αιλαµ τοῦ οἴκου χαλκοῦς ἔσωθεν, ‫ אמה קומת העמוד האחד‬18 = 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 τὸ πάχος 4 δακτύλων. ‫ אמה יסב את־העמוד‬12 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וחוט‬-𝔏𝔏 (περίµετρον 14 πήχεις) ἦν δὲ τὸ µὲν ὕψος 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds τὸ πάχος τοῦ στύτοῖς κίοσιν 18 πήλου 4 δακτύλων, καὶ οὕτως χεων, ἡ δὲ περί‫השׁני‬ ὁ στῦλος ὁ δεύτερος µετρος 12 πηχῶν. The description of the pilars in front of the temple is difficult: 2 Chr has “two pillars, 35 cubits long”; 1 Kgs is different: “two pillars of bronze (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘for the ailam of the house’, from ‫‘ לאילם הבית‬for the porch of the house’), 18 cubits the height of one (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the’) pillar, and a thread of 12 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a circumference of 14’) cubits went around (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘it; and the thickness of the pillar, 4 fingers, and thus’) the second pillar”. Josephus renders “two pillars of bronze outside, 4 fingers in thickness; the height of the columns was 18 cubits, the circumference 12 cubits”, which is very close to 1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, except the circumference; howev-



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177

er, we cannot conclude that he read the Greek, for 𝔐𝔐 seems corrupt, since it hardly makes sense (“a thread around the second pillar”, only?). Moreover, see Chap. VI, § II.2 1 Kgs 7:21. 2 Chr 4:1 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂ מזבח נחשׁת עשׂרים אמה ארכו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:88 θυσιαστήριον χάλκεον 1 Kgs 7:23 om. πηχῶν εἴκοσι τὸ µῆκος... Here, after a description of Hiram’s bronze works (see previous note), both 1 Kgs and Ant. omit the bronze altar, contrarily to 1 Chr “and he made a bronze altar, 20 cubits long, etc.”, which is reproduced here by Josephus in a different context, between the description of the Sea and lavers, and the detail of the temple furniture (1 Kgs 7:48; 2 Chr 4:19). This may have been a gloss in Josephus’ source, but in fact the omission of the bronze altar in 1 Kgs here is strange, since later it is said to be extant, but too small for the sacrifices offered by Solomon (1 Kgs 8:64; 2 Chr 7:7). Indeed, at Ant. 8:71, in his description of the Holy of Holies, Josephus has ignored the curious end of a verse (1 Kgs 6:20): “Before the debir (Holy of Holies; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 omits), 20 cubits in length, 20 cubits in width, and 20 cubits in height, and he overlaid it with pure gold, and he overlaid the altar with cedar (or else ‘overlaid the cedar altar’ ‫𝔊𝔊 ;ויצף מזבח ארז‬-𝔏𝔏 ‘and he made an altar before the dabir’)”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 gives the measures of the debir (which Josephus broadly reported), and mentions the altar, but 𝔐𝔐 is meaningless, as if something were missing, or wrongly added. In conclusion, Josephus did not see the end of the verse in either form. 2 Chr 5:3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בחג הוא החדשׁ השׁבעי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:100 ἑβδόµῳ µηνὶ (Θοίρι) 1 Kgs 8:2 ‫𝔊𝔊 בירח האתנים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν µηνὶ Αθανιν συνίασιν... καὶ ὁ τῆς Σκη‫𝔊𝔊 בחג הוא החדשׁ השׁביעי‬-𝔏𝔏 om. νοπηγίας ἑορτῆς καιρός. According to 1 Kgs, the inauguration of the temple occurred “in the month Ethanim (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘at the feast, it is the seventh month’); 2 Chr is like the 𝔐𝔐 supplement. Josephus gives the Babylonian name of the seventh month, Tishri (corrupted), which suggests that he read a month name, as in 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐, and converted it. 2 Chr 5:8 (‫𝔊𝔊 = וי ַכסּו )הכרובים על־הארון‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:103 κιβωτὸν ὡς ὑπὸ σκηνῇ 1 Kgs 8:7 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויס ֹכּו )הכרבים על־הארון‬-𝔏𝔏 περιεκάλυπτον καὶ θόλῳ κατεσκέπασαν. In the Holy of Holies, “and the cherubim made a tent (1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and 2 Chr ‘covered’, from ‫ )וי ַכסּו‬over the Ark”; 4QKgs reads like 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐.1 Josephus, with “covered the Ark as a tent and a dome”, has two similar words, which suggests that he had the two variants in his source, probably like 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 ‫ ויסכו‬in the text (cf. Exod 25:20), and a marginal correction with the more common ‫ויכסו‬. 2 Chr 5:11a ‫𝔊𝔊 = בצאת הכהנים מן־הקדשׁ‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:106 ἐπεὶ οἱ ἱερεῖς 5:13b (‫𝔊𝔊 )והבית מלא ענן( בית )יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 δόξης (κυρίου) ἐξῆλθον, ἄφνω πίληµα 1 Kgs 8:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בצאת הכהנים מן־הקדשׁ‬-𝔏𝔏 νεφέλης, οὐ σκληρόν... ‫𝔊𝔊 )והענן מלא את( בית יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 τὸν οἶκον εἰς τὸν ναὸν εἰσερρύη. Having set up the Ark, “the priests came from the holy place, and the cloud filled the house of the Lord (2 Chr ‘and the house was filled with a cloud, the house – 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 glory – of the Lord’)”. Between the two parts, 2 Chr 5:11b-13a inserts a note on the priests and the musicians, which is ignored by 1 Kgs and Josephus, who renders: “When the priests went out, a thick cloud, not threatening... suddenly streamed into the temple.” 1

See DJD 14, p. 177.

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2 Chr 6:12.14 ‫ נגד כל־קהל ישׂראל‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעמד‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:111 τὴν δεξιὰν εἰς τὸν & 1 Kgs 8:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויפרשׂ כפיו * השׁמים ויאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 ὄχλον ἀνασχών, εἶπεν. For the temple inauguration, Solomon “stood... in front of the whole assembly of Israel, and he spread out his hands * toward heaven, and said”; at the mark * 2 Chr 6 inserts v. 13 “for Solomon had made a bronze laver (‫כיור‬, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 βάσιν ‘platform’, from ‫כן‬, see Exod 30:18)... he stood on it, knelt,... and spread out his hands”. Josephus has “raising his right hand up to the crowd (usually corrected ‘heaven’), he said”; like 1 Kgs, he ignores 2 Chr 6:13, and according to 1 Kgs 8:54 he did kneel. ‫𝔊𝔊 = חנכת המזבח עשׂו שׁבעת ימים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:123 τὴν σκηνοπηγίαν ‫𝔊𝔊 והחג שׁבעת ימים‬-𝔏𝔏 om. πρὸ τοῦ ναοῦ 1 Kgs 8:65 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂ שׁלמה בעת־ההיא את־החג‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ δὶς ἑπτὰ ‫𝔊𝔊 שׁבעת ימים ושׁבעת ימים ארבעה עשׂר יום‬-𝔏𝔏 ἑπτὰ ἡµέρας ἡµέρας ἤγαγεν. For the inauguration of the temple, “they made the dedication of the altar 7 days (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘and the Feast 7 days’)”, according to 2 Chr, but 1 Kgs has “and Solomon made at that time the Feast, 7 days (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘and 7 days, 14 days’)”; 𝔐𝔐 is not coherent, for the following verse has “on the 8th day he sent away the people”, in accordance with the rules of the feast of the Tabernacles (see Ant. 3:244). However, Josephus, with “he celebrated the feast of the Tabernacles before the temple for twice 7 days” with no dedication, agrees with 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 (but he has a contact with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, see § I.3). 2 Chr 7:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = והקימותי את כסא מלכותך‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:126 βασιλεύσειν ἀεὶ τῆς 1 Kgs 9:5 ‫ לעלם‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = והקמתי את־כסא ממלכתך‬-𝔏𝔏 χώρας τοὺς ἐκ γένους αὐτοῦ. God promises Solomon in a dream: If you are faithful, “then I will establish the throne of your kingdom (1 Kgs adds ‘over Israel forever’)”. Josephus has “those of his line shall rule forever the country”, like 1 Kgs. (2 Chr 8:2 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = והערים אשׁר נתן חורם‬-𝔏𝔏) Ant. 8:142 δυσαρεστήσας τῇ δωρεᾷ 1 Kgs 9:12 ‫לא ישׁרו בעיניו‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצא חירם‬-𝔏𝔏 πέµψας πρὸς Σολόµωνα µὴ δεῖσθαι. Hiram of Tyre went out to see the cities Solomon gave him, “and they did not please him”; Josephus agrees: “He was ill pleased with the gift, etc.” 2 Chr 8:2 has a different story: “Solomon built the cities that Hiram had given to him, and established there the sons of Israel.” 2 Chr 8:10 250 ‫𝔊𝔊 = שׂרי הנציבים אשׁר־למלך שׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:162 ἄρχοντας 1 Kgs 9:23 550 ‫𝔊𝔊 שׂרי הנצבים אשׁר על־המלאכה לשׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 om. ἀπέδειξεν 550. Over the Canaanites, there were “550 (2 Chr ‘250’) officers over the service of king Solomon”; Josephus agrees with 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐. 2 Chr 8:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ אז הלך שׁלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:163 σκάφη ‫𝔊𝔊 לעציון־גבר ואל־אילות‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Γασιωνγαβερ... Αιλαθ πολλά, ἐν Γασίων 1 Kgs 9:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ואני עשׂה המלך שלמה‬-𝔏𝔏 Γάβελ, ὃς οὐ πόρρω ‫𝔊𝔊 בעציון־גבר אשׁר את־אלות‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν Γασιωνγαβερ... Αιλαθ Ἰλάνεως πόλεως According to 2 Chr, “Solomon vent to Ezion-geber and Eloth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Elat’, cf. 2 Kgs 16:6 ‫”)אילת‬, without making anything; but for 1 Kgs “king Solomon made a fleet at Ezion-geber, which is near Elot (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Elat’), on the shore of the Sea of Reeds”, without going there, which agrees with Josephus’ “many ships, at Ezion-geber, not far from the city of Elat”. 2 Chr 7:9

2 Chr 8:18 ‫ אוניות ועבדים יודעי ים‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁלח‬-𝔏𝔏 1 Kgs 9:27 ‫ אנשׁי אניות ידעי הים‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וישׁלח‬-𝔏𝔏

Ant. 8:164 ἄνδρας κυβερνήτας τῶν θαλασσίων ἐπιστήµονας.



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According to 2 Chr, Hiram of Tyre “sent ships and servants knowing the sea”, suggesting that the place was on the Mediterranean shore, but for 1 Kgs “he sent sailors knowing the sea”; Josephus has “pilots and people skilled in sea things”, which agrees with 1 Kgs (which implies “the Sea of Reeds”). 2 Chr 9:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 וכבשׁ בזהב‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐνδεδεµένοι Ant. 8:140 ἀνακέκλιτο εἰς ‫לכסא מאחזים‬ χρυσίῳ µόσχου προτοµὴν τὰ κα1 Kgs 10:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 וראשׁ־עג ֹל‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ προτοµαὶ µόσχων τῷ τόπιν αὐτοῦ βλέποντος, ‫לכסה מאחריו‬ θρόνῳ ἐκ τῶν ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ χρυσῷ ἅπας ἦν δεδεµένος. There were six steps to reach the throne, and 1 Kgs continues: “And a round head (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘heads of calves’, from ‫ )ראשי עגלים‬to the throne at its rear.” 2 Chr is different: (six steps) “and a footstool (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.) in gold fastened to the throne (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.)”. Josephus, with “it rested on the head of a calf facing toward its rear; all was fastened with gold”, agrees with 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 (with ‫“ ֵע ֶגל‬calf”) and 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 as well (“six steps fastened with gold”, from ‫ ;)מאחזים בזהב‬the latter feature, poorly fitted in the sentence, indicates that there was a gloss in his Hebrew source, or else, that Josephus’ text underwent a reworking. 2 Chr 9:25 ‫( ויניחם‬1 Kgs ‫𝔊𝔊 = )וינחם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:188 διαµερίσας τὰ ἅρµατα καὶ & 1 Kgs 10:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ בערי הרכב ועם־המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 διατάξας..., αὐτὸς ἐτήρησεν ὀλίγα. Solomon had plenty of chariots and horsemen: “He stationed (1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 ‘led’) them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem”. Josephus renders: “having divided and disposed the chariots in each city..., he kept a few for himself”; with to verbs, Josephus may have read both variants ‫וינחם‬/‫ויניחם‬, one of them in the margin, probably ‫ויניחם‬, which gives a smoother meaning. He ignores here 2 Chr 9:26 (= 1 Kgs 10:26a Ra.) on the extension of Solomon’s rule, already given at Ant. 8:39 (following 1 Kgs 5:1 𝔐𝔐, located by 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 at 2:46k Ra.; see Chap. VI, § II.2). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀντὶ 100 ἀργυρίου 1 Kgs 10:29 ‫ כסף‬600-‫ב‬ Ant. 8:189 τὸ ἅρµα σὺν ἵπποις (2 Chr 9:29 om.) δύσιν 600 δραχµῶν ἀργυρίου. On this passage, see Chap. VI, § II.2. 2 Chr omits Solomon’s decline, 1 Kgs 11. 2 Chr 10:2 ‫שׁב ירבעם ממצרים‬ ָ ָ‫𝔊𝔊 וי‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ κατῴκησεν Ant. 8:212 πέµψαντες εἰς Ιεροβοαµ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ Αἴγυπτον, οἱ τῶν ὄχλων 1 Kgs 12:2 ‫שׁב ירבעם במצרים‬ ֶ ֵ‫𝔊𝔊 וי‬-𝔏𝔏 om. ἄρχοντες ἐκάλουν Ἱερβόαµον. 𝔐𝔐 states that, having fled, “Jeroboam lived in (2 Chr ‘came back from’) Egypt”; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: it omits 1 Kgs 12:2, which means that Jeroboam is already with “the tribes of Joseph”, in fact in Ephraim, so that he has not to be called from Egypt; as for the parallel 2 Chr 10:2 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, it adds up both 𝔐𝔐 readings (2 Chr and 1 Kgs-. Josephus, with “the leaders of the people sent to Egypt to summon Jeroboam”, agrees with 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐. 2 Chr 12:9end 1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds τὰ δόρατα Ant. 8:259 φαρέτρας ἃς ἀνέ‫אשׁר עשׂה שׁלמה‬ τὰ χρυσᾶ ἃ ἔλαβεν Δαυιδ ἐκ θηκε Δαυίδης, λαβὼν παρὰ 1 Kgs 14:26end χειρὸς... βασιλέως Σουβα... τοῦ τῆς Σωφήνης βασιλέως. Shishak plundered everything in Jerusalem, including the things “that Solomon made (1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘the golden spears that David took out of the hand of... the king of Zobah’, from ‫ מלך צובה‬...‫שלטי הזהב אשר לקח דוד מיד‬, a reminder of 2 Sam 8:7 // 1 Chr 18:7, see Chap. IV, § I.3)”. Josephus has a similar addition, with different words “the quivers that David had set up, having taken them from the king of Zobah”; at Ant. 7:104, he had rendered ‫ שׁלטי הזהב‬with χρυσᾶς φαρέτρας, like here, while 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is not consistent (χλιδῶνας χρυσοῦς “golden

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bracelets”). This indicates that he did have the longer form in Hebrew, probably from 1 Kgs, his main source in the context. 2 Chr 12:11-13a ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויהי מדי־בוא המלך בית יהוה באו הרצים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:263 ἀντὶ τῆς (1 Kgs 14:28 end om.) ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויתחזק המלך רחבעם בירושׁלם וימלך‬-𝔏𝔏 λαµπρότητος διάγειν. There are two presentations of Rehoboam’s reign: according to 2 Chr, it was brillant: “As often as the king entered the house of Yhwh, the runners came... and king Rehoboam got strengthened in Jerusalem and reigned”; on the contrary, 1 Kgs omits the passage, and plainly states that there was a permanent war between him and Jeroboam (see next note). The same way, Josephus says: “Instead of leading the life with the splendor of his deeds...” 2 Chr 12:15 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ומלחמות רחבעם וירבעם כל־הימים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:263 ἐβασίλευσεν ἐν ἡσυ1 Kgs 14:30 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ומלחמה היתה בין־רחבעם‬-𝔏𝔏 χίᾳ πολλῇ καὶ δέει πάντα τὸν ‫ובין ירבעם כל הימים‬ χρόνον, ἐχθρὸς ὢν Ἱεροβοάµῳ. In the summary of Rehoboam’s life, 2 Chr does mention his wars: “(The acts of Rehoboam… are they not written in the records of Shemaiah the prophet and Iddo the seer according to the genealogical enrollments), and the wars of Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the time?” The note on the wars is a kind of appendix, all the more so that Shemaiah was the one who prevented the war that Rehoboam wanted to wage against Jeroboam (1 Kgs 12:24, Ant. 8:223). As for Josephus, he made a kind of compromise, saying that Rehoboam’s reign was not brillant (see 14:26), for “he reigned in great quiet and fear all the time, being an enemy of Jeroboam”; no war is mentioned, but a kind of nervous peace. 2 Chr 16:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁבת את־מלאכתו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:306 µετὰ σπου1 Kgs 15:21 ‫שׁב בתרצה‬ ֶ ‫𝔊𝔊 וי‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀνέστρεψεν εἰς Θερσα δῆς ἀνέστρεψεν. When king Baasha heard of the invasion, he ceased building Ramah “and stayed in (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘returned to’, from ‫שׁב‬ ָ ‫ )וי‬Thirzah”; so 1 Kgs. Josephus had the more natural interpretation of ‫( וישׁב‬from ‫)שׁוב‬, like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 1 Chr “and he stopped his work” is redundant, and Josephus did not see it. 2 Chr 16:6 ‫ המצפה‬,‫𝔊𝔊 גבע‬-𝔏𝔏 Γαβαε, Μασφα Ant. 8:306 Γαβά, 1 Kgs 15:22 ‫ המצפה‬,‫𝔊𝔊 גבע בנימן‬-𝔏𝔏 πᾶν βουνὸν Βενιαµιν, σκοπιάν Μασταφάς. From the materials collected at Rama, Asa built “Geba (1 Kgs adds ‘of Benjamin’) and Mizpah (1 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 translates both place names, ‘hill, watchtower’)”; Ant. seems to be closer to 2 Chr 𝔐𝔐, but in view of the preceding note, it is more natural to connect it with 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐, all the more so that Josephus ignores the following passage 2 Chr 16:7-10 (denunciation of Asa’s policy), which has no parallel in 1 Kgs. 2 Chr 18:5 400 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקבץ מלך־ישׂראל את־הנביאים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:401 καλέσας Ἄχαβος 1 Kgs 22:6 400-‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקבץ מלך־ישׂראל את־הנביאים כ‬-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς αὐτοῦ προφήτας, ὡς 400. Then “the king of Israël summoned the prophets, 400 (1 Kgs and Ant. ‘about 400’)”. This is a minute detail that shows that Josephus has returned to 1 Kgs, see Chap. VII, § III.1. 2 Chr 20:35 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אתחבר יהושׁפט עם אחזיה מלך ישראל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:17 ἦν φίλος τῷ Ἀχάv. 37 ‫ ללכת אל תרשׁישׁ‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וישׁברו אניות ולא‬-𝔏𝔏 βου παιδί... ὑπὸ µεγέθους 1 Kgs 22:49 ‫ ולא הלך כי נשׁברו אניות בעציון גבר‬om. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπώλετο τὰ σκάφη. οὐκέτι v. 50 ‫ ילכו עבדי עם־עבדיך באניות ולא אבה יהושׁפט‬om. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 περὶ ναῦς ἐφιλοτιµήσατο. According to 1 Chr, “Jehoshaphat allied himself with Ahaziah (Ahab’s son)” to make ships to go to Tarshish, a wicked act; then Eliezer prophesied against him, “and the ships were broken”; 1 Kgs is different, without prophecy: Jehoshaphat



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181

made ships to go to Ophir for gold, “and he did not go, for the ships were broken at Etzion-geber”; then Ahaziah proposed to Jehoshaphat: “Let my servants go with your servants in the ships; but Jehoshaphat did not want”. Josephus, who is switching from Jehoshaphat’s friendship with Ahaziah (2 Chr 20:35) to Ahaziah of Israel (1 Kgs 22:52), combines both stories: “He was a friend of Ahab’s son... the ships were destroyed because of their size, and he was no longer keen about ships”; but Josephus does not criticize Jehoshaphat, and he looks closer to 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐.

2 Chr 22:9 ‫ מתחבא בשׁמרון‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויבקשׁ את־אחזיהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:121 ὁ δ᾽ ἐπιδιώξας καὶ 2 Kgs 9:27 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וירדף אחריו יהוא ויאמר גם אתו הכהו‬-𝔏𝔏 καταλαβὼν ἐν προσβάσει. Ahaziah fled, “and Jehu pursued him and said: Shoot him, too”, according to 2 Kgs; so Josephus “he pursued him closely and overtook him at a hill”. The parallel 2 Chr is different: “He sought Ahaziah… who was hiding in Samaria”. Josephus ignores the end of 2 Chr 22:9, too: “They brought him to Jehu, put him to death and buried him, for they said: He is the son of Jehoshaphat, etc.”; according to 2 Kgs 9:28 and Josephus, he was brought back to Jerusalem and buried there. 2 Chr 23:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימשׁחהו יהוידע ובניו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:149 τὸ πλῆθος χαῖ2 Kgs 11:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 וימשׁחהו ויכו־כף‬-𝔏𝔏 ἔχρισεν, ἐκρότησαν χειρὶ ρον καὶ κροταλίζον. At Jehoash’s enthronement, “he was anointed (2 Kgs Ket and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘he annointed him’, 2 Chr adds ‘by Jehoiada and his sons’), and they clapped (2 Chr omits). Josephus says that after the anointment by Jehoiada (alone), “the multitude rejoiced and clapped”, agreeing with 2 Kgs. However, Josephus follows closely 2 Chr in the context; moreover, the Ket ‫ וימשׁחהו‬suggests a singular subject, and there is no need of “sons” for an anointment, so that we can conjecture that ‫ובניו‬ of 2 Chr is an error for ‫ויכו־כף‬, as witnessed by 2 Kgs; in the next verse, 2 Chr only says that the people were “praising”. 2 Chr 24:8 ‫ חוצה‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעשׂו ארון ויתנהו בשׁער‬-𝔏𝔏 A. 9:163 κατασκευάσας θησαυρόν. 2 Kgs 12:10 ‫ ויתן אתו אצל המזבח‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקח ארון‬-𝔏𝔏 θεὶς εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν παρὰ τὸν βωµον. In order to collect money for the temple, Jehoash “took (2 Chr ‘ordered to make’) a chest, and put it beside the altar (2 Chr ‘outside by the gate of the house of Yhwh’)”. Josephus renders: “Having made a chest, he put it in the temple, beside the altar”; at the beginning, he follows 2 Chr, and 2 Kgs at the end. However, he may have been prompted for the latter detail by a custom he knew, since in the context he is faithful to 2 Chr. 2 Chr 24:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 = עלה עליו חיל ארם ויבאו אל־יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:170 ἐµβαλόντος Ἀζαήλου, 2 Kgs 12:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 = יעלה חזאל מלך ארם וילחם על־גת‬-𝔏𝔏 τὴν Γίττην καταστρεψαµένου. After Jehoash’s decline, “Hazael king of Aram came up and fought against Gath”, according to 2 Kgs and Josephus, while 2 Chr has a geographically smoother story: “The army of Aram came up against him, and they came to Judah.” 2 Chr 24:23 ‫ וכל־שׁללם שׁלחו דרמשׂק‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁחיתו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:170 ἐκκενώσας τοὺς τοῦ 2 Kgs 12:19 ‫ וישלח‬...‫= ויקח יהואשׁ את כל־הקדשׁים‬ θεοῦ θησαυρούς..., ἔπεµψε. When Aram was approaching, “Jehoash took all the sacred things... and sent” to Hazael (2 Kgs); 2 Chr has: “Thay destroyed the officials and sent all their spoil to Damascus.” Josephus agrees with 2 Kgs: “He emptied the treasuries of God... and sent” to Hazael. Then, Josephus moves back to 2 Chr.

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2 Chr 32:33 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁכב חזקיהו עם־אבתיו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:36 ἐπιβιοὺς Ἐζεκίας... ‫ויקברהו במעלה קברי בני־דויד‬ ἐν εἰρήνῃ διαγαγὼν τελευτᾷ. 2 Kgs 20:21 ‫𝔊𝔊 וישׁכב חזקיהו עם־אבתיו‬-𝔏𝔏 adds ἐτάφη ἐν πόλει Δαυιδ “And Hezekiah slept with his fathers (2 Kgs 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘and he was buried in the city of David’, from ‫ ;ויקבר בעיר דוד‬2 Chr adds ‘and they buried him in the ascent of the tombs of the sons of David’)”. Josephus says: “Hezekiah lived on... passed this time in peace and died”; he agrees with the shorter reading of 2 Kgs 𝔐𝔐. 2 Chr 33:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מלך בירושׁלם‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:37 Μανασσῆς ἐκ µη2 Kgs 21:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 מלך בירושׁלם ושׁם אמו חפצי בה‬Οψιβα, 𝔏𝔏 Εψιβα τρὸς Αἰχίβας πολίτιδος. Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, “reigned in Jerusalem (2 Kgs adds ‘his mother was Hephzibah’)”. Josephus adds that she was “of the city” (Jerusalem), like other mothers of kings, and he may have expected this kind of detail. Technically, his source may have had a minor scribal problem: ‫ בירושׁלם‬omitted in the text and restored above the line or in the margin, so that Josephus could connect it with Hephzibah. 2 Chr 33:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וידבר יהוה אל־מנשׁה ואל־עמו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:39 ὁ θεὸς πέµπει προφήτας 2 Kgs 21:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וידבר יהוה ביד־עבדיו הנביאים‬-𝔏𝔏 πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα καὶ τὸ πλῆθος. About God’s reply to Manasseh’s evil, 2 Chr has: “And Yhwh spoke to Manasseh and his people” and they did not listen; 2 Kgs is different: “And Yhwh spoke through his servant the prophets”, and the speech is given (21:11-16), with a threat of suffering the fate of the northern kingdom. Josephus, with “God sends prophets to the king and the people”, combines 2 Chr and 1 Kgs, then alludes to the threat, and concludes “they would not believe”. 2 Chr 33:21 om. Ant. 10:46 Ἐµασέλµης, ἐκ πόλεως 2 Kgs 21:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 משׁלמת מן־יטבה‬-𝔏𝔏 Μεσολλαµ; 𝔊𝔊 Ιετεβα, 𝔏𝔏 Ετεβαθα Ἰαβάτης. Amon succeeded Manasseh, “and his mother’s name was Meshullemeth of Jotbah”; for the city name, Josephus may have read ‫יבטה‬. 2 Chr 33:25 om. Ant. 10:47 τῷ πατρὶ συνθάπτουσι 2 Kgs 21:26 (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 = )ויקבר אתו( בקברתו )בגן־עזא‬τάφῳ τοῦ πατρός τὸν Ἀµµῶνα. King Amon died “and they buried him in his (𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘his father’s’) grave, in the garden of Uzza”. Both 𝔏𝔏 and Ant. could be independent interpretations, since Manasseh, Amon’s father, was already buried “in the garden of Uzza” (2 Kgs 21:18). 2 Chr 34:32 om. Ant. 10:65 καταπρήσας αὐτὰ 2 Kgs 23:4 ‫ ונשׂא את־עפרם בית־אל‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ וישׂרפם‬-𝔏𝔏 τὴν σποδὸν αὐτῶν διέσπειρε. Josiah had the pagan items collected, and “he burnt them outside Jerusalem, and carried their dust to Bethel”; 2 Kgs 23:4-5 has no parallel in 2 Chr. Josephus simplifies: “Having burnt them and scattered their ashes”; he may have read or understood ‫ אפר‬instead of ‫( עפר‬cf. Gen 18:27 ‫)ואנכי עפר ואפר‬. 2 Chr 36:7 om. Ant. 10:87 ἤνεγκεν αὐτῷ φόρους 2 Kgs 24:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויהי־לו יהויקים עבד שׁלשׁ שׁנים‬-𝔏𝔏 οὓς ἔταξεν ἐπὶ ἔτη τρία. Nebuchadnezzar came up, and “Jehoiakim became his servant for three years”. In the continuation (2 Kgs 24:1-4), Jehoiakim rebelled against him, and God sent various bands to destroy Judah, because of the sins of king Manasseh; Josephus replaces this with a different story of his own invention: Jehoiakim stopped paying the tribute for he thought that the Egyptians would campaign



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183

against the Babylonians, despite Jeremiah’s prophecies (10:88-89, somewhat alluding to Jer 33(26):2-6). 2 Chr 36:10 ‘‫𝔊𝔊 = ויבאהו בבלה עם־כלי חמדת בית־י‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:99 πέµψας δύναµιν 2 Kgs 24:10 (‫𝔊𝔊 )עלו( עבדי )נ‘ ותבא העיר במצור‬-𝔏𝔏 om. ἐπολιόρκει τὸν Ἰωάκιµον. Jehoiakin was king, and “the servants of (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om.) Nebuchadnezzar went up, and the city came under siege”. So 2 Kgs, as well as Josephus’ “sending a force he besieged Jehoiakin”; however, this wording is ambiguous, for Neb. sent a force (like 𝔐𝔐), and came up himself (like 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏). 2 Chr shortens and anticipates the end of the siege: “He brought him to Babylon with the precious articles of the house of Yhwh.” 2 Chr 36:10 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימלך את־צדקיהו אחיו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:102 τὸν θεῖον Ἰωαχίµου 2 Kgs 24:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וימלך את־מתניה דדו ויסב את־שׁמו צדקיהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Σαχχίαν ἀπέδειξε βασιλέα. After removing Jehoiachin, Nebuchadnezzar “made his brother Zedekiah (2 Kgs ‘his uncle Mattaniah’) king (2 Kgs adds ‘and changed his name to Zedekiah’)”. Josephus has: “He appointed Jehoiachin’s uncle Sacchias as king”, agreeing with 2 Kgs for “uncle”, but not for Zedekiah’s changed name; in fact, Josephus’ form of the name can hardly be explained,2 all the more so that at War 5:391, he properly named him Σεδεκίας. 2 Chr 36:11 om. Ant. 10:103 ὁµοµήτριος Ἰωα2 Kgs 24:18 ‫( מלבנה‬Qer ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ושׁם אמו חמיטל )חמוטל‬-𝔏𝔏 κείµου τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ. Zedekiah became king, “and his mother’s name was Hamutal (Ket and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Hamital’) from Libnah”. According to 2 Kgs 23:30, she was the mother of Jehoahaz, son of Josiah (see Chap. VI, § II.1), a mistake that 2 Chr avoided and that Josephus covered up, with “(Zedekiah) was a brother of Jehoiakim by the same mother”.

III – Josephus with 1-2 Chronicles Alone III.1 Josephus’ Special Features 1 Chr 23:3 ‫ שׁנה ומעלה‬30 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הלוים מבן‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 7:363 ἀπὸ 30 ἐτῶν ἕως 50. David numbered “the Levites from 30 years old and upward (Ant. ‘till 50’)”; Josephus’ upper limit comes from Num 4:3f, but when he paraphrased that passage (see Ant. 3:258), he did not mention any age limitation; in other words, he read here a gloss taken from Num 4. At 1 Chr 23:24.27, the rule is different: the Levites do the service “from 20 years old and upward”. 1 Chr 23 divisions of Levites Ant. 7:364 διακονεῖσθαι ἐπὶ ἡµέρας 1 Chr 24 divisions (or courses) of priests ὀκτὼ ἀπὸ σαββάτου ἐπὶ σάββατον. Josephus summarizes David’s organization of the Levites and priests into courses, and adds that each one “had to minister for 8 days, from Sabbath to Sabbath”. The only Biblical allusion to such an alternation is at 2 Kgs 11:9 (// 2 Chr 23:8), by the time of the plot against Athaliah: in the shrine, there were “men 2 SCHALIT, p. 108, suggests an Aramaic form ‫זכאי‬, of a similar meaning, but this would imply an unproven use of a written targum.

184

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

coming in on the Sabbath with those going out on the Sabbath”.3 However, when he paraphrases the passage (Ant. 9:148), Josephus omits these movements, which suggests that here he read a gloss mentioning them, or else, that he introduced a custom he knew from his own time. 2 Chr 14:8 1,000,000 (‫𝔊𝔊 = )בחיל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:292 πεζῶν 900,000, ἱππέων 100,000. King Zerah of Ethiopia came with an army of 1,000,000 (and 300 chariots); from his own military knowledge, Josephus divided it into footsoldiers and horsemen, and it is not necessary to conjecture a variant in his source. 2 Chr 17:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויתנו כל־יהודה מנחה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:394 ἐτίµων οἱ πέριξ βασιλεῖς δωρεαῖς. Jehoshaphat’s reign was successful, “and all Judah brought offerings”, so that he became very rich. Josephus has: “The kings around honored him with presents”, which recalls v. 11; because of Jehoshaphat’s riches and honor, he viewed him as another Solomon, and there is no need to conjecture a variant in his source, for he was prompted by the context: according to v. 10, “the dread of Yhwh was on all the kingdoms around Judah”. 2 Chr 19:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויעמד שׁפטים בארץ בכל־ערי יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:53 ἀπέδειξε κριτὰς καὶ 19:8 ‫ למשׁפט‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = בירושׁלם העמיד יהושׁפט‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπισκόπους, ὡς ἃν διοικοῖεν. Among Jehoshaphat’s works, “he appointed judges in the land, in all the fortified cities of Judah”, and said to them; then “and in Jerusalem, Jehoshaphat appointed (officers) to judge”; this may be a doublet, but in the first part the king is not named. Josephus reports the two parts at the right place (Ant. 9:3); here he credits Josiah with a similar organization (first part), while the notice on him says nothing (see 2 Chr 34:7); so, we may conjecture that Josephus read again that part in the story of Josiah, in the margin or maybe in the text itself. 2 Chr 20:2 ‫)המון רב‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπὸ Συρίας Ant. 9:8 ἀκούσας ὅτι τὴν λίµνην ‫מעבר לים( מארם‬ VetLat ex Edom διαβάντες ἐµβεβλήκασιν. Ammonites and Moabites have invaded Judah, and Jehoshaphat is told that “a great multitude... from beyond the sea, out of Aram-Syria (VetLat ‘Edom’)”. In this context, the “sea” must refer to the “Dead Sea” (Asphaltitis Lake), as VetLat understood, as well as Josephus: “He heard that they had crossed the lake and invaded”. However, he mentions neither Aram or Edom, which suggests that he did not read a convenient “Edom” (‫ )מאדם‬but more likely “Aram” as in the sources, and felt obliged to omit it. 2 Chr 20:4 ‫וי ָקּבצו יהודה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 συνήχθη Ιουδας Ant. 9:8 συνάγει τὸν δῆµον. Jehoshaphat was afraid, “and Judah gathered together”. Josephus renders: “He summoned the people”; it is implied by the context, and it is not necessary to surmise that he depends on a reading ‫וי ְקב ֹץ‬. 2 Chr 20:14 (‫ )הלוי‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ויחזיאל‬-𝔏𝔏 Οζιηλ (= ‫ )חזיאל‬Ant. 9:10 Ἰναζίηλος προφήτης. For Josephus, who may have read ‫וינזיאל‬, the Levite Jahaziel becomes a prophet. (Some variants of Ant. have ἵνα... Ζίηλος.) 2 Chr 25:13 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויפשׁטו )בערי יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπέθεντο Ant. 9:192 ἐπῆλθον αὐτοῦ τῇ ‫𝔊𝔊 )משׁמרון( ועד־בית חורון‬-𝔏𝔏 ἕως Βαιθωρων βασιλείᾳ µέχρι Βηθσεµήρων. The Israelite troops “raided the cities of Judah, from Samaria-Shomron to Bethhoron”; that Samaria could be among the cities of Judah looks awkward, and Josephus omitted it: “They fell upon his kingdom as far as Bethsemeron”. How3

For this topic, see SCHÜRER-VERMES, II:245-56.



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

185

ever, “Bethsemeron” seems to be a conflation of “Beth-horon” and “Shomron”, that is, the Hebrew words; a likely explanation is that, in Josephus’ Hebrew source, ‫“ שׁמרון‬Shomron” was a marginal correction for a missing word (a copyist mistake), and Josephus thought it was to replace ‫חורון‬, hence his strange reading ‫בית שמרון‬, which in any case cannot be “Samaria”. 2 Chr 26:19 (‫𝔊𝔊 )ובזעפו עם־הכהנים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἡ λέπρα Ant. 9:225 σεισµὸς ἐκλόνησε, (‫והצרעת זרחה )במצחו‬ ἀνέτειλεν καὶ διαστάντος τοῦ ναοῦ, Amos 1:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בימי עזיה מלך־יהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 φέγγος ἡλίου λαµπρὸν ἐξέ‫שׁנתים לפני הרעשׁ‬ λαµψε καὶ τῇ τοῦ βασιλέως Zech 14:4 ‫ ונסתם‬...‫𝔊𝔊 = ונבקע הר הזיתים‬-𝔏𝔏 ὄψει προσέπεσεν, ὡς τῷ µὲν ‫כאשׁר נסתם מפני הרעשׁ בימי עזיה‬ εὐθέως λέπραν ἐπιδραµεῖν. After Uzziah’s anger against the priests, Josephus has: “An earthquake shook the earth and, as the temple was split, a brilliant beam of sunlight gleamed and fell upon the king’s face, so that leprosy at once smote him”. This alludes to several sources: first, the current narrative of 2 Chr (“while he was enraged with the priests, leprosy rose on his forehead”), with the verb ‫ זרח‬normally used for “sunrise, dawn”, which may have attracted the “beam of sunlight”; second, Amos mentions an earthquake “in the days of Uzziah king of Judah”, hence Josephus’ earthquake; third, Zech prophesies that “the Mount of Olives will be split, and you will flee as you fled before the quake in the days of Uzziah”, hence the temple split.4 We do not know if Josephus himself wrought this synthesis, or if he read its components as prophetic glosses in the margins. However, he goes on in the line of the Mount of Olives split, and says that “before the city, at a place called Eroge (πρὸς τῇ Ἐρωγῇ), half the western hill was ripped off, etc.”; the place name is unknown, but it may be related to ῥωγή “break”, or to ‫“ עין ר ֹגל‬En-rogel” (south of Jebus-Jerusalem, Josh 18:16); such a name suggests that Josephus may have had a longer form of 2 Chr. 2 Chr 28:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁבו בני־ישׂראל‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 9:247 ἐκ τῆς Βενιαµίτιδος φυλῆς ‫מאחיהם נשׁים בנים ובנות‬ γυναῖκας καὶ παῖδας ἀπήγαγον. Syria and Israel had attacked Judah, “and the sons of Israel carried away captive of their brethren, women, sons and daughters”. Josephus has: “They carried off the women and children of the tribe of Benjamin;” he may have read ‫ בנימין‬instead of ‫( בנים‬or with it). 2 Chr 33:11 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וילכדו את־מנשׁה בחחים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:40 Μανασσῆν δόλῳ ληφ‫ויאסרהו בנחשׁתים ויוליכהו בבלה‬ θέντα καὶ πρὸς αὺτὸν ἀχθέντα. God brought along the army of Assyria, “and they captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze chains and took him to Babylon”. Josephus, who has reported the destruction of the kingdom of Assyria (10:30), puts “the king of the Babylonians and the Chaldeans”, then he expands a poorly documented story: “He sent an army into Judaea, ravaged the country and took Manasseh, who had been captured by cunning and brought to him”. 2 Chr 33:13 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויתפלל אליו ויעתר לו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:41 πάντων αἴτιον ἑαυτὸν νοµίζων ‫וישׁמע תחנתו וישׁיבהו ירושׁלם‬ ἐδεῖτο τοῦ θεού. χαρίζεται τοῦτο ὁ θεός. In captivity, Manasseh “prayed to (God), who was moved by his entreaty and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem”; again, Josephus extends this very short account: “(Manasseh), thinking he was himself the cause 4

See GINZBERG 6:358.

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

of all, he prayed God... And God hearkened his supplication”. For Manasseh’s prayer, see § V below. 2 Chr 34:3 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = ובשׁמונה שׁנים למלכו‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:50 γενό(‫𝔊𝔊 ובשׁתים עשׂרה שׁנה )החל לטהר‬-𝔏𝔏 adds τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ µενος ἐτῶν 12. On Josiah’s beginnings: “In the 8th year of his reign… and in the 12th year (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds ‘of his reign’) he began to cleanse”. Josephus states that he began this work “aged 12”; he did not have the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 addition, and he read too quickly the verse; it is not necessary to conjecture a variant ‫ובן שׁתים עשׂרה שׁנה‬, which would give “aged 12, he began”, for it could not be reconcilied with the first part of the verse. 2 Chr 34:5-6 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויטהר את‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:52 περιιὼν καὶ τὴν πόλιν ‫יהודה ואת־ירושׁלם‬ καὶ τὴν χώραν ἅπασαν. ‫ובערי מנשׁה ואפרים‬ Ant. 10:68 πορευθεὶς καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους τῶν ‫ושׁמעון ועד־נפתלי‬ Ἰσραηλιτῶν, ὅσοι τὴν αἰχµαλωσίαν διέφυγον. As a reformer, Josiah “cleansed Judah and Jerusalem, and in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim and Simeon and as far as Naphtali”; then the book of the law of Moses was discovered, according to 2 Chr 34:14. Josephus first followed this order, but he reduced to “(Josiah) went around the city and the whole country”, which is not very clear; but 2 Chr 34:7 states that Josiah destroyed the idols “throughout the land of Israel, then he returned to Jerusalem”. Later, after the discovery of the laws, Josephus mentions again Josiah’s trip: “Josiah went also to the other Israelites that had escaped from captivity”. This develops what he just said according to 2 Kgs 23:15-20 (general cleansing after Jeroboam’s defilements); the two parts of the doublet are separated by a chronological digression (10:67). In the sequel, Josephus moves to the Passover story according to 2 Chr 35. We may conclude that he saw 2 Chr 34:5-6 as a gloss at the end of the 2 Kgs story. 2 Chr 35:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 בבקעת מגדו‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ Μαγεδων Ant. 10:75 κατὰ Μένδην πόλιν. Josiah and Nechao met “on the plain of Megiddo”. The geography is difficult, for Megiddo lies outside Judah in the far north; moreover, the king of Egypt would enter Judah through a southern place, and Josephus, who knows Megiddo (Ant. 8:151 & 9:121) puts “Mendes”, an Egyptian city he has mentioned at War 5:659. Here, he may depend on other sources, too. Herodotus (Hist. 2.159) reports that Nechao, in his first campaign (609 BCE) won over the Syrians at Magdolos, seemingly a border city (see Exod 14:22; Jer 44:1). 2 Chr 35:22 ‫𝔊𝔊 )להלחם־בו( התחפשׂ‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐκραAnt. 10:76 οὐ προσίετο τὰ παρὰ τοῦ ‫ולא שׁמע אל־דברי נכו מפי אלהים‬ ταιώθη Νεχαῦ, οὕτως εἶχεν ὡς µὴ συγχωρεῖν. Josiah “disguised himself (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘grew stronger’, from ‫ התאמץ‬or more probably ‫ )התחזק‬in order to make war, and he would not listen to Nechao’s (1 Esd 1:27 ‘the prophet Jeremiah’s’) words from the mouth of God”; the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 variant makes more sense than 𝔐𝔐, all the more that according to v. 23 the archers shoot Josiah. Josephus says: “He did not pay attention to Nechao’s words, and he acted as if he would not permit” him to go across his territory”; his wording is somewhat circuitous, and he adds a personal comment, which suggests that he had a problem with his source, as in other places: “It was Destiny, I believe, that prompted him to that”. We may conclude that he was reluctant to credit Nechao with a prophecy, and it is certain that he did not see the 1 Esd variant “the prophet Jeremiah” (see Chap. IX, introduction). As for the 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 variant “grew stronger”, Josephus knew it, for he says that Josiah got prepared, but his phrasing “he acted



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

187

as if” suggests some kind of concealment, and he may have read the 𝔐𝔐 wariant “disguised”, too, probably in the text itself (and the other as a marginal gloss). 2 Chr 35:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 = העבירוני כי‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:77 ἐκέλευσεν ἀνακληθῆναι τὸ στρά‫ ויוליכהו ירושׁלם‬...‫החליתי מאד‬ τευµα καὶ ὑπέστρεψεν εἰς τὰ Ἱεροσόλυµα. After being wounded, Josiah said: “Take me away, for I am badly wounded”. Josephus says: “He ordered the army to be called to withdraw, and he returned to Jerusalem”; he seems to have read ‫“ העבירונו‬take us away”, or perhaps he interpreted according to the context, since the battle vanished after Josiah’s departure. According to the short parallel 2 Kgs 23:29, “Josiah went to meet him, and when (Nechao) saw him he killed him at Megiddo”. 2 Chr 36:17-21 Jeremiah’s prophecy Ant. 10:112-113 Ἱερεµίας προεφήτευσεν... Josephus paraphrases the end of 2 Chr, before switching to Jer.

III.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) Parallel

1 Chr 5:40 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ושׂריה הוליד את־יהוצדק‬ἐπορεύθη Ant. 10:150 δέσµιον Ἰωσά5:41 (‫ הלך בהגלות יהוה את )יהודה‬ἐν τῇ µετοικίᾳ µετά δακοντὸν υἱὸν Σαραιᾶ. “Seraiah became the father of Jehozadak; and Jehozadak went when Yhwh exiled (𝔊𝔊 ‘went into captivity with’) Judah” and Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar”. Josephus harmonizes: Nebuzaradan brought the captives to Riblah, where Seraiah was put to death (from 2 Kgs 25:20), and then Nebuchadnezzar “carried of in chains Jehozadak son of Seraiah” to Babylon. Josephus is aware of the genealogy of the high priests, from non-biblical sources: at 10:151153 he gives 17 names of high priests that were officiating in the Solomon temple, from Zadok through Jehozadak; there, he mistakenly forgot Seraiah he just mentioned, but in the summary of Ant. 20:231 he indicates 18 high priests for that period (more than 1 Chr; Ezra 7:1-2 has only five generations from Zadok through Seraiah). Here, he has introduced Jehozadak’s genealogy in order to secure a continuity with Jeshua son of Jehosadak, the first high priest after the exile (Ant. 11:73, see Chap. IX, § I.1). 𝔊𝔊 λίθους σοοµ, 𝔏𝔏 λίθους ὄνυχος Ant. 7:378 σµαράγδου. 1 Chr 29:2 ‫אבני־שׁהם‬ For the temple building, David has prepared everything, including “onyx (𝔊𝔊 transcribes, 𝔏𝔏 ‘onyx’)”; Josephus here renders “emeralds”, but at Ant. 3:165 & 168 he has put “sardonyx” and “onyx” for Exod 28:9 & 20 ‫שׁהם‬, 𝔊𝔊 δύο λίθους σµαράγδου “emerald”, see Chap. I, § II.1. 2 Chr 11:5-10 ‫𝔊𝔊 ויבן ערים‬-𝔏𝔏 ᾠκοδόµησεν πόλεις Ant. 8:246 ᾠκοδόµησε πόλεις ‫ תקוע‬,‫ עיטם‬,‫ בית־לחם‬Βαιθλεεµ, Αιταµ, Θεκωε Βηθλεέµ, Ἠταµή, Θεκωέ ‫ עדלם‬,‫ שׂוכו‬,‫ בית־צור‬Βαιθσουρα, Σοκχωθ, Οδολλαµ Βηθσούρ, Σωχώ, Ὀδολλάµ ‫ זיף‬,‫ מרשׁה‬,‫ גת‬Γεθ, Μαρισαν, Ζιφ Εἰπάν, Μαρησαν, Ζιφάν ‫ עזקה‬,‫ לכישׁ‬,‫ אדורים‬Αδωραιµ, Λαχις, Αζηκα Ἀδοραίµ, Λάχεις, Ζηκά ‫ חברון‬,‫ אילון‬,‫ צרעה‬Σαραα, Αιαλων, Χεβρων Σαράµ, Ἠλώµ, Χεβρῶνα. Rehoboam built cities in Judah; the transcriptions of 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. are different, with some exceptions (Thekoa, Odollam). Instead of “Gath”, a Philistine city, Josephus has “Eipan”, possibly from an uncorrected doublet of “Etam”. 2 Chr 11:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 צנות ורמחים‬-𝔏𝔏 θυρεούς, δόρατα Ant. 8:247 θυρεούς, σιροµάστας. For the “shields and spears”, Josephus, who know the weaponry terminology, does not follow 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

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2 Chr 11:20 (‫𝔊𝔊 )לקח את‬-𝔏𝔏 Μααχα θυγατέρα Ant. 8:249 τὴν ἐκ τῆς Ἀψαλώµου ‫מעכה בת־אבשׁלום‬ Αβεσσαλωµ θυγατρὸς Θαµάρης Μαχάνην. As a second wife, Rehoboam “took Maakah, daughter of Absalom”. Josephus introduces one more generation, with “Thamar” between Absalom and Maakah; he already gave her name at Ant. 7:243. Rehoboam’s wife is called Thamar at 2 Sam 14:27 (𝔏𝔏 corrects to Μααχα), see Chap. IV, § I.3. According to 2 Chr 13:2, the name of Rehoboam’s mother was “Mikayahu (‫מיכיהו‬, Μααχα), daughter of Uriel”. It seems that Josephus, considering the confusion of the names, as well as an obvious chronological problem, kept the two names and added one generation. 2 Chr 13:23 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בימיו שׁקטה הארץ עשׂר שׁנים‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 8:286 εἰρήνης ἀπέλαυ2 Chr 15:19 ‫ למלכות אסא‬35 ‫𝔊𝔊 = מלחמה לא היתה עד שׁנת‬-𝔏𝔏 σεν ἡ χώρα ἐπὶ ἔτη δέκα. According to 1 Kgs 15:10, without 2 Chr parallel, king Asa “reigned 41 years in Jerusalem”. Now, 2 Chr 13:23 states that “the land was quiet for 10 years during his days”, but according to 15:19 “there was no more war until the 35th year of Asa’s reign”, and the following verse (16:1) speaks of a war with Basha in the 36th year. Josephus, with “the land enjoyed peace for ten years”, agrees with 2 Chr 13:23, and does not elaborate. 2 Chr 17:18 ‫𝔊𝔊 ועל־ידו יהוזבד‬-𝔏𝔏 µετ᾿ αὐτὸν Ιωζαβαδ Ant. 8:397 ἡγεµὼν Ὀχόβαθος. One of Jehoshaphat’s officers in Benjamin was “Jehozabad”; see next note. 2 Chr 19:11 ‫ וזבדיהו‬,‫𝔊𝔊 אמריהו‬-𝔏𝔏 Αµαριας, Ζαβδιας Ant. 9:6 Ἀµασίαν, Ζαβαδίαν. Jehoshaphat’s officers in Judah were “Amariahu (Ant. ‘Amasiah, from ‫)אמציהו‬, Zabadiahu”. 2 Chr 20:16 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )במעלה( הציץ‬Ασαε, 𝔏𝔏 ἐξοχῆς Ασισα Ant. 9:11 ἀναβάσεως Ἐξοχῆς. Jahaziel explains that the enemy will come up “by the ascent of Haziz (𝔏𝔏 corrects the name and adds a translation ‘prominence’)”. Josephus renders: “the ascent called Prominence”; now, the noun ἐξοχή is a hapax in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (its only other occurrence, at Job 39:28, comes from Or.), while Josephus uses it seven times. Thus, we cannot exclude that 𝔏𝔏 borrowed it from him. 2 Chr 24:20 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 זכריה )בן־יהוידע הכהן‬Αζαριαν, 𝔏𝔏 Ζαχαριαν Ant. 9:168 Ζαχαρίαν. For “Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest”, 𝔏𝔏 displays a correction. 2 Chr 28:7 ‫ את‬...‫𝔊𝔊 )ויהרג( זכרי‬-𝔏𝔏 Εζεκρι, Ζεχρι Ant. 9:247 ὁ στρατηγὸς Ζαχάριν, (‫מעשׂיהו )בן־המלך‬ Μαασαιαν, Μασιαν τὸν υἱὸν Ἀχάζου Αµασίας (‫עזריקם )נגיד הבית‬ Εγδεικαµ, Εσρικαν τὸν ἐπίτροπον Ἐρικάµ, (‫אלקנה )משׁנה המלך‬ Ελκανα τὸν στρατηγὸν Ἐλικάν. Zichri, an officer of King Pekah of Israel “killed Maaseiah the king’s son and Azrikam the ruler of the house and Elkanah the second to the king”. Josephus reports the names, but adds that the last two ones, Azrikam and Elkanah, were taken captive; this may come from the first word of the next verse ‫“ וישבו‬they took captive”, maybe written twice at the end of a line or column and at the beginning of the next one. 2 Chr 28:15 (‫𝔊𝔊 ויחזיקו )בשׁביה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀντελάβοντο Ant. 9:251 ἐπιµελείας ἠξίωσαν. The men assigned to the task “helped the captives”; Josephus renders: “They treated them with care.” Then he switches back to 2 Kgs.



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

189

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µόσχους ἑπτά, 2 Chr 29:21 ‫)ויביאו( פרים־שׁבעה‬ Ant. 9:268 ταύρους ἑπτά, ‫ואילים שׁבעה‬ κριοὺς ἑπτά, κρίους τοσούτους, ‫וכבשׂים שׁבעה‬ ἀµνοὺς ἑπτά, ἄρνας ἑπτά, ‫וצפירי עזים שׁבעה‬ χιµάρους αἰγῶν ἑπτά ἐρίφους τοσούτους. Hezekiah’s inaugural sacrifice included: “seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs and seven male goats”. Josephus’ terminology differs from 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but it agrees with his paraphrase of the Law (Ant. 3:237). 2 Chr 34:8 ,‫ מעשׂיהו‬,‫𝔊𝔊 שׁפן‬-𝔏𝔏 Σαφαν, Μαασιαν Ant. 10:55 Ἀµασίαν, Σαφαν, ‫ חלקיהו‬,‫יואח‬ Ιουαχ (Ιωας), Χελκιαν Ἰωάτην, Ἐλιακίαν. Josiah sent officers (Shaphan, Maaseiah, Joah) to collect money and bring it to the high priest Hilkiah. For “Joah”, Josephus may have read ‫ יואת‬instead of ‫יואח‬. 2 Chr 35:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 צאן כבשׂים‬-𝔏𝔏 πρόβατα καὶ ἀµνοὺς Ant. 10:70 νεογνοὺς ἐρίφους καὶ ‫ ובקר‬...‫ ובני־עזים‬καὶ ἐρίφους... καὶ µόσχων ἄρνα, βοῦς δ᾽ εἰς ὁλοκαυτώµατα. For his new Passover, Josiah gave “a flock of lambs and young goats (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘sheep, lambs, young goats’)... and oxen”; the parallel 1 Esd 1:7 has ἀρνῶν instead of ἀµνούς. Josephus renders “young goats, lambs, oxen for the holocausts”; his wording is not 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏’s.

III.3 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐

𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἔστη Δαυιδ ἐν 1 Chr 28:2 ‫ויקם דויד‬ Ant. 7:370 στὰς ἐφ᾽ ὑψηλο‫המלך על־רגליו‬ µέσῳ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τάτου βήµατος ἔλεξε. After 1 Kgs 1:53 (see Ant. 7:362), Josephus follows 1 Chr 23-26 for the worship organisation, with no 1 Kgs parallel. David summoned the leaders, “and king David rose to his feet (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘stood in the midst of the assembly’) and said”; Josephus, with “standing upon a very high tribune, he said”, is closer to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Chr 11:13 (‫𝔊𝔊 )והכהנים והלוים‬-𝔏𝔏 συνήχθησαν Ant. 8:248 συνῆλθον οἱ παρὰ πᾶσι ‫)אשׁר בכל־ישׂראל( התיצבו‬ πρὸς αὐτὸν Ἰσραηλίταις ἱερεῖς καὶ Ληουῖται. After the Jeroboam schism, “the priests and Levites who were in all Israel stood with (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘were gathered to’, from ‫ )התקבצו‬him”. Josephus, with “there came the priests and Levites from among all the Israelites”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏. 2 Chr 11:21 60 ‫ נשׂא ופילגשׁים‬18 ‫𝔊𝔊 נשׁים‬-𝔏𝔏 γυναῖκας 18, παλλακὰς 30 = Ant. 8:250. · Rehoboam took 18 wives and 60 (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘30’) concubines”. The verse adds that he “fathered 28 sons and 60 daughters”; it is possible that the “60 concubines” of 𝔐𝔐 cropped out from the “60 daughters”. 2 Chr 14:7 300,000 ‫𝔊𝔊 מיהודה‬-𝔏𝔏 300,000 Ant. 8:291 ἐκ Ἰούδα 300,000 280,000 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ומבנימן‬250,000; 𝔏𝔏 280,000 ἐκ Βενιαµίτιδος 250,000. King Asa has levied an army from Judah and Benjamin; Ant. agrees with 𝔊𝔊. 2 Chr 19:6 ‫𝔊𝔊 )כי לא לאדם תשׁפטו‬-𝔏𝔏 καὶ µεθ᾿ ὑµῶν Ant. 9:3 µηδενὸς οὕτως ὡς τοῦ ‫ כי ליהוה( ועמכם בדבר משׁפט‬λόγοι τῆς κρίσεως δικαίου προνοούµενος κρίνειν. Jehoshaphat said to the judges: “You do not judge for a man, but for Yhwh, who is with you in the word (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and with you are the words’, from ‫ )דברי‬of judgment”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 underlines the responsibility of the judge, and so does Josephus, with an exhortation: “To judge without thinking of anything but justice.” 2 Chr 20:1 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )בני־מואב ובני עמון‬ἐκ τῶν Μιναίων Ant. 9:7 ἐστράτευον Μωαβῖται, ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ועמהם מהעמונים‬ἐκ υἱῶν Σηειρ Ἀµµανῖται... Ἀράβων µοῖραν. A war was launched by “the sons of Moab and the sons of Ammon, and with

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them some of the Ammonite (𝔐𝔐 is redundant and incorrect; 𝔊𝔊 ‘of the Mineans’, most probably from ‫מעון‬, with a metathesis; 𝔏𝔏 ‘Seir’, from ‫שעיר‬, mentioned at 2 Chr 20:23 as the third part of the ennemy; see too Gen 33:6 𝔊𝔊 Σηιρ). Josephus renders “a part of the Arabs”, that is, people from beyond the Jordan; he saw neither 𝔐𝔐 nor 𝔊𝔊 (Maon is in Judah), but probably “Seir”, like 𝔏𝔏, not far away from Ammon and Moab, and updated with “Arabs”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Οχοζιας 2 Chr 21:17 ‫)ולא נשׁאר־לו בן כי אם( יהואחז‬ Ant. 9:102 Ὀχοζίας. All the king’s sons were killed but “Jehoahaz (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘Ochozias’, from a metathesis ‫אחזיהו‬, as at 2 Chr 22:1 and 2 Kgs 8:24)”. Jehoahaz was the son of Jehu, too, and here, 2 Chr 21:17 𝔐𝔐 is probably mistaken, for Ochozias was the son of Ahab, too (1 Kgs 22:40). 2 Chr 27:4 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )וערים בנה בהר־יהודה‬καί Ant. 9:237 πύργους παµµεγέθεις καὶ (‫ 𝔏𝔏 ובחרשׁים( בנה )בירניות ומגדלים‬καὶ ἐν Ιερουσαληµ δυσαλώτους οἰκοδοµήσας. King Jotham “built cities in the mountain of Judah and in the groves, he built (𝔊𝔊 ‘and’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘and in Jerusalem’) fortresses and towers”; 𝔐𝔐 is somewhat incoherent, with fortresses and towers in the groves; 𝔊𝔊 makes more sense, and 𝔏𝔏 still more. Josephus, who just spoke of restoring the walls of Jerusalem (see § I, 2 Chr 27:3), continues: “He built very large and impregnable towers”; he obviously means “in Jerusalem”, like 𝔏𝔏, which might depend on him. 2 Chr 31:4 ...‫𝔊𝔊 )לתת מנת הכהנים‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῇ λειτουρ- Ant. 9:273 ἵν᾽ αἰεὶ τῆς θεραπείας ‫למען יחזקו( בתורת יהוה‬ γίᾳ οἴκου κυρίου ὦσιν ἀχώριστοι τοῦ θεοῦ. Hezekiah commanded the people “to give the portion due to the priests... that they may be strong on the law (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘the service of the house’, from ‫ )עבודת בית‬of Yhwh”. Josephus, with “in order that they might always be uninterrupted in the service of God”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

III.4 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

1 Chr 27:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 )המשׁרתים( את־המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 τῷ λαῷ Ant. 7:368 προσεδρεύειν Σολώµονι. David organized the army, whith the leaders, “ministering to the king (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘to the people’)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Λίβυες, Τρωγλο2 Chr 12:3 (‫)באו עמו ממצרים‬ Ant. 8:254 Λίβυας ἐπ‫לובים סכיים וכושׁים‬ δύται καὶ Αἰθίοπες ήγετο καὶ Αἰθίοπας. Shishak was invading Judah, “and with him came from Egypt many Libyans, Sukkiim (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Troglodytes’, after ‫ )?סוכה‬and Ethiopians”; Josephus did not render the second name, although he knows the Troglodytes (Ant. 2:259, for “Madianites”), which means that he did not see 𝔊𝔊. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄρους 2 Chr 13:4 (‫)ויקם אביה‬ Ant. 8:274 ἀπήντησε τῷ Ἱερο‫מעל להר צמרים‬ Σοµορων βάµῳ εἰς ὄρος Σαµαρῶν. Both Abijah and Jeroboam got ready for the war, “and Abijah stood up over (𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏 ‘from’) Mount Zemaraim”; Josephus, with “he went to meet Jeroboam at Mount Samaron”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐. Both 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus seem to depend on a reading ‫ ;שמרון‬at Ant. 2:178, Josephus wrote Σαµαρῶν for Gen 46:13 ‫𝔊𝔊( שמרון‬ Ζαµβραν). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐν τῇ φάραγγι κατὰ 2 Chr 14:9 ‫בגיא‬ Ant. 8:293 ἔν τινι φάραγγι Σαβαθά, ‫צפתה למרשׁה‬ βορρᾶν Μαρισης τῆς πόλεως οὐκ ἄπωθεν.



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

191

King Asa went to meet the Ethiopians “in the valley of Zephathah at (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘north of’, from ‫צפונה‬, with a slight misreading ‫ ונ‬instead of ‫ )ת‬Maresha”; Josephus, with “in a valley called Zephathah, close to the city”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐. The place “Zephathah” could be identified with Zephath of Judg 1:17 (in the south). 2 Chr 14:12 ‫( עד־לגרר‬...‫𝔊𝔊 )וירדפם‬-𝔏𝔏 ἕως Γεδωρ Ant. 8:294 ἄχρι τῆς Γεραρίτιδος. The Ethiopians fled, and Asa “pursued them as far as Gerar (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Gedor’)”; Josephus has “as far as the territory of Gerar”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἡγουµένους 2 Chr 17:2 ‫)ויתן( נציבים‬ Ant. 8:393 φρουρὰς ἐγκαθίδρυσεν. King Jehoshaphat got stronger, “and he set up garrisons (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘leaders’, from ‫”)נִ ָצּבים‬. Josephus, with “he established garrisons”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 2 Chr 20:17 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 בזאת התיצבו עמדו‬ταῦτα σύνετε Ant. 9:11 µὴ συµβαλεῖν, στάν(‫ 𝔏𝔏 )וראו את־ישׁועת יהוה‬ἐν ταύτῃ στῆτε καὶ σύνετε τας δὲ µόνον ὁρᾶν. Jahaziel warns not to fight: “Take up position here, stand (𝔊𝔊 ‘understand this’, probably from ‫בזאת עמדו‬, without ‫‘ 𝔏𝔏 ;התיצבו‬stand here and understand’, correction after ‫ התיצבו‬or ‫עמדו‬, hence a kind of doublet) and see the salvation of Yhwh”; in 𝔐𝔐, ‫ התיצבו‬and ‫ עמדו‬are somewhat redundant. Josephus renders: “Do not engage the enemy, stand still and see”; this is close to 𝔐𝔐, but we cannot know whether he actually read ‫התיצבו‬. 2 Chr 20:25 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וימצאו‬-𝔏𝔏 κτήνη πολλά, ἀποAnt. 9:14 σκυλεῦσαι τοὺς νεκρούς. ‫לרב ורכושׁ ופגרים‬ σκευὴν καὶ σκῦλα τοσοῦτον τῶν ἀνῃρηµένων πλῆθος. The enemies fell and Jehoshaphat’s people “found much among them, goods, corpses (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘cattle, furniture and spoils’), etc.” Unlike 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, Josephus only mentions “spoiling the corpses; the dead were so numerous”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐποίησεν ὑψηλὰ 2 Chr 21:11 ‫גם־הוא עשׂה‬ Ant. 9:98 ἐπὶ τὰ ὑψηλὰ τῶν ‫במות בהרי יהודה‬ ἐν πόλεσιν Ιουδα ὀρῶν προσκυνεῖν θεούς. Joram “also made high places in the mounains (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘cities’, from ‫בערי‬, a misreading) of Judah”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: Joram forced the people “to worship gods at the high places of the mountains”. 2 Chr 21:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 הפלשׁתים‬-𝔏𝔏 τοὺς ἀλλοφύλους Ant. 9:102 στρατὸς Ἀράβων ‫ והערבים‬καὶ τοὺς Ἄραβας τῶν ἔγγιστα τῆς Αἰθιοπίας ‫ אשר על־יד כושׁים‬καὶ τοὺς ὁµόρους τῶν Αἰθιόπων καὶ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων. An army invaded Judah, with “the Philistines (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘foreigners’, as usual), the Arabs who (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and those who’, from ‫ )ואשר‬bordered the Ethiopians”. Josephus renders “an army of the Arabs close to Ethiopia, and of the foreigners”; the first part agrees with 𝔐𝔐; as for the “foreigners”, he cannot mean “Philistines”, for he always calls them Παλαιστῖνοι “Palestinians”; here, he considers that the Philistines have been subdued for a long time (see Ant. 8:396), hence his introduction of “foreigners”, which has no specific overtone (see Ant. 9:16 & 136). 2 Chr 24:4 (‫𝔊𝔊 לחדשׁ )את־בית יהוה‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπισκευάσαι Ant. 9:161 τὸν ναὸν ἀνακαινίσαι. Jehoash decided “to renew (like Ant.; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘equip’, maybe from ‫ )לחזק‬the house of Yhwh”. However, since the same 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 translation occurs three times in the passage, it may simply be an interpretation of ‫לחדשׁ‬. 2 Chr 25:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 )וישׁלח אליו( נביא ויאמר‬-𝔏𝔏 προφήτας καὶ εἶπαν Ant. 9:194 ὁ προφήτης. King Amaziah began to worship idols, and “Yhwh sent him a prophet (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘prophets’) who said”; Josephus, with “the prophet”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐, and identifies him with the unnamed prophet who earlier opposed Amaziah (cf. 2 Chr 25:7 ‫“ אישׁ האלהים‬the man of God”, see Ant. 9:189).

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2 Chr 26:6 (‫𝔊𝔊 )וילחם( בפלשׁתים )ויפרץ‬-𝔏𝔏 ἀλλοφύλους Ant. 9:217 ἐπὶ Παλαιστίνους, ‫𝔊𝔊 )את־חומת( גת )ואת חומת( יבנה‬-𝔏𝔏 Γεθ, Ιαβεις ἔλαβε Γίτταν καὶ Ἰαµνίαν. Uzziah “warred against the Philistines, and broke through the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabneh (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 did not identify the second name)”. Josephus never uses ἀλλόφυλοι “foreigners” to render “Philistines”. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Μιναῖοι 2 Chr 26:8 (‫)ויתנו( העמונים )מנחה לעזיהו‬ Ant. 9:218 Ἀµµανίτας. After some wars, “the Ammonites (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Mineans’) gave tribute to Uzziah”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐. On the “Mineans”, see § III.2, 2 Chr 20:1. 2 Chr 34:6 ...‫ ובערי מנשׁה‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויטהר‬-𝔏𝔏 Ant. 10:69 οἰκίας καὶ κώµας Qer ‫בחרבתיהם‬, Ket ‫𝔊𝔊 בהר בתיהם‬-𝔏𝔏 τοῖς τόποις αὐτῶν ἠρεύνησε καὶ πόλεις. Josiah “cleansed... and in the cities of Manasseh... the mountain of their houses (Ket, Qer ‘in their ruins’, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘in their places’, from ‫𝔊𝔊 ;”)ברחבותיהם‬-𝔏𝔏 makes more sense. Josephus says: “He searched the houses and towns and cities”, close to Ket, but with ‫“ ברר‬purified” instead of ‫( בהר‬a slight error in either side).

IV – Conclusions It is not easy to disentangle Josephus’ use of 1-2 Kgs and 1-2 Chr, for he wades through both. No Qumran fragment provides any help, all the more so that we do not know the shape of his sources; it has been observed that he is not familiar with the genealogies (see Chap. IV, § IV). As a starting point, we can consider the way he composed his preliminary outlines: for book 7, he alludes to 1 Kgs 1–2 at the end; for book 8, the main narrative comes from 1 Kgs, but three whole chapters of 2 Chr are introduced (13, 14 and 20, which have no parallel in 1 Kgs); for book 9, the same, with 2 Chr 25–26 alluded to; for book 10, again the same, with large portions of 2 Chr 35–36, and at the end some information taken from Jeremiah or Greek historians. In other words, his way of working was to follow the narrative of 1-2 Kgs, and to introduce excerpts from 1-2 Chr (as well as other sources and comments). This guideline may be useful to interpret the following table, which approximately charts the sources used by Josephus, step by step. Some conventions are used: – & indicates parallel passages, with broadly the same content; they can be considered as variants of the same story; they are dealt with in the previous sections; – ≠ indicates the parallel passages that disagree; Josephus follows one of them, as noted in the column “remarks”; – * indicates a little passage of one source, which appears to be introduced into a larger story given by the other.



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

Ant.

7:343-362 7:363-382 7:383-392a 7:392b-394 8:3-11 8:12 8:13-20 8:21-69 8:70 8:71 8:72 8:73-86 8:87-88 8:89-117 8:118-119 8:120-121 8:122-143 8:144-149 8:150-189 8:190-214 8:215-224 8:225-245 8:246-251 8:252 8:253-259 8:260-262 8:363-265 8:366-273 8:274-286 8:287-289 8:290-297 8:298-307a 8:307b-313 8:314-315 8:316-392 8:393-397 8:398-415 8:416-420 9:1-17 9:18-43 9:44-45 9:46-94 9:95 9:96-98 9:99-104 9:105 9:106-120 9:121 9:122-139 9:140-165 9:166-169 9:170-171

1-2 Kgs (K)

1 K 1:1-21

1-2 Chr (C)

193 Remarks

Abishag, Adonijah, Solomon king 1 C 23–29 David’s organization: cult, army 1 K 2:1-12 ≠ 1 C 29:26-30 David’s end and burial (Ant. with 1 K) David’s riches and fame 1 K 2:13-27 Adonijah’s death; Ebyathar removed 1 C 5:30-34? Zadok high priest; his genealogy; Josephus knows much more than 1 C 1 K 2:28-46 execution of Joab and Shimei 1 K 3:1-6:18 (2 C 1:3*) Solomon’s wisdom and works 2 C 3:5-7* temple coverings 1 K 6:19-32 ≠ 2 C 3:8-13 the Holy of Holies (Josephus with 1 K) 2 C 3:14* the curtain 1 K 6:33-7:22 further works in the temple 2 C 4:1 & 6* cleansing of priests; the bronze altar 1 K 7:23-8:54 & 2 C 4–6 inauguration of the temple 2 C 7:1-3 sacrifices consumed by heavenly fire 1 K 8:54-61 Solomon’s blessing 1 K 8:62-10:29 & 2 C 7:4-9:17 completion of the works; deeds and glory Phoenician records 1 K 8:62-10:29 & 2 C 7:4-9:17 Solomon’s deeds (order of Ant. troubled) 1 K 11:1-40 Solomon’s sin and fall 1 K 12:1-24 & 2 C 10:1-11:4 Solomon’s succession at Shechem 1 K 12:25-13:34 Jeroboam’s secession; Bethel’s shrine 2 C 11:5-12:1 Roboam fortifies the kindom and sins 1 K 14:22-24* Roboam’s impious deeds 2 C 12:2-11 Shishak’s victory against Roboam digression about Herodotus 1 K 14:25-31 ≠ 2 C 12:12-16 Ant. omits Roboam’s conversion (of 1 C) 1 K 14:1-20 on Jeroboam (order of Ant. troubled) 2 C 13:2-23 Abijah’s victory over Jeroboam; his end 1 K 15:25-32 Jeroboam’s son Nadab 2 C 14:2-15:15 Asa’s Ethiopian war; Azariah’s prophecy 1 K 15:17-22 & 2 C 16:1-6 Basha’s war against Asa 1 K 16:8-26 kings of Israel: Elah, Zimri, Omri 1 K 15:23-24 & 2 C 16:11-14 Asa’s end (order of Ant. troubled) 1 K 16:29-21:29 Ahab and Elijah 2 C 17:1-18:1 Jehoshaphat’s administration 1 K 22:1-35 & 2 C 18:2-34 Jehoshaphat’s alliance with Ahab 1 K 22:36-40 fulfillment of Elijah’s prophecy (Ahab) 2 C 19:1-20:30 Jehoshahat’s successful reign 2 K 1–3 Jehoshaphat and Jehoram against Moab 2 C 21:1-2* Jehoshaphat’s death; his son Jehoram 2 K 4:1-8:15 Elisha’s deeds 2 C 21:3-4* Jehoram kills his brothers and officers 2 K 8:17-22 & 2 C 21:5-10 revolt of Edom and Libnah 2 C 21:12-20 Elijah’s prophecy and Jehoram’s death 2 K 8:28-29 & 2 C 22:5-6 Jehoram and Ahaziah attack the Syrians 2 K 9:1-26 Jehu anointed by Elisha; his first deeds 2 K 9:27-28 ≠ 2 C 22:7-9 Ahaziah’s death; Ant. agrees with 2 K 2 K 9:20-10:36 Jehu’s reforms 2 K 11:1-12:17 & 2 C 22:10-24:16 queen Athaliah and Jehoiada; Jehoash 2 C 24:17-22* Jehoiada’s death and Jehoash’s decline 2 K 12:18-19 ≠ 2 C 24:23-24 Jehoash and Hazael;

194 9:172 9:173-185 9:186-187 9:188-195 9:196-204 9:205-207 9:208-214 9:215-224 9:225-227 9:228-235 9:236a 9:236b-238 9:239-242 9:243 9:244-245 9:246-251 9:252-257a 9:257b 9:258-259 9:260-274 9:275-276 9:277-282 9:283-287 9:288-291 10:1-17 10:18-20 10:21-23 10:24 10:25-35 10:36-46 10:47-48 10:49-56 10:57-65 10:66-70 10:71-73 10:74-78 10:79-83 10:84-95 10:96-101 10:102-115 10:116-150 10:151-153 10:154-185 10:186-228 10:229-230

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

2 C 24:25-26* 2 K 13:1-25 2 K 14:1-6 & 2 C 25:1-4 2 C 25:5-16 2 K 14:8-22 & 2 C 25:17-26:2 2 K 14:23-29

Jehoash’s illness and death Jehoahaz and Jehoash; Elisha’s death Amaziah, king of Judah his war against Amalekites and Edomites Amaziah’s war against Jehoash of Israel wickedness of Jeroboam II of Israel Jonah (prophet of Jeroboam II, 2 K 14:25) 2 C 26:3-20 king Uzziah of Judah 2 K 15:5-7 & 2 C 26:21-23 Uzziah’s (2 K Azariah’s) leprosy 2 K 15:8-31 from Zechariah to Pekah of Israel 2 K 15:32* Yotham succeeds Uzziah (not Azariah) 2 C 27:1-6 Yotham’s deeds Nahum’s prophecies 2 K 16:1-4 & 2 C 27:8-28:4 Ahaz succeeds Yotham in Judah 2 K 16:5-6 war of Rezin and Pekah against Ahaz 2 C 28:5-15 Syria and Israel attack Judah and win (2 C 28:17-19) Edomite and Philistine attacks (Ant. omits) 2 K 16:7-13 ≠ 2 C 28:20-23 Ahaz bribes the Assyrians; Ant. with 2 K 2 C 28:24-25* Ahaz closes the temple 2 K 17:1-3 Hezekiah succeeds Ahaz in Judah 2 C 29:1-31:21 Hezekiah’s reforms 2 K 18:5-8 Hezekiah’s piety and wars (order changed) 2 K 17:4-24 end of Israel: deportation; new settlers recods of the Tyrian archives 2 K 17:25-41 the settlers (Samaritans) learn Yahwism 2 K 18:13-19:9 Hezekiah, Sennacherib, Isaiah (2 C 32:2-8) imminent Assyrian invasion (Ant. omits) citations of Herodotus, Berossus 2 K 19:35-37 Assyrians routed; Sennacherib’s death 2 C 32:23-24* a wonderful relief; thanksgiving 2 K 20:1-19 Hezekiah’s illness; Isaiah’s prophecy (2 C 32:25-31) Hezekiah’s public works (Ant. omits) 2 K 21:1-16 ≠ 2 C 33:1-19 king Manasseh (Josephus follows 2 C) 2 K 21:19-26 & 2 C 33:21-25 King Amon, Manasseh’s son 2 C 34:1-7 Josiah’s precocious wisdom and piety 2 K 22:3-23:3 & 2 C 34:8-32 discovery of the law; Josiah’s reforms 2 K 23:4-20 cleansing of the land 2 K 23:21-27 ≠ 2 C 35:1-19 Josiah’s Passover (Josephus follows 2 C) 2 K 23:29-30 ≠ 2 C 35:20-25 Josiah’s death (Josephus follows 2 C) 2 K 23:31-37 & 2 C 36:1-7 kings Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim Nabuchodonosor, Nekao etc. (from Jer) 2 K 24:1-16 Jehoiakim’s death; Jehoiachin 2 C 36:11-13* Zedekiah (completed with Jer and Ezek) 2 K 25:1-21 ruins and deportations (completed by Jer) 1 C 6:8-11? high priests (Josephus’ list is much longer) 2 K 25:22-26 Gedaliah and his murder (with Jer) Dan 1–4, which is connected with Nebuchadnezzar; Jehoiachin’s 37-year jail 2 K 25:27-30 Jehoiachin freed by Evil-merodach, Nebuchadnezzar’s son

This table prompts some comments: a) Josephus does not follow the exact order of 1-2 Kgs (besides the case of 1 Kgs 20–21); apparently this is due to an effort to clarify the complicated history of the two kingdoms, as well as to chrono-



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

195

logical consideration, e.g. the last two lines of the table. b) Concerning the genealogies of the high priests: Ezra 7:1-5 has only three names between Zadok (David’s time) and Seraiah, supposed to be Ezra’s father. If we compare this with the list given at 1 Chr 5:30-41, it appears that it is essentially the same, with Jehozadak instead of Ezra: indeed, it is the result of papponymies and repetitions of names, in order to fill up several centuries. On the contrary, Josephus has much better lists: first, he gives the descendants of Itamar, Aaron’s second surviving son (Ant. 5:361), and at Ant. 8:12 he expounds the moves between the two dynasties of Pinehas and Itamar; second, between Zadok and the exile, he lines up at 10:151 eighteen different names, which makes much more sense. He does not allude to separate documents “kept in the temple” like lyric pieces, and we may ask whether he found these genealogies in his copy of 1 Chr. c) The verses noted * suggest another question, illustrated with an example: at Ant. 8:70-72, for the temple works, Josephus follows 1 Kgs, but he inserts from 2 Chr two details that should belong to the general description of 1 Kgs: the temple coverings and the curtain. We may wonder whether he took the trouble to unroll a scroll in order to search for some complement, all the more so that he overlooked some longer passages of 1 Chr (see at 8:63 and after 9:46, 10:1, 10:25). To be sure, he may have seen marginal glosses in 1 Kgs, like elsewhere (see Chap. V, § IV.1). A similar remark can be offered in the reverse direction: at Ant. 8:252 Josephus introduces Roboam’s wicked deeds of 1 Kgs into the long story of 1 Chr. Sometimes, a verse of 2 Chr seems to be imported from a very different context, e.g. at Ant. 10:53 (from 2 Chr 19:5, § IV.1). d) The previous questions cannot be answered properly here, because they would imply a specific study beyond Josephus testimony, but the case of Manasseh’s prayer, discussed below (§ V), leads to the conclusion that Josephus’ copy of 2 Chr was quite different from the canonical form (𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊). As for the language of Josephus’ sources, some facts show that it was consistently Hebrew: a) for 1 Chr, see § I and IV.4 above; for 2 Chr 27:8 and 35:19, Josephus is definitely with 𝔐𝔐; the contacts with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 or 𝔏𝔏 alone (§ III.3) never imply a direct dependence; b) for 1 Kgs, completing the previous chapter (§ II above); for 1 Kgs 9:23 and 1 Kgs 12:2, Josephus stands definitely with 𝔐𝔐; for 1 Kgs 22:1-35 // 2 Chr 18 (till Ahab’s death), he follows 1 Kgs 𝔐𝔐; for 1 Kgs 14:26, he has a good contact with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but his wording is different;

196

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

c) some double readings are better explained from Hebrew variants (§ II): 2 Chr 5:8, 2 Chr 9:2; d) sometimes, 𝔏𝔏 has a doublet with a word present in Ant. (§ III.2): 2 Chr 20:16, 2 Chr 27:4; they were probably borrowed from Ant.; e) Josephus did not have the additions of 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, 35:19a-d, 36:2a-c, and 36:5a-d (Ra.).

V – Appendix: The Prayer of Manasseh

Concerning Josephus’ Hebrew source, it is useful to dwell a little longer on a specific case, Manasseh’s prayer. According to 2 Kgs 21:1-18, Manasseh reigned 55 years and was the worst of the kings of Judah, in spite of the warnings of prophets that Jerusalem was doomed. This is in agreement with early Rabbinic tradition: it is stated in m.Sanh 10:2 that he will not have a part in the “World to Come”, like Jeroboam and Ahab, the northern kings. However, 2 Chr 33:11-13 reports that he was taken captive to Babylon; there, he humbled himself and prayed, and God “hearkened to his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem”; 2 Kgs does not know of this exile and conversion. In the Mishnah, one isolated sage, quoting 2 Chr, objects to the verdict that he will have a part, but it is flatly replied that Manasseh was brought back to Jerusalem, and nothing more. This controversy indicates that the passage of 2 Chr as it stands now did not have the relevant authority for the majority of the Mishnah scholars. In fact, the short story of Manasseh’s capture and conversion lacks any plausibility, for it is briefly stated that God sent the officers of the king of Assyria; they came, captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with “bronzes” (‫בנחשׁתים‬, 𝔊𝔊 πέδαις “fetters”), and took him to Babylon; then he prayed and eventually God brought him back; the prayer is not quoted. The description of Manasseh’s treatment is almost identical to Zedekiah’s at 2 Kgs 25:7: “They bound him with fetters and brought him to Babylon.” In fact, no detail of any war is given, nor any earthly explanation of his return either; moreover, the episode took place by the time of Assurbanipal, and Manasseh should have been deported to Nineveh, the Assyrian capital, not to Babylon; the error is best explained by a borrowing of the sentence from Zedekiah’s deportation. V.1 The Context of the Prayer Manasseh’s prayer is twice alluded to in the summary of his reign, but the context should be considered first, and compared to the paral-



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

197

lel in 2 Kgs, which we suppose known to the Chronicler. 2 Kgs 21

2 Chr 33

And Yhwh spoke through his servAnd Yhwh spoke to Manasseh and ants the prophets (‫)הנביאים‬, saying: his people, but they would not listen. (11-16 prophecy of irrevocable doom, (11-17 Manasseh’s exile, prayer, miracbecause of Manasseh’s sins.) ulous return, and good deeds.) 17 18 The rest of the acts of Manasseh, The rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer to his God, and all that he did and his sin which and the words of the seers (‫ )החזים‬who he committed, are they not written in spoke to him in the name of Yhwh the Book of the Chronicles of the God of Israel, behold, they are among kings of Judah? the records of the kings of Israel. 19 And his prayer and how God was entreated by him, and all his sin, his unfaithfulness, and the sites on which he built high places and erected the Asherim and the carved images, before he humbled himself (𝔊𝔊 omits), behold, they are written in the records of Hozai (‫חוזי‬, τῶν ὁρώντων “Seers”). 18 And Manasseh slept with his fa- 20 And Manasseh slept with his fathers... And Amon his son became thers... And Amon his son became king in his place. king in his place. 20 He did evil in the sight of Yhwh, as 22 He did evil in the sight of Yhwh, as Manasseh his father had done, Manasseh his father had done. 21 for he walked in all the way that his and Amon sacrificed to all the carved father had walked, and served the images which his father Manasseh had idols that his father had served made, and worshiped them. and he served them. 22 And he forsook Yhwh, the God of 23 And he did not humble himself behis fathers. fore Yhwh, as his father Manasseh had done. (Then Amon’s servants plotted and killed him.) 10

10

Table 1 – If we start from the end, we can see that the acts of Amon are very similar to Manasseh’s, albeit with a somewhat different wording; he used his father’s idol devices. The only difference is the last comparison of 2 Chr, that Manasseh did humble himself, but only according to 𝔐𝔐 (v. 19); the absence of ‫ לפני הכנעו‬in 𝔊𝔊 reflects an earlier stage of composition, without Manasseh’s conversion. This slight addition of 𝔐𝔐 refers to the previous section in which the prophecy of doom (2 Kgs) has been replaced by the story of Manasseh’s captivity, conversion and good deeds, among which he destroyed the idol devices he had built. There is a kind of contradiction with the presentation of 2 Chr. Such a change of Manasseh’s profile should be connected with

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

the general theology of the Chronicler about God’s justice: Manasseh’s reign was the longest, so that he could not have been entirely wicked, though it may have been difficult to compose a full-scale story of his exile and return. The same way, 2 Kgs 23:29-30 does not hide that the death of Josiah, a righteous king, was the consequence of his presumption to play a political role on a large scale, but according to 2 Chr 35:20-24, it was the result of his arrogance towards God. More generally, 2 Kgs 26:27-30 presents as a conclusion a king in exile, while 2 Chr 36:22-23 finishes up with Jeremiah’s prophecy and Cyrus’ proclamation, which grants freedom to the exiles; there is no final doom. As for the summary of Manasseh’s acts, 2 Kgs 21:17 simply follows the general pattern of the obituaries of kings. On the contrary, 2 Chr 33:18-19 is longer, in two parts stored in specific archives, each one mentioning Manasseh’s prayer. If we omit it in both places, we see that the first part mentions the “words of the seers”; they should be connected with the prophets of 2 Kgs 21:10, that is, with their warnings, which are now covered up by Manasseh’s good deeds. The second part is a list of his sins. In the 2 Chr summary as it stands, the good deeds are not alluded to, which is surprising. Moreover, the two mentions of Manasseh’s prayer are given at the beginning of each part, which is not very logical, for his exile and conversion happened after his sins and presumably after the warnings of the prophets. In other words, the story of Manasseh’ good deeds makes sense, but the twofold introduction of his prayer in a negative summary does not. It looks like a kind of compensation for the disappearance of the prayer from the body of the story. V.2 Josephus and the Prayer Josephus’ account may help in substantiating such a hypothesis. After a description of Manasseh’s sins, he paraphrases 2 Chr 33:1117 in a lengthy way, with plenty of good deeds (Ant. 10:44-46); since there is no formal war, he states that he was captured by cunning. He adds some details, which may be significant. In captivity, Manasseh realized that he was himself the cause of his misfortune, and successfully prayed God for his enemy’s mercy. After Manasseh’s return to Jerusalem, Josephus adds an unexpected psychological comment, as if he was reading the humble prayer: “He strove to cast from his mind, if that were possible, the very memory of his former sins, of which he was anxious to repent”. At the end of his account, he says that Manasseh “lived the rest of his life in such a way as to be accounted a blessed and enviable man after the time when he began to show piety toward God” (ὡς µακα-



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ριστὸς εἶναι καὶ ζηλωτὸς ἐκείνου τοῦ χρόνου λογιζόµενος ἀφ’ οὗ τὸν θεὸν εὐσεβεῖν ἤρξατο). Josephus does report this reputation, but it is not very clear that he personally agrees with it, all the more so that he never credits any other king with such an encomium. In many cases, he is able to censor his sources, when they alter the picture he wants to convey; for instance, Hezekiah was a good king, and Josephus omits his pride, as well as his prayer (10:18 & 25). Thus, it seems that here he depends on an unavoidable source. Contrarily to 2 Chr, Josephus does not give a summary of Manasseh’s life, and ignores his prayer as a separate document, stored elsewhere, a feature he indicates in other contexts. For instance, some poetic texts are kept in the Temple: a piece on the miracle of water at Rephidim (Ant. 3:38); a prophetic song of Moses (4:303); the miraculous stopping of the sun (Ant. 5:61, cf. the Book of the Upright One of Josh 10:13 𝔐𝔐). V.3 The Prayer

The prayer itself is known from other sources. The separated text is given in some 𝔊𝔊 mss, among a collection of odes (hereafter MP), which includes even Simeon’s hymn of Luke 2:29-32, hence the floating suspicion of a Christian composition of the prayer, in order to fill up a void in the narrative of 2 Chr 33:13.5 However, the prayer does not hint at any Christian tenets, and the Greek recalls the 𝔊𝔊 style, with some typical expressions that suggest a Hebrew original, before possible Greek reworkings. For instance, MP 11 has “now I bend the knee of my heart” (νῦν κλίνω γόνυ καρδίας µου); such a metaphor is natural in Hebrew, with the nifal of the verb ‫“ כנע‬humble oneself, bend the knees”, which occurs 9 times in 1-2 Chr. At 2 Chr 33:12, it describes Manasseh’s humility (‫)ויכנע‬, and the 𝔊𝔊 translator, who did not see the prayer, rendered it with a normal ἐταπεινώθη “he humbled himself”. Thus, under the locution we read at v. 11, there could have been a Hebrew ‫ אכנע ליבי‬or ‫הכנע ליבי‬, or even with ‫ נפשי‬instead of ‫ליבי‬. The name “Manasseh” only appears in the title of the prayer, and not in the text itself, but it fits his position in captivity, when he humbled himself: after a praise of God’s power and mercy (MP 1-7), the supplicant recalls that God has constituted repentance for the sinners, then he recognizes the meaning of his ordeal and confesses 5 See RAHLFS II:180-1 “Ode 12”; for the translation, we used with some changes Pieter W. VAN DER HORST & Judith H. NEWMAN, Early Jewish prayers in Greek (Berlin: W. de Gruy-

ter, 2008), p. 145-80. A Hebrew copy has been found in a collection of hymns at the Karaite genizah of Cairo, but it was probably a retroversion from the Greek or Syriac, for the typical Biblical features are missing, see Reimund LEICHT, “A Newly Discovered Hebrew Version of the Apocryphal ‘Prayer of Manasseh’”, JSQ 3 (1996), p. 359-73.

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

the multitude of his iniquities and asks for forgiveness (MP 8-15). He says: “I am weighted down by many iron shackles”. These details match Josephus’ paraphrase: Manasseh discovers his own responsibility, and the burden of his memory stands. So, it seems, as noted above, that Josephus knew the prayer from his copy of 2 Chr. V.4 The Prayer in Context The most ancient witness of the payer in its narrative context is the Didascalia Apostolorum (hereafter DA) written in Greek in the 2nd cent. In an exhortation to bishops, the anonymous author holds up Manasseh as an example of the wicked ruler who repented. The text has only survived in a Syriac translation of the 4th cent., and some Latin quotations; it is quoted here in Latin (italics). The writer gives the whole story: for Manasseh’s sins, he explicitly combines 2 Kgs 21:1-18 and 2 Chr 33:1-20 of 𝔊𝔊, with minor changes; the prayer is inserted after “and he prayed” (2 Chr 33:13). The whole exhortation is reproduced with some changes in the Constitutiones Apostolorum 2.22.3-18 (hereafter CA), a Greek work composed in the 4th cent. In the following discussion, the numbering of CA is followed.6 For Manasseh’s misdeeds, the accounts of both sources are added up – and expanded. Here is an example: 𝔊𝔊

2 Kgs 21:1 υἱὸς 12 ἐτῶν Μανασσης 2 Chr 33:1 ὢν 12 ἐτῶν Μανασσης

CA-DA 2.22

CA 3 υἱὸς Μανασσῆς δωδεκαετής DA filius erat 12 annorum Manasses

Here, the source is 2 Kgs, and DA maintains a Semitism, while CA has an alteration of style. 𝔊𝔊 2 Kgs 21 and 2 Chr 33

ἐπέστρεψεν καὶ ᾠκοδόµησεν τὰ ὑψηλά, ἃ κατέσπασεν Εζεκιας ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔστησεν στήλας ταῖς Βααλιµ (‫)לבעלים‬ (2 Kgs ἀνέστησεν θυσιαστήριον τῇ Βααλ – ‫)לבעל‬, καὶ ἐποίησεν ἄλση, καθὼς ἐποίησεν Αχααβ βασιλεὺς Ισραηλ. 3

CA-DA 2.22 ἐπέστρεψεν Μανασσῆς καὶ ᾠκοδόµησεν τὰ ὑψηλά, ἃ κατέσπασεν Ἐζεκίας ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔστησεν στήλας τῇ Βάαλ (Bahalim) καὶ ἀνέστησεν θυσιαστήριον τῇ Βάαλ (Bahal), καὶ ἐποίησεν ἄλση, καθὼς ἐποίησεν Ἀχαὰβ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ. 5

Table 2 – The way the two sources are combined appears clearly 6 The texts have been edited by Franciscus X. FUNK, Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Torino: Bodega d’Erasmo, 1979; orig. 1905), I:81-9. For the legends on Manasseh and Amon, see GINZBERG IV:277-81 and VI:370-6.



VII – KINGS AND CHRONICLES

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here, whith the exact wording of 𝔊𝔊, including the feminine “Baal(s)”, as DA kept it. 𝔊𝔊 2 Kgs 21 and 2 Chr 33 CA-DA 2.22 καὶ ᾠκοδόµησεν θυσιαστήρια ἐν οἴκῳ κυρίου, ᾧ (2 Chr οὗ) εἶπεν κύριος (7 πρὸς Δαυιδ καὶ πρὸς Σαλωµων) (τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ) Ἐν Ιερουσαληµ θήσω (2 Chr ἔσται) τὸ ὄνοµά µου 4

(2 Chr adds εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα).

καὶ ᾠκοδόµησεν θυσιαστήριον ἐν οἴκῳ κυρίου, ἐν ᾧ εἶπεν κύριος πρὸς Δαυὶδ καὶ πρὸς Σολοµῶνα τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ λέγων, ὅτι (DA omits) ἐν αὐτῷ θήσω (DA domo Hier. ponam) τὸ ὄνοµά µου. 6 ἔστησεν Μανασσῆς θυσιαστήρια καὶ ἐν αὐτοῖς ἐδούλευσεν τῇ Βάαλ, καὶ εἶπεν Ἔσται τὸ ὄνοµά µου εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

Table 3 – The addition of the sources leads to a remarkable confusion: the altar is built twice, with again the “she-Baal” worship; God’s saying “my name will be forever” is eventually transferred to Manasseh himself. CA further expanded by introducing a part of v. 7 “(he said) to David and Solomon his son”. Now, the story of Manasseh’s captivity and conversion is reported by 2 Chr 33:11-17 only. 𝔊𝔊 2 Chr 33

καὶ ἤγαγεν κύριος ἐπ᾿ αὐτοὺς (= 𝔐𝔐) τοὺς ἄρχοντας τῆς δυνάµεως βασιλέως Ασσουρ, καὶ κατέλαβον τὸν Μανασση ἐν δεσµοῖς καὶ ἔδησαν αὐτὸν ἐν πέδαις (‫)בחחים ויאסרהו בנחשׁתים‬, καὶ ἤγαγον εἰς Βαβυλῶνα. 11

CA-DA 2.22 καὶ ἤγαγεν κύριος ἐπ’ αὐτὸν (DA eos) τοὺς ἄρχοντας τῆς δυνάµεως τοῦ βασιλέως Ἀσούρ, καὶ κατελάβοντο τὸν Μανασσῆν ἐν δεσµοῖς καὶ ἔδησαν αὐτὸν ἐν πέδαις χαλκαῖς (cf. 𝔐𝔐; DA om.), καὶ ἤγαγον αὐτὸν εἰς Βαβυλῶνα. καὶ ἦν δεδεµένος καὶ κατασεσιδηρωµένος ὅλος ἐν οἴκῳ φυλακῆς, καὶ ἐδίδοτο αὐτῷ ἐκ πιτύρων ἄρτος ἐν σταθµῷ βραχὺς καὶ ὕδωρ σὺν ὄξει ὀλίγον ἐν µέτρῳ ὥστε ζῆν αὐτόν, καὶ ἦν συνεχόµενος καὶ ὀδυνώµενος σφόδρα. 10

Table 4 – For “they bound him with ‘bronzes’ (𝔊𝔊 ἐν πέδαις ‘in chains’) and took him to Babylon”; “in chains” is the usual translation of ‫( בנחשׁתים‬Judg 16:21, 2 Sam 3:34, 2 Kgs 25:7, 2 Chr 36:6, Jer 52:11), without indication of a specific material. So, the mention of “bronze chains” in CA is somewhat artificial, and may reflect an independent translation of the Hebrew. CA adds a description of Manasseh’s captivity: “And he was bound and covered with iron, alone in the prison house, and he was given bread made of bran in small measure, and water with vinegar

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

in little quantity, so that he could live, and he was restrained and very much in pain.” The verse is devoid of the typical Greek particles that are current in the book; the style is 𝔊𝔊-like (e.g. καὶ ἦν for ‫ ;והוא‬ὥστε ζῆν αὐτόν for ‫ ;)כדי חיותו‬however, the vocabulary is unusual (κατασεσιδηρωµένος, πίτυρον). It may have been either an ad hoc composition, or an adaptation of a Jewish midrash that expanded the next sentence (v. 12, see below Table 5) “and when he was in distress”; the “vinegar” may be reminiscent of Psa 69:22 “they gave me vinegar to drink”. Josephus does not allude to such a description. 𝔊𝔊 2 Chr 33

καὶ ὡς ἐθλίβη, ἐζήτησεν τὸ πρόσωπον κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐταπεινώθη σφόδρα ἀπὸ προσώπου θεοῦ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ· 13a καὶ προσηύξατο πρὸς αὐτόν. 12

CA-DA 2.22

καὶ ὡς βιαίως ἐθλίβη, ἐζήτησεν τὸ πρόσωπον κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐταπεινώθη σφόδρα ἀπὸ προσώπου κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ, καὶ προσηύξατο πρὸς κύριον τὸν θεὸν λέγων... (12-14 prayer). 11

Table 5 – The prayer is inserted within v. 13, but not in the Massoretic middle, which is after ‫( למלכותו‬ἐπὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ, see next table). 𝔊𝔊 2 Chr 33

καὶ ἐπήκουσεν αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐπήκουσεν τῆς βοῆς αὐτοῦ (‫)ויעתר לו וישׁמע תחנתו‬

CA-DA 2.22

καὶ ἐπήκουσεν κύριος τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ καὶ ᾠκτείρησεν αὐτόν, καὶ ἐγένετο περὶ αὐτὸν φλὸξ πυρός, καὶ ἐτάκησαν πάντα τὰ περὶ αὐτὸν σίδηρα, καὶ ἰάσατο κύριος τὸν Μανασσῆν ἐκ τῆς θλίψεως αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπέστρεψεν αὐτὸν εἰς Ιερουσαληµ καὶ ἐπέστρεψεν αὐτὸν εἰς Ἱερουσαλὴµ ἐπὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ (‫·)למלכותו‬ ἐπὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ. 16 καὶ ἔγνω Μανασσῆς ὅτι κύριος καὶ ἔγνω Μανασσης ὅτι κύριος αὐτός ἐστιν ὁ θεός. ὁ θεὸς αὐτός ἐστιν θεὸς µόνος. καὶ ἐλάτρευσεν µόνῳ κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν ὅλῃ τῇ ψυχῇ αὐτοῦ πάσας τὰς ἡµέρας τῆς ζωῆς αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐλογίσθη δίκαιος.

13b

15

Table 6 – The parallel passages are quite similar in content and wording, except one significant difference: at the beginning, 𝔊𝔊 has the same ἐπήκουσεν to render two different Hebrew words, while CA distinguishes (as well as DA et exaudiuit uocem eius Dominus et miseratus est eum), which suggests an independent translation of the Hebrew. CA has two additions. The first, after God answered the prayer, is a description of the miracle: “And there was around him a flame of fire, and all the irons around him melted down, and the Lord healed



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203

Manasseh of his distress.” Again, the style is that of 𝔊𝔊, and the comments on the addition to CA 13 above (Table 4) apply also here. Josephus ignores this addition, but no conclusion can be drawn, for he is not fond of miracles. The second addition, after Manasseh’s confession of faith, is more significant: “And he worshipped the only lord God with all his heart and with all his soul all the days of his life, and he was accounted a righteous one”; there is a clear allusion to the Shema Israel (Deut 6:5 “you shall love Yhwh your God with all your heart and with all your soul”). Now, Josephus has a very similar statement, already quoted above (Ant. 10:46): “He lived the rest of his life in such a way as to be accounted a blessed and enviable man after the time when he began to show piety toward God.” The wording is different, as usual, but the two main components are present in the same order: Manasseh’s utmost religiousness till his death, and his reputation of righteousness. 𝔊𝔊 2 Chr 33 CA-DA 2.22 καὶ περιεῖλεν τοὺς θεοὺς ἀλλοτρίους καὶ τὸ γλυπτὸν ἐξ οἴκου κυρίου καὶ πάντα τὰ θυσιαστήρια, ἃ ᾠκοδόµησεν ἐν ὄρει οἴκου κυρίου καὶ ἐν Ιερουσαληµ, καὶ (𝔏𝔏 adds ἐξέβαλεν) ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, 16 καὶ κατώρθωσε τὸ θυσιαστήριον κυρίου, καὶ ἐθυσίασεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτὸ θυσίαν σωτηρίου καὶ αἰνέσεως καὶ εἶπεν τῷ Ιουδα τοῦ δουλεύειν κυρίῳ θεῷ Ισραηλ (... 17-19) 20 καὶ ἐκοιµήθη Μανασσης µετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἔθαψαν αὐτὸν ἐν παραδείσῳ οἴκου αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἀντ᾿ αὐτοῦ Αµως (𝔐𝔐 ‫ )אמון‬υἱὸς αὐτοῦ. 15

καὶ περιεῖλεν τοὺς θεοὺς τοὺς ἀλλοτρίους καὶ τὸ γλυπτὸν ἐξ οἴκου κυρίου καὶ πάντα τὰ θυσιαστήρια, ἃ ᾠκοδόµησεν ἐν ὄρει οἴκου κυρίου καὶ ἐν Ἱερουσαλήµ καὶ ἐξέβαλεν (= 𝔐𝔐 ‫ )וישׁלך‬ἔξω τῆς πόλεως, καὶ κατώρθωσε τὸ θυσιαστήριον κυρίου, καὶ ἐθυσίασεν ἐπ’ αὐτῷ θυσίαν σωτηρίου καὶ αἰνέσεως, καὶ εἶπεν Μανασσῆς τῷ Ἰούδᾳ τοῦ δουλεύειν κυρίῳ τῷ θεῷ Ἰσραήλ (DA om.). 18 καὶ ἐκοιµήθη ἐν εἰρήνῃ µετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ, 17

καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ὁ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ.

Ἀµὼς

Table 7 – (From 2 Chr 33:20 on, the parallelism with 2 Kgs resumes; the verse quoted here is very similar in 2 Kgs 𝔊𝔊.) Here, DA skips over some verses, but two details should be pointed out: first, DA omits v. 15-16, which shows that CA seems to have been somewhat reworked according to 𝔊𝔊; then in v. 17 of CA, however, ἐξέβαλεν is restored according to the Hebrew (or maybe 𝔏𝔏), which alters the meaning: 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊 says that Manasseh “removed the foreign gods... and the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of Yhwh and in Jerusalem and (𝔐𝔐, 𝔏𝔏 and CA add ‘he threw’) outside the city”. No clear conclusion about the way CA handled his sources can be extracted from this case.

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

About this source problem, it is instructive to consider the following quotation about Amon, Manasseh’s son. 𝔊𝔊 2 Chr 33

CA-DA 2.23

φησὶν γὰρ ἡ γραφή Καὶ ἐλογίσατο Ἀµὼς λογισµὸν παραβάσεως ἐν ἑαυτῷ κακὸν καὶ εἶπεν Ὁ πατήρ µου πολλὰ ἐκ νεότητος παρηνόµησεν καὶ ἐν τῷ γήρει µετέγνω. καὶ νῦν ἐγὼ πορεύσοµαι καθὰ ἐπιθυµεῖ ἡ ψυχή µου, καὶ ὕστερον ἐπιστρέψω πρὸς κύριον. 22 καὶ ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον 4 καὶ ἐποίησεν τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον κυρίου, ὡς ἐποίησεν Μανασσης... κυρίου... 21 καὶ δύο ἔτη ἐβασίλευσεν καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν ἔτη δύο ἐν Ιερουσαληµ. µόνα. 3

Table 8 – (The verses quoted are identical in 2 Kgs 21:19-20.) Amon “did evil in the sight of God”, and CA introduces that with a description of his mindset: “For Scripture says: And Amos (Amon) thought in himself a bad thought of disobedience, and said: My father since his youth broke the laws many times, and changed his mind in his old age; and now I will walk according to the desire of my soul, and eventually I will return to the Lord”. The scheme was spoiled, for he died after a reign of two years “only”. Again, the 𝔊𝔊-like style is apparent, but the phraseology is different (λογισµὸν παραβάσεως, µετέγνω). The introducing words cannot refer to Scripture itself, for the author of DA has said at the very beginning of the story of Manasseh (2.22.3): “For it is written in the 4th book of the Reigns and in the 2nd book of the Paralipomena;” these authorities are not mentioned any more in the sequel. Here, therefore, the author must refer to another written source. Now, we read in the Mishnah (Yoma 8:9): “The one who says: ‘I shall sin, and then repent’, no opportunity is given him for repentance.” This general statement is similar to Amon’s scheme, and one may imagine that a Jewish midrash attaching it to Amon was written – then lost, for it was not kept in the classical Rabbinic sources. Sir 7:8 gives a warning that may reflect the same underlying view: “Do not bind up sin to sin (µὴ καταδεσµεύσῃς δὶς ἁµαρτίαν ‘twice a sin’), even for one you will not go unpunished (ἀθῷος).” V.5 Conclusion Josephus was aware of both the content of Manasseh’s prayer and his life after his conversion, with his lasting devotion to God and



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subsequent reputation, that is, the main materials we find in DA-CA. It is really unlikely that these later works could have borrowed from Josephus. In other words, both depend on a form of 2 Chr that is different from 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, and which was extant in the Hebrew Bible of Josephus. Little details of DA-CA suggest that its primitive form does not depends on 𝔊𝔊 as it stands now (Tables 4, 6, 7), but reflects an independent translation of the Hebrew. By combining this result with the comment on the general comparison of the parallel accounts of 2 Kgs and 2 Chr (Table 1), it is possible to venture a literary development of the 2 Chr story of Manasseh in three stages: 1. With the omission of Manasseh’s conversion and good deeds (2 Chr 33:11-17), as well as the subsequent allusions to his prayer, we obtain a story quite parallel to 2 Kgs 21:10-18, but without the prophecy of doom, which matches the general outlook of 1-2 Chr. Manasseh was a very bad king, and his son Amon was like him. 2. Then a question was asked: With the Chronicler’s perspective of God’s rewarding the people according to their deeds, how can we explain away the contrast between Manasseh’ long life and Amon’s very short reign? Justice is not apparent! Thus, Manasseh cannot have been entirely bad, hence a somewhat artificial story of his ordeal and conversion, including his prayer, was introduced. Josephus and DA-CA witness this stage of the Hebrew text. 3. Finally, the prayer was detached from Manasseh’s story, but it was mentioned as a separate piece, devoid of any context, and it was kept in the two different archives that are indicated in the actual texts of 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊; this reworking was performed a little further in 𝔐𝔐 (Table 1). Granted freedom in this way, the prayer could move in various directions. It is interesting that fragments of penance prayers, with a title “Prayer of Manasseh”, have been found at Qumran, although the texts are very different from ours.7 As for the reasons of such a transformation, we may observe: first, that the prayer does not contain the name “Manasseh”, and second, that its value and religious usefulness are obviously broader than the remote story of king Manasseh. In the same line, one can say that the penance Psa 51 is more important than David’s personal sin.8

7 8

See “4QNon-Canonical Psalms B”, DJD 11 (1998), p. 87-172. For the literary analysis of the texts and their reception, see Matthias HENZE, “King Manasseh of Judah in Early Judaism and Christianity”, in: George J. BROOKE and Ariel FELDMAN (eds.), On Prophets, Warriors, and Kings: Former Prophets Through the Eyes of Their Interpreters (Berlin – Boston: De Gruyter, 2016), p. 183-228.

CHAPTER EIGHT PROPHETS Josephus obviously knew the Prophets, which he described as an historical book (AgAp 1:40). But he only used them for his own historical purpose, when they provide some information: Jonah, Nahum, Jeremiah, Daniel; these are examined below. As for the other Prophets, his allusions are scant: a) He did not see Isa 36:1-39:8, parallel to 2 Kgs 18:13-20:19, and somewhat shorter (except Hezekiah’s psalm, Isa 38:9-20). He does allude to Isa 44:28, a prophecy about king Cyrus (Ant. 11:5). b) About king Zedekiah, Josephus is inconsistent: he first says that he was “contemptuous of justice and duty” (Ant. 10:103, after 2 Kgs 24:19), but later he plainly speaks of “his goodness and sense of justice (10:120), maybe as an echo of Lam 4:20, an appendix to Jeremiah: “The breath of our nostrils, the Anointed of Yhwh ( ‫משׁיח‬ ‫)יהוה‬, was captured into their (i.e. our Babylonian pursuers’) pits”; the verse is generally recognized as an allusion to Zedekiah. As for Baruch, Josephus probably was aware of his presence in Babylonia, instead of Egypt (Bar 1:1-4, see below § III.1, Jer 43:3). c) He cites Ezekiel four times (Ant. 10:79, 98, 106, 141), but without definite quotations. d) At Ant. 10:35, he alludes to the twelve Minor Prophets as such. Beyond Jonah and Nahum, he may have alluded to Amos and Zechariah, see Chap. V, § III.1, 2 Chr 26:19. It should be noted that in his gallery of Biblical portraits, Ben Sirah mentions the Twelve (49:10), but ignores Daniel (see below § IV.6).

I – Jonah In the history of the kingdom of Israel, we briefly hear of Jonah son of Amittai, from Gath-hepher (‫יונה בן־אמתי הנביא אשׁר מגת החפר‬, Ιωνα υἱοῦ Αµαθι τοῦ προφήτου τοῦ ἐκ Γεθχοβερ). He is introduced at 2 Kgs 14:25 to help “Jeroboam (II) the son of Jehoash, king of Israel”. He was an Israelite, not a Judean, prophet. Josephus only gives a short summary of Jon 1:1-2:1, with some reservations about miracles and an allusion to the Hebrew source



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(Ant. 9:208). Then, he changes Jonah’s warning: the prophet goes to Nineveh and proclaims that it will lose its dominion over Asia (9:214), and not its imminent destruction as in Scripture. But this did not happen by that time, so that Jonah – according to Josephus’ view – would have been held a false prophet, since his predictions were not fulfilled. The result is a tasteless story. There are additional indirect allusions to Jonah, a northern prophet: – Ant. 8:327: Elijah brought the widow’s son back to life. According to 1 Kgs 17:24, she said: ‫אישׁ אלהים אתה ודבר־יהוה בפיך אמת‬ (for ‫אמת‬, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 has ἀληθινόν, maybe from ‫“ )אמתי‬You are a man of God, and the word of Yhwh in your mouth is truth (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘true’)”. Hence a tradition unknown to Josephus, that the widow’s son was Amittai, Jonah’s father, j.Sukka 5:1, 55a; Jerome, In Ionam, Introd. – Ant. 9:139: Jehu heard the predictions of “the prophet”, adding a mediator to 2 Kgs 10:30 ‫“ ויאמר יהוה אל־יהוא‬And Yhwh said to Jehu”. The same way, Rashi comments that according to tradition there was a mediator, namely the prophet Jonah. I.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

Jon 1:2 (‫נינוה )העיר הגדולה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Νινευη Ant. 9:208 εἰς τὴν Νίνου βασιλείαν. For Josephus, “Nineveh” was a kingdom; indeed, Jon 3:6 mentions a king. Jon 1:3 ‫)לברח( תרשׁישׁה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Θαρσις Ant. 9:208 εἰς Ταρσὸν τῆς Κιλικίας. Jonah wants “to flee to Tharshish”. At Ant. 1:127, Josephus has identified the place with the city of Tarsus in Cilicia. He makes no connection with Solomon’s fleet in the sea of Tharshish (1 Kgs 10:22; Ant. 8:181), that is, the Red Sea and not the Mediterranean. Jon 2:1 (‫𝔊𝔊 דג )גדול לבלע יונה‬-𝔏𝔏 κήτει Ant. 9:213 ὑπὸ τοῦ κήτους καταποθέντα. God appointed “a great fish (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Ant. ‘monster’) to swallow Jonah”. Maybe Ant. should be read ὑπό του κήτους “by a certain monster”, for it is not supposed to be known (hapax in Josephus; four times in Jon 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏). However, it may refer to a traditional interpretation, common to 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 and Josephus, like in modern languages “the whale”. In this line, there may have been an uninentional allusion to the mythical story of Andromeda, the beautiful daughter of Cassiopeia, who was attached to a rock near Jaffa, in order to be devoured by the Monster (the very Ketus) as a sacrifice to subdue Poseidon’s wrath; this could explain, too, Josephus’ definite article, since he knew that tradition (War 3:420).

I.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 Against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)

Jon 1:9 (‫עברי )אנכי‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 δοῦλος κυρίου Ant. 9:211 τὸ γένος Ἑβραῖος εἶναι. Jonah said to the sailors: “I am a Hebrew (𝔐𝔐 and Ant., 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘a servant of the Lord’, probably from a misreading ‫”)עבד יי‬.

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I.3 Conclusions There is no doubt that Josephus used a Hebrew form of the book, all the more so that he states that he reports the story as he found it in the Hebrew books (Ant. 9:208). He may have skipped over the conversion of the people of Nineveh because of the curse uttered by Nahum, which he paraphrases some pages later (9:239), see below.

II – Nahum Josephus introduces Nahum’s prophecy on Nineveh as an excursus during the reign of king Jotam of Judah, some time before the fall of the kingdom of Israel (722 BCE); he does not know that Nineveh was destroyed more than a century later (607 BCE). Josephus’ story is shortened, so that the evidence is scant, but it suggests that his source was very close to 𝔐𝔐.

Nah 2:9 ‫𝔊𝔊 )ונינוה( כברכת־מים‬-𝔏𝔏 ὡς κολυµβήθρα Ant. 9:239 ἔσται Νινύας κολυµ (‫ מימי היא )והמה נסים‬ὕδατος τὰ ὕδατα αὐτῆς βήθρα ὕδατος κινουµένη. Nahum prophesies the downfall of Assyria: “And Nineveh like a pool of water throughout her days (? 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘are her waters’, understood like ‫ מימיה‬from ‫מים‬,1 as in many other places)” and they flee. Josephus, who did not see 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, has: “Nineveh will be a troubled pool of water”; “troubled” comes from a reading ‫הומה‬ instead of ‫ ;והמה‬but he adds that “all the people will be agitated”, as a kind of second translation of the same word; thus, he may have read ‫ הומה‬and the correction ‫ והמה‬in the margin. Nah 2:9 (‫𝔊𝔊 עמדו עמדו )ואין מפנה‬-𝔏𝔏 οὐκ ἔστησαν Ant. 9:239 στῆτε καὶ µείνατε (‫בזֹ ו )כסף( בזֹ ו )זהב‬ διήρπαζον χρυσὸν καὶ ἀργυρον ἁρπάσατε. People are fleeing Nineveh: “Stop, stop! (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they did not stay’). No one paying attention. Plunder (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘they plundered’, from ‫ ) ַבזו‬the silver, plunder the gold!” Josephus renders 𝔐𝔐: “Stop and remain, and seize gold and silver!” Nah 2:12 (‫ אשׁר‬...‫𝔊𝔊 )איה מעון‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐπορεύθη λέων Ant. 9:241 τὸ κατοικητήριον τῶν (‫הלך אריה לביא )שׁם‬ τοῦ εἰσελθεῖν λεόντων καὶ ἡ µήτηρ σκύµνων. Nahum takes a parable: “Where is the den... a place where the lion, the lioness go (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘lion goes and enters’, from ‫”)לבוא‬. Josephus, with “(where will be) the dwelling of the lions, the mother of lion cubs?”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πλῆθός σου Nah 2:14 ‫)והבערתי בעשן( רכבה‬ Ant. 9:241 ἀφανιῶ σε. God curses Nineveh: “And I will burn up your chariots (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘your multitude’, from a reading ‫רבכה‬, from ‫ )ר ֹב‬in smoke”. Josephus, with “I will destroy you”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but maybe from a common misreading, since ‫ רב‬with a suffix is not attested elsewhere.

1

Indeed, 4QXIIg has ]‫ מימיה‬, see DJD 15, p. 316.



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III – Jeremiah The book of Jeremiah is difficult. It has been transmitted in two very different forms: the Hebrew (𝔐𝔐) is longer than the Greek (𝔊𝔊), and the order of the chapters is often different. For the sake of convenience, the 𝔐𝔐 chapter is given first, and the 𝔊𝔊 one is added within brackets when it differs, e.g. Jer 41(48). As for the content, the book contains the whole public life of Jeremiah, which began the 13th year of Josiah’s reign through the 11th year of Zedekiah his son (Jer 1:1-3), that is, until the destruction of Jerusalem. The same period is covered by 2 Kgs 22-25, which ignores Jeremiah, and conversely Jeremiah ignores any activity under Josiah, even the discovery of the book of Moses in the temple, in Josiah’s 18th year, as well as the prophetess Hulda (2 Kgs 22:13). The parallel 2 Chr 34-36 corrects a little, for it includes short allusions to Jeremiah: he composed a dirge after Josiah’s death (35:25); Zedekiah would not listen to him (36:12); Jeremiah’s prophecy that the exile would last 70 years (36:21). This discrepancy entails many literary and historical problems, but our purpose here is limited: Which sources did Josephus use? Incidentally, some remarks will be made on his way of dealing with them. The most complicated issue is the end of the monarchy of Judah, that is, a period of 22 years after Josiah’s death. Josephus felt squeezed between the authority of the Bible and the reputation of the classical Greek-speaking historians he knew. He strove to insert the Biblical accounts into an international frame, that is, a rivalry between Egypt and a growing Babylonian power. Here are some significant dated facts. a) 616 BCE: Nabopolassar (626–605) united the Neo-Babylonian Empire, after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Babylonians and the Medes formed an alliance to confront the Assyrians and their Egyptian allies. They were able to sack the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in 612 BC. b) 609: Nechao II of Egypt (609-594) led a sizable force to help the Assyrians. They crossed the Euphrates and laid siege upon Harran, but failed to capture it. c) 605: Nabopolassar's son, crown prince Nebuchadnezzar fought Nechao and the remnants of the Assyrian army at the battle of Carchemish. Nabopolassar died that year, and his son hurried to Babylon to secure the throne as Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562); then he pursued his campaign. d) 601: Nebuchadnezzar was involved in a major battle against

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the Egyptians, but he could not defeat Nechao. He conducted successful military campaigns in Asia Minor, in Syria and Phoenicia (598, 594, 593). Like the Assyrians, the Babylonians had to campaign almost yearly in order to control their colonies. e) 589: king Apries of Egypt (589-570), the 4th of the 26th dynasty, wanted to renew Nechao’s policy of controlling the sea shore. He campaigned to Phoenicia but in 588 Nebuchadnezzar reacted and prevailed over the shore. In 568, during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis, he was even able to invade Egypt itself, which was weakened by internal struggles. f) Amel-marduk (562-560) succeeded his father Nebuchadnezzar. The Judean events are only witnessed by the Bible, which knows of kings Nebuchadnezzar (Nabuchodonosor), Amel-marduk (Evilmerodach), Nechao (Necho), and probably Apries, named Hophra at Jer 44(51):30. The final period covered by Jeremiah’s narratives can be summarized as follows, starting from the simplest Biblical account: a) 2 Chr 36:9-21 shows three steps, with three sons of king Josiah: first, Jehoiakim, after a reign of 11 years, was taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar; then Jehoiachin had the same fate, after a very short reign; finally, Zedekiah reign lasted 11 years, until the plundering and destruction of Jerusalem; in this third event, no personal involvement of Nebuchadnezzar is mentioned. b) 2 Kgs 23:36-25:21 has the same three steps, with more details: the first is the same, with the precision that Jehoiakim rebelled after three years, which caused his exile; then, the Jehoiachin part is similar, with a major plundering and deportation, but no destruction; finally, Zedekiah was captured after an 18-month siege by Nebuchadnezzar himself; but only after this event, his general Nabuzaradan came, in the 19th year of Nebuchadnezzar; he destroyed Jerusalem, “and Judah was taken into exile”. Then we read two appendixes; the first is the appointment of Gedaliah as governor of Judah, but he was murdered, and the people who were left in the country fled to Egypt, out of fear of the Babylonians. The second reports that Jehoiachin, in Babylonia, was freed by Evil-merodach, Nebuchadnezzar’s son and heir, after 37 years in prison. c) Jeremiah’s account is more complicated: the three steps and the first addition can be disentangled from many prophecies and events involving Jeremiah himself, which are presented in a very strange order, perhaps purposely. Nebuchadnezzar’s campaign against king Hophra-Amasis of Egypt in 568 BCE seems to be alluded to at Jer 46(26):2. Beside the fact that 2 Kgs does not know the prophet Jeremiah,



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another sign of the lack of connection between the two books is Zedekiah’s chronology: he reigned 11 years, from the 8th year to the 19th of Nebuchadnezzar, according to 2 Kgs 24:12, but for Jer 52:28 𝔐𝔐 between the latter’s 7th and 18th years (𝔊𝔊 omits), hence a discussion about the destruction of Jerusalem, respectively in 586 or 587 BCE. III.1 Josephus’ Special Features Josephus has been prompted to alter his sources for various reasons, mainly because of their discrepancies; in most cases, this does not imply that he had significant variants. Jer 22:18-19 ...‫𝔊𝔊 = כה־אמר יהוה‬ Ant. 10:97 ὃν ἄταφον ἐκέλευσε ‫קבורת חמור יקבר מהלאה לשׁערי ירושׁלם‬ ῥιφῆναι πρὸ τῶν τειχῶν. About Jehoiakim, we read: “Thus said Yhwh: He will be buried with a donkey’s burial... beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” This is quite close to Josephus, who says: “He (the king) ordered him to be cast out unburied before the walls.” For 2 Kgs 24:6, “Jehoiakim slept with his fathers”, and for 2 Chr 36:6 (and 1 Esd 1:38), the king “bound him with bronze chains to take him to Babylon”. Jer 34(41):5 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁלום תמות‬ Ant. 10:154 ἐτελεύτησεν ἐν εἱρκτῇ, (‫ 𝔊𝔊 וכמשׂרפות )אבותיך המלכים‬ὡς ἔκλαυσαν θάψας δὲ αὐτὸν βασιλικῶς. Jeremiah uttered a prophecy to Zedekiah, announcing his exile: “You will die in peace, and as incense was burned (𝔊𝔊 ‘as they wept’) for your fathers the kings, etc.” The prophecy did not include Zedekiah’s blinding (see Ant. 10:141). Josephus’ paraphrase broadly agrees. Jer 37(44):12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויצא ירמיהו‬ Ant. 10:114 δόξαν αὐτῷ εἰς τῆν πατρίδα ‫מירושׁלם ללכת ארץ בנימן‬ παραγενέσθαι λεγοµένην Ἀναθώθ. After prophesying, “Jeremiah went out from Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin”; Josephus renders: “Having decided to go to his native place, called Anathoth.” He introduces “Anathoth in the land of Benjamin” (Jer 1:1); he knew the place, for he adds its distance from Jerusalem (20 stades). Jer 40(47):6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = ויבא ירמיהו אל‬Ant. 10:158 adds παρακαλέσας Ναβουζαρδάνην ἵν᾽ ‫גדליה בן־אחיקם המצפתה‬ αὐτῷ συναπολύσῃ τὸν µαθητὴν Βαροῦχον Νήρου. According to the king’s order, “Jeremiah went to Mizpah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam”. Josephus adds: “He urged Nebuzaradan to release with him his disciple Baruch, he son of Ner”. The source of this addition is unclear: Baruch has been introduced at Jer 32(39):12 as ‫ברוך בן־נריה‬, 𝔊𝔊 Βαρουχ υἱῷ Νηριου; at Ant. 10:95 he is a scribe, and we hear of him at 10:178 as a friend of Jeremiah. Jer 40(47):14 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 בעליס )מלך בני־עמון‬Βελισα Ant. 10:164 Βαάλιµον πέµψειν ‫𝔊𝔊 = שׁלח את־ישׁמעאל להכתך‬ Ἰσµἀηλον ἀποκτενοῦντα δόλῳ. The commanders warned Gedaliah: “Baalis the king of the sons of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to smite you.” Josephus misread ‫בעליס‬. Jer 41(48):5 80 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ אנשׁים משׁכם משׁלו ומשׁמרון‬ Ant. 10:170 µετὰ δώρων ἥκον ‫ומנחה ולבונה בידם להביא בית יהוה‬ τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς χώρας 80. After Gedaliah’s death, “80 men came from Shechem, from Shiloh (𝔊𝔊 ‘Salem’, cf. John 3:23) and from Samaria... having grain offerings and incense in their hands to bring to the house of Yhwh”. Josephus renders: “80 from the people of the country came with gifts for Gedaliah;” for Josephus, there was no more tem-

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ple, and he was not sure that a group of Samaritan penitents would come to Jerusalem, hence his changes. Jer 41(48):12 ‫אל־מים רבים אשׁר בגבעון‬ Ant. 10:173 πρὸς τῇ πηγῇ ἐν Ἰβρῶνι. Ishmael fled, and his pursuers found him “by the great waters in Gibeon”. Ant. could be corrected “at the spring of Hebron”, but no such spring is known, whereas a “pool of Gibeon” was the place of a major contest, after Saul’s death (2 Sam 2:13); a similar mistake occurred at Ant. 8:22. Moreover, the next stop of the refugees after that place was close to Bethlehem, closer than Hebron, see § III.5, Jer 41:17. Jer 43(50):3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כי ברוך‬ Ant. 10:178 χαριζόµενον Βαρούχῳ καταψεύ(‫ 𝔊𝔊 מסית )אתך בנו‬συµβάλλει δεσθαιτοῦ θεοῦ, πείθειν µένειν αὐτόθι. Jeremiah’s oracle was not to go to Egypt, but the people replied: “Baruch is inciting (𝔊𝔊 ‘sets’, maybe an error for συµβούλει) you against us”, in order to be taken by the Chaldeans”; Josephus renders: “To please Baruch, he was belying God”. According to v. 6, Johanan took all the people left after the third campaign (Nebuzaradan’s) and the story and death of Gedaliah, including Jeremiah and Baruch, and went into Egypt; then comes a lengthy prophecy of Jeremiah, who announces that the king of Egypt will be defeated, but no furher deportation of Judeans is mentioned. However, Josephus reports this campaign, then joins a deportation, and gives it a twofold dating, the 5th year after the fall of Jerusalem, that is the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar; in other words, he introduces here the third campaign of the summary Jer 52:30 𝔐𝔐, with Nebuzaradan, contrarily to v. 6 (see next note). He may have been prompted to such a manipulation by Bar 1:1-4: on the 5th year, Baruch, who was in Babylon, wrote a book and read it before king Jeconiah (Jehoiachin). Jer 46(26):27 ‫𝔊𝔊 = אל־תירא עבדי יעקב‬ Ant. 10:86 παραλαµβάνει Συρίαν ‫כי הנני מושׁעך מרחוק ואת־זרעך‬ πάρεξ τῆς Ἰουδαίας. The king of Babylon has defeated Nechao at Carchemish; his rule extends over the whole Syria as far as the “brook of Egypt” (2 Kgs 24:7), but Jeremiah adds an oracle: “O Jacob my servant, do not fear! For, behold, I am going to save you from afar, and your descendants”. This is a prophecy for the exiles, but Josephus, with “he took Syria with the exception of Judah”, understands that Judah escaped from that war. Jer 52:4 ‫ לחדשׁ‬10-‫ ב‬10-‫ למלכו בחדשׁ ה‬9-‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁנה ה‬ Ant. 10:116 adds τὸ δεύτερον. Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem “in the 9th year fo Zedekiah’s reign, in the 9th month, on the 10th day”; 2 Kgs 25:1 and Jer 39(46):1 relate the same campaign, which is the first (and only one) for 2 Kgs, but Josephus had to add “for the second time”, because he already mentioned a first campaign at 10:101. He followed the summary of 52:28-30 𝔐𝔐, which mentions two campaigns of Nebuchadnezzar, and one more led by Nebuzaradan (see chap VI, § III.1, 2 Kgs 24:14).



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III.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

Jer 39(46):3 ‫𝔊𝔊 = כל שׂרי מלך־בבל‬ Ant. 10:135 ἡγεµόνων ὀνόµατα ‫ 𝔊𝔊 נרגל שׂר־אצר‬Μαργανασαρ ἦν Ῥεγλάσαρος ‫סמגר־נבו‬ Σαµαγωθ Σεµέγαρος ‫שׂר־סכים‬ Ναβουσαχαρ (Ἀχαράµ)ψαρις ‫רב־סריס‬ Ναβουσαρις Ναβώσαρις (‫נרגל שׂר־אצר‬ Ναγαργασνασερ) ‫רב־מג‬ Ραβαµαγ Ἀρέµµαντος? The names of the Babylonian officers are given (only here, and not in the parallels Jer 52:7 and 2 Kgs 25:4): “Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim, Rabsaris, Nergal-sar-ezer (a duplicate, undetected by 𝔊𝔊), Rab-mag”; the transmission of these names in Greek has been defective. Josephus’ order is confused, but he rightly omits the duplicate, which shows that he saw the Hebrew list; against 𝔐𝔐, he has like 𝔊𝔊 the theophoric prefix Nabu- for Rab-saris. Before the first name, the mss have an unnecessary ἦν, most probably a copyist’s error for νη, hence Nereglasaros, closer to the Hebrew. At 39:13 (𝔐𝔐 only) a similar list is given: ‫“ ונבושׁזבן רב־סריס ונרגל שׂר־אצר רב־מג‬Nebushazban, Rab-saris, Nergalsar-ezer, Rab-mag”, a wording that may allow us to view Rab-saris and Rabmag as titles (“rab” as “chief officer”).

III.3 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐

There is only one clear contact, which concerns the order of the chapters. Jer 46(26):2-26 defeat of Nechao against Nebuchadnezzar Ant. 10:84-86. Josephus condenses the story, omitting Jeremiah’s poetry. He introduced just before the new king of Babylon (Jer 25:1, followed by poetry). That is, he agrees here with the order of 𝔊𝔊.

III.4 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊

In many cases, 𝔊𝔊 is simply missing.

Jer 25:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הדבר אשׁר־היה על־ירמיהו‬ Ant. 10:84 ἔτος αὐτοῦ τῆς βασιλείας ‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁנה הרבעית ליהויקים‬ τέταρτον, τὴν Βαβυλωνίων ἀρχὴν ‫ 𝔊𝔊 היא השׁנה הראשׁנית לנבוכדראצר‬om. παραλαµβάνει τις Ναβουχοδονόσορος. “The word that came to Jeremiah... In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘that was the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’)”. Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “In the fourth year of his reign, one Nabuchodonosor took the realm of the Babylonians”. (Strangely enough, he did not suppose that “Nabuchodonosor” was a wellknown name.) 𝔊𝔊 Βαρουχ Jer 36(43):26 ‫ברוך הס ֹפר‬ Ant. 10:95 τὸν γραµµατέα Βαροῦχον. Contrarily to 𝔐𝔐 and Ant. “Baruch” is never described as a scribe in 𝔊𝔊; see above § III.1 Jer 40(47):6. Jer 38(45):2 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הישׁב בעיר הזאת‬ Ant. 10:116 δύο τὰ µέγιστα τῶν ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ימות בחרב( ברעב ובדבר‬καὶ ἐν λιµῷ παθῶν λιµός καὶ φθορὰ λοιµική.

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Jeremiah warned, before Nabuchadnezar’s arrival: “Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence (𝔊𝔊 om.), but he who surrenders will live”; the parallels 2 Kgs 25:3 and Jer 52:6 omit the “pestilence”. Josephus transfers the warning to the actual siege of Jerusalem, which lasted 18 months, according to the calculation that he deduced from Jer 52:4-5. In the continuation (10:118), Josephus says that Jeremiah went on warning during the siege: “They will die by famine or by the sword of the enemy”, which matches more closely the parallels. In other words, Josephus tried to combine two different passages (of Jer), building a doublet. Jer 38(45):6 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ובבור אין־מים‬ Ant. 10:121 πρὸ τοῦ αὐχένος ὑπὸ (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )כי אם־טיט( ויטבע )ירמיהו‬καὶ ἦν τοῦ πηλοῦ περισχηθεὶς ἦν. Jeremiah was let down in a cistern with ropes; “in the cistern there was no water, but only mud, and Jeremiah sank (𝔊𝔊 ‘was’)”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “He was being swallowed down by the mud.”

Jer 38(45):7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁמע עבד־מלך הכושי‬ Ant. 10:122 τῶν δὲ οἰκετῶν τις τοῦ (‫ 𝔊𝔊 אישׁ סריס )והוא בבית המלך‬om. βασιλέως ἐν τιµῇ τυγχάνων Αἰθίοψ. “And Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an officer (or ‘eunuch’, 𝔊𝔊 om.), who was in the king’s house, heard”. Josephus renders: “One of the king’s servants, enjoying his favor, Ethiopian”; unlike 𝔊𝔊, he translates the name (perhaps because he could not think of a Hebrew-named Ethiopian); the “favor” indicates that he was a ranking servant, as in 𝔐𝔐.

Jer 38(45):16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ואם־אתנך ביד האנשׁים האלה‬ Ant. 10:124 τί δή (µε)2 µέγα κακὸν ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אשׁר מבקשׁים את־נפשׁך‬om. ἀπολέσαι διέγνωσαν οἱ σοὶ φίλοι. Zedekiah swears not “no to give you over to the hand of these men (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘who are seeking your soul’)”. Josephus follows 𝔐𝔐, but transfers to Jeremiah’s reply: “But what wrong have I done, that your friends have decided to destroy me?” Jer 38(45):23 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = ביד מלך־בבל תתפשׂ‬Ant. 10:126 αὐτὸν τούτων παραίτιον ἔσεσθαι ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ואת־העיר הזאת( תשׂרף באשׁ‬κατακαυθήσεται τῶν κακῶν τοῖς πολίταις... Jeremiah warns again Zedekiah, if he does not surrender: “You will be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon, and you will burn this city (𝔊𝔊 ‘will be burned’, with ἡ πόλις αὕτη, omitting ‫ )את‬with fire”. For Josephus, Zedekiah “will be the cause of these calamities to the inhabitants, etc.”; he agrees with 𝔐𝔐. 𝔊𝔊 om. Jer 39(46):5 ‫ויעלהו אל‬ Ant. 10:135 αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐν ‫נבוכדראצר מלך־בבל רבלתה‬ Ἀραβαθᾶ διέτριβε πόλει. Jerusalem fell, “and they brought Zedekiah up to Nebuchadnezzar... at Ribla (in other places 𝔊𝔊 has Δεβλαθα)”. Josephus explains the same way: “Himself was staying in the city of Ribla.” Here, Josephus follows Jer 39, and not the parallel accounts of 2 Kgs 25:6 and Jer 52:9 (see above § III.2, Jer 39:3). 𝔊𝔊 om. Jer 39(46):12 ‫ואל־תעשׂ לו מאומה רע‬ Ant. 10:156 κεκελεῦσθαι ‫כי אם כאשׁר ידבר אליך כן עשׂה עמו‬ πάντ᾽ αὐτοῦ χορηγεῖν. Nebuchadnezzar told Nebuzaradan: “Do nothing harmful to him, but rather do to him just as he tells you;” 𝔊𝔊 ignores v. 4-13. Josephus paraphrases 𝔐𝔐: “He had been ordered to provide him with everything.” Indeed, the passage is diffi2 Absent from the Ant. mss, probably out of haplography before µέγα, but necessary for a tolerable meaning.



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cult, for in the next chapter we learn that Jeremiah had been bound in chains with all the exiles, before being released by Nebuzaradan. Jer 41(48):7 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וישׁחטם ישׁמעאל‬ Ant. 10:170 ἐφόνευσε καὶ τὰ σώµατα ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )אל־תוך( הבור‬φρέαρ αὐτῶν εἰς λάκκον βαθὺν κατέποντισε. The 80 men were invited to pay a visit to Gedaliah, “and Ishmael slaughtered them and cast them into the cistern (𝔊𝔊 ‘the well’, from ‫ ;”)הבאר‬Josephus says that “he murdered them and cast their bodies into a deep cistern”, agreeing with 𝔐𝔐. The 𝔐𝔐 verse has an additional ending ‫“ הוא והאנשׁים אשׁר־אתו‬himself and the men who were with him”, unknown to 𝔊𝔊 and Josephus, and somewhat out of place; it is similar to a phrase found elsewhere (1 Sam 22:6, 2 Sam 1:11, 3:20, 17:12, Jer 41:2). Jer 41(48):16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = גברים אנשׁי המלחמה‬ Ant. 10:175 οὓς ἀνέσωσεν, καὶ (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ונשׁים( וטף )וסרסים אשׁר השׁיב‬καὶ τὰ λοιπά εὐνούχους, γυναῖκας, νήπια. Johanan defeated Ishmael and freed his hostages, “men who were soldiers and women and chidren (𝔊𝔊 ‘other properties’) and eunuch, whom he brought back” from Gibeon; 𝔊𝔊 often renders ‫ טף‬with ἀποσκευή “baggage”, unlike Josephus: “Those whom he saved, and eunuchs, women and children.” Jer 52:4 (‫)ויחנו עליה‬ 𝔊𝔊 περιῳκοδόµησαν αὐτὴν Ant. 10:131 ἤγειρε χώµατα ‫ויבנו עליה דיק סביב‬ τετραπέδοις λίθοις κύκλῳ τοῖς τείχεσι τὸ ὕψος ὅσα. Nebuchadnezzar came with his army, “and they camped against it, and they built a siege wall (𝔊𝔊 ‘they besieged it with four-footed stones’) around it”; for the exact parallel 2 Kgs 25:1 (where 𝔊𝔊 has ᾠκοδόµησεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτὴν περίτειχος κύκλῳ), this is the only Babylonian campaign against Jerusalem. Josephus has: “The Babylonian erected earthworks equal in height to the walls.” For him, this is a third campaign (with Nebuzaradan), according to the summary of Jer 52:28-30 𝔐𝔐, and he is careful not to introduce the name of Nabuchadnezzar himself (his officers are mentioned at 10:134), since he actually duplicates the first campaign of Nebuchadnezzar (see above § III.1, and Chap. VI, § III.1, 2 Kgs 24:14); he probably read independently 2 Kgs and Jer, without consolidating the similarities. Jer 52:28 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 זה העם אשׁר הגלה‬om. Ant. 10:98 τοὺς δ᾽ ἐν ἀξιώµατι 3,000 αἰχµαλώ3,023 ‫בשׁנת־שׁבע יהודים‬ τους λαβὼν ἀπήγαγεν εἰς τὴν Βαβυλῶνα. Judah was led away from its land; “These are the people whom he exiled, the seventh year: 3,023 Judeans”; the verses 28-31 are missing in 𝔊𝔊. Josephus has: “The 3,000 notables he took captive, and carried away to Babylon”. He just said that the best people had been killed, as well as king Jehoiakim, after Jer 22:19. Thus, his way of combining various parts of Jer prevents us to know the order of the passages in his sources. As for the “notables”, not mentioned here but alluded to in another context at 2 Kgs 24:14 (‫כל־גבורי החיל‬, δυνατοὺς ἰσχύι), he may have deduced them from their precise number. Anyhow, Seder Olam § 25 comments that the passage refers to the exile of the scholars, which explains how, with such a descent, the later Babylonian sages became preeminent.

III.5 Genuine Hebrew Readings of Josephus Jer 41(48):17 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )וילכו וישׁבו( בגרות‬Γαβηρωθ (‫כמהם )אשׁר־אצל בית לחם‬ χαµααµ

Ant. 10:175 εἴς τινα τόπον Μάνδραν παραγίνεται.

H ‫גדרות‬ (‫)כמהם‬

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The refugees “went and stayed at the lodging place of Chimham (𝔊𝔊 transcribes from ‫)גברות כמהם‬, which is beside Bethlehem”. Josephus omits ‫כמהם‬, and names the place “Mandra”, that is “stable, pasture”, which allows us to restore a reading ‫“ גדרות‬sheepfolds”, somewhat closer to 𝔊𝔊 and certainly better, hence H. Moreover, at Zeph 2:6 ‫ גדרות‬is translated µάνδρα, which confirms Josephus’ reading here.

III.6 Josephus, Jeremiah and 2 Kings Jer 39:10 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ומן־העם הדלים אשׁר אין־להם מאומה‬om. Ant. 10:155 Ναβουζαρδάνης ‫השׁאיר בארץ יהודה ויתן להם כרמים ויגבים‬ τοὺς πένητας καὶ αὐτο2 Kgs 25:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ומדלת הארץ השׁאיר לכרמים וליגבים‬-𝔏𝔏 µόλους ἐκεῖ κατέλιπεν. Nebuzaradan organized Judah as a colony: “He left behind in the land of Judah some of the poorest people who had nothing, and gave them vineyards and fields”; Josephus has the same: “Nebuzaradan left there the poor and the deserters.” 2 Kgs is shorter: “He left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and plowmen.” Jer 40(47):7 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 = וישׁמעו כי־הפקיד מלך־בבל את־גדליהו‬Ant. 10:155 Ναβουζαρδάνης... 2 Kgs 25:22 ‫= ויפקד עליהם את־גדליהו‬ ἀποδείξας ἡγεµόνα Γοδαλίαν. Both Jer and 2 Kgs agree that Nebuchadnezzar appointed Gedaliah as governor, but Josephus states that Nebuzaradan did it; he was prompted by his view that the appointment was done after the third campaign, led by that general (see above § III.1, Jer 52:4); he combines with Nebuzaradan’s reforms in Judah, which is clearly stated (see previous note). Jer 40(47):8 (‫ 𝔊𝔊 )אל־תיראו( מעבוד )הכשׂדים‬παίδων Ant. 10:161 ἔπεισε µένειν µηδὲν 2 Kgs 25:24 (‫𝔊𝔊 )אל־תיראו( מעבדי )הכשׂדים‬-𝔏𝔏 πάροδον δεδιότας τοὺς Βαβυλωνίους. Gedaliah told the people left in Judah: “Do not be afraid to serve (Jer 𝔊𝔊 and 2 Kgs 𝔐𝔐 ‘afraid of the servants of’, 2 Kgs 𝔊𝔊 ‘afraid of the incursion of’, from ‫ )מעבר‬the Chaldeans”. Josephus renders after Jer 𝔐𝔐: “He persuaded them to remain there, without any fear of the Babylonians”, for if they worked the land they would suffer no harm. Jer 41(48):1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 )ויאכלו שׁם לחם יחדו( במצפה‬om. Ant. 10:168 λαµπρᾷ τραπέζῃ ὑπο2 Kgs 25:25 om. δεξάµενος εἰς µέθην προήχθη. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, of the royal seed, came along with ten men to Gedaliah, “and they ate bread together there, in Mizpah”; Josephus understood: “Gedaliah entertained them with a splendid banquet, and he became drunk.” From here on till the end of Jer 41, Josephus ignores the very short account of 2 Kgs 25:25-26. Jer 41(48):17 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ללכת לבוא מצרים‬ Ant. 10:175 διεγνώκεισαν 2 Kgs 25:26 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ויקמו כל־העם ויבאו מצרים‬-𝔏𝔏 εἰς Αἴγυπτον ἐλθεῖν. After Gedaliah’s murder, 2 Kgs simply states: “And all the people arose and entered Egypt”, without mentioning Jeremiah. Jer is more detailed: after a battle at Gibeon, the refugees fled and made a stop near Bethlehem “in order to enter Egypt”. A stop so close to Gibeon may look strange, and Josephus gives it a significance: “There they decided to go to Egypt”. Jer 52:24 (‫שׂריה )כהן הראשׁ‬ 𝔊𝔊 Jer om., 2 Kgs Σαραιαν Ant. 10:149 Σεβαῖον, 2 Kgs 25:18 ‫ואת־צפניה‬ 𝔊𝔊 Jer om., 2 Kgs Σοφονιαν Σεφενίαν.



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The chief cook took “Seraiah (Jer 𝔊𝔊 om.) the chief priest and Zephaniah (Jer 𝔊𝔊 om.) the second priest”; for the first name, Josephus has “Sebaiah”, from ‫שׂביה‬ (at 10:150 the mss have Σεραιᾶ, a correction); in the context, he follows the longer account of Jer. Jer 52:25 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ושׁבעה אנשׁים מראי פני־המלך‬ Ant. 10:149 καὶ τοὺς φίλους 2 Kgs 25:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וחמשׁה אנשׁים מראי פני־המלך‬-𝔏𝔏 τοῦ Σαχχίου ἑπτά. Among the captives there were “5 (Jer and Ant. ‘7’) from the men seeing the king’s face”. Jer 52:31 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אויל מרדך‬Ουλαιµαραδαχ Ant. 10:229 Ἀβιλµαθαδάχος 2 Kgs 25:27 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אויל מרדך‬Ευιλµαρωδαχ, 𝔏𝔏 Ευιλαδµ. AgAp 1:146 Εὐειλµαραδούχος. After Nabuchadnezzar’s death, his son “Evil-merodach” (Amel-marduk) freed king (Jechoniah); the AgAp transcription comes from Berossus.

III.7 Conclusions The first observation is that Josephus’ use of Jeremiah is scattered in book 10, as shown in the list below; the passages parallel to 1 Kgs are omitted. – § 79: Jeremiah predicts the fall of Babylon, Jer 50-51(27-28); – § 80: he lived in Jerusalem since Josiah’s 13th year, Jer 1:1; – § 84-89: in the 4th year of Joiakim, and Nebuchadnezzar’s 1st, the latter waged war against Nechao, won at Carchemish, reached Egypt, but spared Judah, Jer 25:1-3 and 46(26):2-28; – § 90-92: Jeremiah is threatened, but the notables save him, Jer 26(33):7-19; – § 93-95: he writes down his prophecies (with Baruch), Jer 36(43):1-26; – § 97: Joiakim is killed and not buried, Jer 22:19; – § 98: first deportation by Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 52:28 𝔐𝔐; – § 101: deportation of king Jehoiachin and 10832 people, Jer 52:29 𝔐𝔐 combined with 2 Kgs 24:14; – § 104: during the siege of Jerusalem, Jeremiah relentlessly prophesies, Jer 32(39):1 and 27(34):9-15; – § 105-106: Zedekiah is prevented to follow Jeremiah’s warning, Jer 32(39) and 34(41):2-6; – § 109-112: the Babylonian army gets close to Jerusalem, but they leave, out of fear of the Egyptians; the false prophets claim that peace will last, with the help of Egypt, Jer 34(41):7 and 37(44):5-11; – § 113: Jeremiah announces 70 years of exile, Jer 29(36):10; – § 115: Jeremiah is persecuted at Anathoth, his city (Benjamin), Jer 37(44):1216; – § 118-119: Jeremiah urges in vain the besieged people to surrender, Jer 38(45):2-4; – § 121-120: Jeremiah is cast into a cistern, then saved by an Ethiopian and brought to Zedekiah, Jer 38(45):5-28; – § 135-136: the officers besieging Jerusalem; Zedekiah’s flight, Jer 39(46):4-5; – § 154: Zedekiah’s death and burial, Jer 34(51):5; – § 156-163: Jeremiah is freed by Gedaliah, then meets Nabuzaradan, and the poor people come back and settle, Jer 39(46):11-12 and 40(47):1-12; – § 164-172: the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael, and its consequences, Jer 40(47):14-41(48):10;

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

– § 173-179: Ishmael is routed, and the people flee to Egypt with Jeremiah, Jer 41(48)-43(50):7; – § 180: Jeremiah’s prophecies in Egypt, Jer 43(50):8-44(51):30; – § 181-182: a third deportation, in the 23rd year of Nebuchadnezzar, Jer 52:30.

Josephus’ account is not very consistent, because he had a hard time to combine his Biblical sources, even when he had only the story of Jeremiah. A typical detail: he had to use several times the summary of Jer 52:28-30 𝔐𝔐, which mentions three deportations. As for the order of the passages, he followed neither 𝔐𝔐 nor 𝔊𝔊, and we cannot ascertain the order of his source. Incidentally, we may observe that 𝔐𝔐, which is longer, is less consistent than 𝔊𝔊: for instance, king Zedekiah is taken captive only once in 𝔊𝔊 (Jer 52:9) whereas in 𝔐𝔐 there is another account of his capture (Jer 39:5; the corresponding chapter 46 in 𝔊𝔊 omits v. 4-13). About the text type Josephus used, some conclusions can be drawn from the above sections on the comparisons with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊: the contacts of Ant. with 𝔊𝔊 are negligible against 𝔐𝔐, and the wording is always different; conversely, the contacts with 𝔐𝔐 are overwhelming, and one good Hebrew variant has been detected. When Jer is longer than its parallel in 2 Kgs, Josephus is closer to Jer (especially 𝔐𝔐). To sum up, Josephus only used a Hebrew copy of Jer, including some of the pluses of 𝔐𝔐, but since his evidence is not continuous, we cannot be sure that he had Jer 𝔐𝔐 as it stands now – content and order.

IV – Daniel

Almost all the ancient witnesses mentioning the book of Daniel view it as one of the Prophets, even a Qumran fragment (4QFlor f1, 3ii:3 reads ‫)כתוב בספר דניאל הנביא‬. The only exception is 𝔐𝔐, for which it is classed among the Writings. However, a Talmudic passage suggests that the book was indeed downgraded: tradition credits Jonathan, the last of Hillel’s disciples, with the targum of the Prophets; b.Meg 3a states that, after translating Hag, Zech and Mal, he was about to go on, when an earthquake happened, and a voice from heaven asked: “Who is about to reveal my secrets?” The context mentions the “end of time”, that is, the reign of the Messiah, an obvious allusion to Daniel’s visions. A simple conclusion is that the book was removed from the list of the Prophets, in order to lessen the authority of its prophecies. Elsewhere, a saying in b.Sanh 94a opines that Daniel’s three companions (Dan 1:6) are to be identified with Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the last three Prophets; this



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219

obliquely promotes Daniel’s rank, at least as a man, and the same passage states that he was a prophet. Josephus did not know the Greek additions, which are not extant in 𝔐𝔐: the prayers (Dan 3); the stories of Suzanna, Bel and the Dragon (Dan 13-14). As for the text, Theodotion (Θ) is very close to 𝔐𝔐, while 𝔊𝔊 is different, and often reflects another Hebrew text. IV.1 Josephus’ Special Features

Dan 1:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 = בשׁנת שׁלושׁ למלכות יהויקים‬-Θ Ant. 10:186 εὐγενεστάτους τῶν Ἰου‫ ויתן אדני בידו‬...‫בא נבוכדנאצר‬ δαίων παῖδας καὶ Σαχχίου συγγενεῖς. The story of Daniel begins with a Biblical dating: “In the 3rd year of the reign of Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem... and Adonai gave Jehoiakim in his hands”. Such a dating is difficult, for according to 2 Kgs 24:1 Jehoiakim was Nebuchadnezzar’s servant 3 years, then he rebelled and was replaced by Jehoiachin, after a reign of 11 year. Josephus restores some consistency, without dating: “Nebuchadnezzar took the Jewish youth of the noblest and the relatives of their king Zedekiah (Sacchias)”; Zedekiah was the king taken captive with the destruction of Jerusalem (2 Kgs 25:7). Josephus avoids pointing out that this happened well before the further Babylonian campaigns and the story of Gedaliah and its consequences (see above § III.1, Jer 52:4). 𝔊𝔊 Αβιεσδρι, Θ Ασφανεζ Dan 1:3 ‫אשׁפנז רב סריסיו‬ Ant. 10:190 Ἀσχάνης. The chief of the eunuchs (officials) was “Ashpenaz”; Josephus may have read ‫“ אשכנז‬Ashkenaz” (the name occurs only once in Dan), like a son of Gomer, Gen 10:3. Dan 1:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ לא־יתגאל בפתבג‬-Θ Ant. 10:190 τῶν ἀπὸ τῆς βασιλικῆς ‫המלך וביין משׁתיו‬ τραπέζης ἐδεσµάτων ἀπέχεσθαι. Daniel decided “that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food and with the wine of his feasts”. Josephus renders: “To abstain from the dishes of the king’s table”; ignoring the dietary restrictions of the Law, he omits the wine and extends to a vegetarian diet, which is a natural choice (like Adam’s). Dan 1:17 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ נתן להם האלהים‬-Θ Ant. 10:194 πᾶσαν ἐξέµαθον παιδείαν ἥτις ἦν ‫מדע והשׂכל בכל־ספר וחכמה‬ παρὰ τοῖς Ἑβραίοις καὶ τοῖς Χαλδαίοις. With the diet of the four youths, “God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every literature and wisdom”. For Josephus, “they mastered all the learning among the Hebrews and the Chaldeans” as a consequence of their diet, not as a gift of God (see previous note). Dan 2:1 ‫ = ותתפעם רוחו‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 συνέβη... ταραχθῆναι Ant. 10:195 ὄναρ ἰδὼν θαυµαστὸν. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, “and his spirit was troubled (𝔊𝔊 ‘it happened... and he was troubled in his sleep’)”; Josephus summarizes: “He saw an amazing dream”. Dan 2:14 ‫𝔊𝔊 = רב־טבחיא‬-Θ ἀρχιµαγείρῳ Ant. 10:197 ἐπὶ τῶν σωµατοφυλάκων. Arioch was the king’s “chief cook”, mandated to slay (𝔊𝔊 ‘to bring out’) the wise; at 2:15 𝔐𝔐-Θ, Daniel speaks to him respectuously as “the king’s commander” (‫שׁליטא די־מלכא‬, ἄρχων τοῦ βασιλέως). Josephus makes him “the commander of the bodyguards”, a kind of change he did previously: according to 2 Kgs 25:11 (// Jer 52:16) Nebuzaradan, who destroyed Jerusalem, was the

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king’s “chief cook” (‫רב הטבחים‬, ἀρχιµάγειρος), but for Josephus, a general (Ant. 10:144). Dan 2:16 ‫ = על‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 εἰσῆλθε ταχέως πρὸς Ant. 10:198 παρέκαλεσε τὸν Ἀριό‫ובעה מן־מלכא‬ τὸν βασιλέα καὶ ἠξίωσεν χην εἰς ἐλθόντα πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα. Daniel “went in (𝔊𝔊 adds ‘quickly to the king’) and requested of the king (𝔊𝔊 om.)”. For Josephus, “he requested Arioch to go to the king”, a mediation that makes good sense in a court, and is consistent with v. 24 (he said to Arioch: “Take me before the king”); here, he did not need a variant to this effect. Dan 2:40 (‫ = )וכפרזלא די‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 πᾶν δένδρον ἐκκόπτων Ant. 10:209 κρατήσει εἰς ἅπαν ‫מרעע כל־אלין תדק ותרע‬ σεισθήσεται πᾶσα ἡ γῆ διὰ τὴν τοῦ σιδήρου φύσιν. The fourth kingdom will be “like iron that breaks all these (𝔊𝔊 ‘tree’, from ‫)אילן‬ in pieces, it will crush and break (𝔊𝔊 ‘all the earth’; from ‫”)כל ארעא‬.3 Josephus renders: “Like iron, it will have dominion for ever, because of the nature of iron.” For him, the fourth kingdom is Rome, and its rule will last forever; to this effect, he made two omissions: first, that the iron feet of the statue were mixed with clay, hence a specific weakness (2:41-44); second, that the stone that fell upon the statue crushed even the fourth kingdom; for this, he refers the reader to the book of Daniel. Dan 2:45 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ויציב חלמא‬-Θ Ant. 10:210 ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς Ν. ἀκηκοὼς ‫ומהימן פשׁרה‬ ταῦτα καὶ ἐπιγνοὺς τὸ ὄναρ. Daniel has explained the vision, “and the dream is certain, and its interpretation trustworthy”; grammatically, this statement seems to be Daniel’s, but Josephus credits the king with it, which makes more sense: “The king heard this and recognized the dream. Dan 3:12 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ולצלם דהבא‬-Θ Ant. 10:214 πάντων... προσκυνούντων, τοὺς ‫די הקימת לא סגדין‬ Δανιήλου συγγενεῖς οὑ ποιῆσαι τοῦτό φασιν. The three companions of Daniel are accused of “not worshipping the golden image that you have set up”; Josephus has: “All... worshipped, but they say that the relatives of Daniel did not do so;” Josephus’ hesitation (“they say”) is due to the absence of Daniel, as if he did worship the statue.4 Dan 5:5 ‫ על־גירא‬...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ אצבען די יד־אנשׁ וכתבן‬-Θ Ant. 10:233 ἐκ τοῦ τείχους ὁρᾷ χεῖρα ‫די כתל היכלא ומלכא חזה פס ידה די כתבה‬ προιοῦσαν καὶ τῷ τοίχῳ ἐγγράφουσαν. During Belshazzar’s feast, “the fingers of a man’s hand emerged and wrote (opposite the lampstand) on the plaster of the wall (Θ adds ‘and’) of the (king’s) palace, and the king saw the palm (𝔊𝔊 om., Θ ‘the bones’) of the hand that was writing”. Josephus, who is not fond of miracles, shortens: “He sees a hand coming out of the wall and writing on the surface (or ‘wall, partition’);” two different walls are mentioned, but it seems that he interpreted “plaster” (‫ גיר‬is a hapax in the Bible, unlike κονία “plaster”) as a kind of “inner wall”. Dan 6:2-3 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ והקים על‬-Θ Ant. 10:249 τῶν 3 γὰρ ἡγε120 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ מלכותא לאחשׁדרפניא‬-Θ (𝔊𝔊 127) µόνων ἦν, οὓς ἐπὶ τῶν 360 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ סרכין תלתא די דניאל חד־מנהון‬-Θ σατραπειῶν κατέστησε. It seemed good to Darius “to appoint 120 (𝔊𝔊 ‘127’, cf. Est 1:1) satraps over the kingdom”, and over them “three commissioners, of whom Daniel was one”. Jo3 As witnessed by 4QDana, see DJD 16, p. 247-8; of ‫אלין‬, only a doubtful ‫ א‬has been preserved, so that a restoration ‫ אילן‬is possible, too. 4 There are various legends explaining Daniel’s absence, see GINZBERG, VI:415-6.



VIII – PROPHETS

221

sephus misread: for him, there were “360 satrapies”, so that Daniel was a commissioner over 120 satrapies, like his colleagues: a corruption of the source led him to connect the 120 satraps to each commissioner. Dan 6:8 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ כל די יבעה בעו מן כל‬-Θ Ant. 10:253 ἀνεῖναι τὸ πλῆθος ὅπως µήτ᾽ αὐτῷ τις ‫ להן מנך‬...‫מן כל אלה ואנשׁ‬ µήτε τοῖς θεοῖς δεόµενος αὐτῶν καὶ εὐχόµενος εἴη. The satraps call for a decree from king Darius: “Anyone who makes a petition to any god or man (𝔊𝔊 om.)... besides you” shall be cast into the lions’ den; Josephus has a strange rendering: “To give the people a respite... that no one should address a petition or a prayer to him or to their gods;” he misunderstood ‫להן מנך‬ as “even to you”, from a misreading ‫ הא‬or ‫ עד‬instead of ‫להן‬. Dan 6:29 “Daniel enjoyed success in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” Since Cyrus made his proclamation in his first year, Josephus had to abandon the subsequent chronology of Dan (cf. Ant. 10:263). Dan 8:14 2,300 ‫עד ערב בקר‬ Ant. 10:271 τὰς θυσίας κωλύ(Dan 12:11 1,290 ‫𝔊𝔊 = הוסר התמיד ימים‬-Θ) σειν ἐπὶ ἡµέρας 1,293. In Daniel’s vision of the Maccabean crisis, the sacrifices will be interrupted for “2,300 evenings and mornings”, that is 1,150 days, since the perpetual sacrifice (‫ )תמיד‬is performed twice a day; Josephus has “1,293 days”, which is closer to “half a week of years” of Dan 9:27, that is 42 months or 1,260 days, like “3 years and 6 months” of War 1:32. As for the “1,290” days of Dan 12, Josephus omits Dan 9-12, but he may have read a gloss.

IV.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel

Dan 1:7 ‫ שׁדרך‬,‫𝔊𝔊 בלטשׁאצר‬-Θ Βαλτασαρ, Σεδραχ, Ant. 10:189 Βαλτάσαρον, Σεδ‫ עבד נגו‬,‫מישׁך‬ Μισαχ, Αβδεναγω ράχην Μισάχην, Ἀβδεναγώ. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah were given new names by the chief of the eunuchs: “Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego.” For Josephus, the “Babylonian” renamed them, with some ambiguity; this change has not been prompted by a different text, but by 4:8 (the king gave Daniel his god’s name, Belteshazzar; see below § IV.5). As for the stability of the Greek names, the copyists knew them because of the well-known canticles kept in Dan 3 𝔊𝔊-Θ. Dan 5:25‫ מנא תקל ופרסין‬Θ µανη θεκελ φαρες, 𝔊𝔊 om. Ant. 10:243 µάνη, θεκέλ, φαρές. 𝔐𝔐, Θ and Ant. report the words written by the hand and Daniel’s interpretation, whereas 𝔊𝔊 ignores them (5:24-25) and summarizes their interpretation (5:2629). The copyists knew well the inscription, and there is no variant.

IV.3 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 (Θ)

Dan 2:13 ‫ = ודתא נפקת‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 ἐδογµατίσθη Ant. 10:196 προσέταξε πάντας ‫וחכימיא מתקטלי‬ πάντας ἀποκτεῖναι αὐτοὺς ἀναιρεθῆναι. The king was furious, “and a decree went forth, and the wise men were slain”; 𝔊𝔊 has “he ordained to slay all”, like Josephus “he ordained all of them to be killed”. However, 𝔐𝔐-Θ is not logical, for the sequel shows that Daniel had the execution postponed, and Josephus did not have to see 𝔊𝔊 to correct the story. Dan 2:34 ‫𝔊𝔊 התגזרת אבן‬-Θ ἐτµήθη λίθος ἐξ ὄρους Ant. 10:207 λίθον εἶδες ἐξ ὄρους. In his vision, the king was looking until “a stone was cut out (𝔊𝔊-Θ and Ant. add

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‘from a mountain’, from ‫ ;”)מן טורא‬the longer Greek could reflect the original. Dan 4:13 ‫ עדנין‬7 = Θ; 𝔊𝔊 7 ἔτη Ant. 10:216 διαζήσας... ἐπὶ τῆς ἐρηµίας ἔτεσιν 7. The king had a dream, that he will be like a beast for “7 periods (𝔊𝔊 and Ant. ‘years’)”; the interpretation of 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. is quite natural, and does not imply a dependence. At Dan 7:25, which Josephus does not render, ‫ עדן‬is translated καιρός by both 𝔊𝔊 & Θ, but it is to be understood “year”, too (the passage alludes to the Maccabean crisis, see War 1:32). 𝔊𝔊 and Ant. 10:247 om. Dan 5:30 ‫ = בה בליליא קטיל בלאשׁצר מלכא כשׂדאה‬Θ “That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain”; however, Josephus must omit, because of another source that he does not cite (probably Berossus): both Belshazzar was taken later by Cyrus, with Babylon. (𝔊𝔊, which does not mention Cyrus, could have depended on a similar source.) Dan 8:3 ‫ = איל אחד‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 κριὸν ἕνα µέγαν Ant. 10:270 δειχθῆναι κριὸν µέγαν ‫𝔊𝔊 )ולו( קרנַים‬-Θ κέρατα πολλὰ ἐκπεφυκότα κέρατα. In his vision, Daniel saw “a (𝔊𝔊 adds ‘great’5) ram, which had two (𝔊𝔊-Θ om., ignoring the dual) horns”; Josephus, with “a great ram, with many horns grown out”, agrees with 𝔊𝔊 and expands.

IV.4 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 (Θ) against 𝔊𝔊

Dan 1:17 ‫ = ודניאל הבין‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 τῷ Δανιηλ ἔδωκε Ant. 10:194 περὶ κρίσεις ὀνείρων ‫בכל־חזון וחלמות‬ σύνεσιν ἐν παντὶ ῥήµατι... τὸ θεῖον αὐτῷ φανερὸν ἐγίνετο. After the training of the youths, “Daniel understood all visions and dreams”; for 𝔊𝔊, “(God) gave Daniel the understanding of all word and vision…” Josephus says: “Ηe devoted himself to the interpretation of dreams, and the deity manifested itself to him”, closer to 𝔐𝔐. Dan 2:2 ‫ = לחרטמים ולאשׁפים‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 ἐπαοιδούς, µάγους, Ant. 10:195 Χαλδαίους ‫ולמכשׁפים ולכשׂדים‬ φαρµάκους τῶν Χαλδαίων µάγους, µάντεις. The king sent for “magicians, the conjurers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans”; 𝔊𝔊 gives three categories among the Chaldeans, while for 𝔐𝔐 and Josephus “the Chaldeans” is one of them (a fourth). Dan 2:18 ‫ = ורחמין למבעא‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 παρήγγειλε νηστείαν καὶ Ant. 10:199 δι᾽ ὅλης ‫מן־קדם אלה שׁמיא‬ δέησιν καὶ τιµωρίαν ζητῆσαι... ἱκετεύει τῆς νύκτος. Daniel informed his friends of the threat, “in order to (Θ accurately renders ‘so that they might’) request compassion from the God of heaven”; 𝔊𝔊 has “he commanded a fast and a prayer and to seek punishment beside the Highest Lord”. Josephus, without fast, is close to 𝔐𝔐, which moreover allows a singular subject: “Throughout the whole night he besought God.” Dan 2:19 ‫ = בחזוא‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 ἐν αὐτῇ τῇ νυκτὶ τὸ µυσ- Ant. 10:200 τό τε ὄναρ αὐτῷ γνώ‫ די־ליליא רזה גלי‬τήριον τοῦ βασιλέως ἐξεφάνθη ριµον ἐποίησε καὶ τὴν κρίσιν. And to Daniel “in a night vision the mystery was revealed”; 𝔊𝔊 expands: in a vision “that very night, the mystery of the king was exhibited” clearly. Josephus, with “(God) made known to him the dream and its interpretation”, is close to 𝔐𝔐-Θ; he only suggests that the revelation happened that very night. 𝔊𝔊 and Θ add ἔτους ὀκτωκαιδεκάτου Dan 3:1beginning Ant. 10:213 om. 5

Like 4QDana and 4QDanb, see DJD 16, p. 252 and 266.



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223

The second statue affair is dated “the 18th year” of Nabuchadnezzar by 𝔊𝔊 and Θ, that is, the very date of the deportation according to Jer 52:28 (the 19th for 2 Kgs 24:12); this can hardly be reconcilied with the beginning of the book (Dan 1:1 “the 3rd year of Jehoiakim, he was deported”), but according to 2 Kgs 23:36 and 24:1, he was a vassal of Nebuchadnezzar for 3 years, then he rebelled and was deported after a reign of 11 years, and the temple vessel was plundered; this happened in the 4th year of Nebuchadnezzar. The agreement of 𝔊𝔊 and Θ suggests that the date was in the Hebrew source, and that 𝔐𝔐 eventually omitted it.6 Josephus’ omission proves nothing, for he strove to restore a consistent chronology of the end of the monarchy. Dan 3:1beginning 𝔊𝔊 adds διοικῶν πόλεις καὶ χώρας... ἕως Αἰθιοπίας Ant. 10:213 om. After a first addition (see previous note), 𝔊𝔊 adds that the king was “ruling cities and countries and all the inhabitants on the earth from India to Ethiopia”, a formula that recalls the power of Ahasuerus (Est 1:1, over 127 countries). As far as history is concerned, it would be better applied to Darius I. Dan 3:24(91)beg. 𝔊𝔊 & Θ add ἀκοῦσαι τὸν βασιλέα ὑµνούντων αὐτῶν Ant. 10:214 om. 𝔐𝔐 has neither the canticles of Dan 3:26-90 𝔊𝔊 & Θ, nor the addition of 𝔊𝔊 & Θ: “When the king heard them singing hymns”; however, such an introduction is necessary, since v. 24 𝔐𝔐 begins with “then the king was astounded”, and there must be a reason. 𝔊𝔊 further adds “and standing up he saw them alive”. Josephus’ rendering is very short (“they miraculously escaped death”), and it is difficult to ascertain his source, maybe like 𝔊𝔊 & Θ. Dan 5:7 ‫ = לאשׁפיא‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 ἐπαοιδούς, φαρµάκους, Ant. 10:234 τοὺς µάγους καὶ τοὺς ‫כשׂדאי וגזריא‬ Χαλδαίους, γαζαρηνούς Χαλδαίους καὶ πᾶν τοῦτο τὸ γένος. After seeing the hand, Belshazzar summoned “the conjurers (𝔊𝔊 ‘enchanters and sorcerers’), the Chaldeans and the diviners”; contrarily to Θ and Ant., 𝔊𝔊 has a fourth category. Dan 5:10 ‫ ≈ מלכתא לקבל מלי מלכא‬Θ; 𝔊𝔊 different Ant. 10:237 ἡ µάµµη αὐτοῦ ‫ורברבנוהי לבית משׁתיא עלת ענת‬ παραθαρσύνειν ἤρξατο “The queen, because of the word of the king and his nobles, entered the banquet house, and replied.” Josephus has: “His grandmother began to console him;” he identifies the queen as Nebuchadnezzar’s wife, who is supposed to have been a witness of Daniel’s wisdom since the king’s dream (Dan 2); for Dan 5:11, Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar’s son. Josephus did not see 5:9-11 𝔊𝔊: “The king called the queen... and the queen remembered Daniel... and she said to the king...”

IV.5 Genuine Hebrew or Aramaic Readings of Josephus Ant. 10:212 τὴν προσηγορίαν αὐτῷ H ‫די שׁמה‬ τοῦ ἰδίου θεοῦ θέµενος ‫בלטשׁאצר כשׁם אלהו‬ After Daniel has explained the dream, the king begins to worship him, and Josephus adds: “He even gave him the name of his own god.” In the texts as they stand, this is said at Dan 4:5(8) as a digression ‫די שׁמה בלטשׁאצר כשׁם אלהי‬

Dan 2:46end om.

6 4QDana has preserved only the latter part of Dan 3:1, and it seems that there is not enough space for a date, see DJD 16, p. 348.

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(Belteshazzar’s words; v. 6-9 are not extant in 𝔊𝔊), and Josephus most probably read it here, at the end of 2:46 or within it.7

IV.6 Conclusions

Broadly speaking, Josephus’ paraphrase of Dan is loose, with complicated chronological problems, so that the identification of his source is seldom easy, hence many “special features”, of which some could conceal real variants of the source. The contacts of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 and Θ are negligible, but one of them is supported by a variant common to 4QDana and 4QDanb. But his contacts with 𝔐𝔐 and Θ against 𝔊𝔊 are much stronger. Moreover, at Ant. 10:218, he clearly says that he translates into Greek the books of the Hebrews, and a little before (§ 210), he has referred the reader to the original for further information about Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. This means that the intended readers knew Hebrew and Aramaic, in other words, that they were Jewish. As for the content paraphrased, Josephus ignores Dan 7 (the Son of Man) and Dan 9-12 (visions, end of time); since he is uninterested in eschatology, we cannot conclude that he did not have these chapters. However, he indicates that Daniel wrote books (10:267), and this plural may allude to several parts now united in the book of Daniel, whose actual form cannot have been assembled prior to the collapse of the Seleucid empire.8 The Qumran fragments cover almost the whole of 𝔐𝔐 as it stands, and the Greek additions are not attested.

7 In 4QDana, the space between Dan 2:46 and 47 is too large to be properly restored, which suggests a longer variant, as in Ant.; in 4QDand, Dan 4:5 could not be really read, but the spacing indicates that it was probably in agreement with 𝔐𝔐; see DJD 16, p. 248 and 282-3. 8 At Ant. 10:209, Josephus rightly understood that the 4th kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Dan 2:40, seemingly well preserved in 4QDana, see above § V.1) refers to Rome; at Dan 11:30, the Romans are called ‫ 𝔊𝔊( כתים‬Ῥωµαῖοι, Θ Κίτιοι, Vulg Romani), and 4QDanb has preserved a part of 11:29. This way of calling the Romans as western invaders (after the Greeks, see 1 Mac 1:1) can hardly have occurred before Pompey’s arrival in 65 BCE. 4QDana is currently dated in middle of the 1st cent. BCE, and 4QDanb later, 20-50 CE (DJD 16, p. 240 and 256). See Étienne NODET, “Les Kittim, les Romains et Daniel”, RB 118 (2011), p. 260-8.

CHAPTER NINE EZRA-NEHEMIAH From the general outline of Josephus’ paraphrase, it has been observed of old that he did not use the canonical Ezra and Nehemiah, which form one book in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (Esdras B Ra., corresponding to EzrNeh), and are separated by a simple division in 𝔐𝔐 (petuḥah). For the former, he had a version that is very close to 1 Esdras (or Esdras A Ra., hereafter Esd), known only in Greek.1 Esd 1 is a translation of 2 Chr 35-36, which is independent of 2 Chr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, sometimes longer or shorter, and probably coming from a slightly different Hebrew source; it does not include the additional 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 verses 2 Chr 35:19a-d, 36:2a-c, 5a-d; it does not repeat Cyrus’ decree (2 Chr 36:2223 // Ezr 1:1-3a). In Esd 1:47-52, 2:11 and 8:5-6, “Jerusalem” is rendered Ἰεροσόλυµα, the normal Greek form used by Josephus, contrarily to Ιερουσαληµ in the rest of the book (and in all the books translated from the Hebrew); this indicates that various hands were at work, so that the actual Esd is a compound translation.2 In any case, Josephus’ source shows two major differences, at both ends: a) According to 2 Chr 35:22, Josiah “would not listen to the words of Nechao from the mouth of God”, but the parallel Esd 1:25 has “he did not heed the words of the prophet Jeremiah from the mouth of God”; where “Jeremiah” replaces “Nechao”. Josephus, who paraphrases the longer 2 Chr version of Josiah’s death, says at Ant. 10:76 that Josiah “paid no attention to Nechao’s request”, omitting God, since for him, king Nechao of Egypt could not have been a prophet. But if he had read that the warning came from Jeremiah, he would obviously have mentioned him, all the more so that he reports, after 2 Chr 35:25 (// Esd 1:30), that “Jeremiah composed a dirge for Josiah’s funeral”. Thus, Josephus did not know Esd 1. b) At Esd 9:55, after Ezra’s proclamation of the law of Moses and thorough explanations, the book ends with “and they came together”. The parallel Neh 8:13-18 has a large addition on the feast of the Tabernacles, which begins as follows: “And on the second day came 1 For the text tradition, see the summary of Dieter BÖHLER, 1 Esdras (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2016), p. 13-14. 2 4Q117 has been sometimes ascribed to the Hebrew vorlage of Esd, but this is doubtful, while 4Q550 could be a better candidate, see Kristin DE TROYER, “Once More: The SoCalled EstherFragments of Cave 4”, RQ 19 (2000), p. 401-22.

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together the heads of the households of all the people, etc.” Now, Josephus knew a form of this addition, for he ends the story of Ezra with a celebration of the feast of the Tabernacles (Ant. 11:157). To sum up, Esd as it now stands cannot have been the direct source of Josephus. As for the book of Neh, Nehemiah himself has four profiles, somewhat interwoven: the builder of the city walls, the governor of Judah who restores justice, the defender of the temple worship, and the Ezra-like reformer. Josephus knows only of the builder, and just hints at the protector of the temple (Ant. 11:182). It is noteworthy that Ben Sirah, in his gallery of Biblical portraits, ignores Ezra and briefly mentions Nehemiah as a builder of the city walls and houses (Sir 49:13).

I – Ezra Esdras B 1-10 in general is a faithful translation of Ezr, so that only a few variants will be given.3 I.1 Josephus’ Special Features Ant. 11:5 βούλοµαι Κῦρον ἐγώ... βασιλέα πέµψαι µου τὸν λαὸν εἰς τὴν ἰδίαν γῆν καὶ οἰκοδοµῆσαί µου τὸν ναόν. Cyrus read God’s words in Isaiah’s prophecy: “It is my will that king Cyrus... shall send my people to their own land and build my temple”; contrarily to EsdEzr, Josephus here paraphrases Isa 44:28: “(Yhwh) said of Cyrus ‘My shepherd’... of Jerusalem ‘It will be built’, and of the sanctuary ‘Its foundation will be laid’”; the reworked quotation mentions the land (Judah), but omits the building of the city (see next note). Ant. 11:6 ἀναστῆσαι Ἱεροσό- Esd 2:3 ἀναβὰς εἰς τὴν Ιερουσαληµ Ezr 1:3 ‫ויעל לירושׁלם‬ λυµα καὶ τὸν τοῦ θ. ναόν οἰκοδοµείτω τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κ. ‫ויבן את־בית יהוה‬ For Josephus, who follows Isaiah, Cyrus’ order is “to build Jerusalem and the temple of God”, against Esd-Ezr “that (everyone) goes up to Jerusalem and builds the temple of Yhwh”. Unlike Ant., both Esd and Ezr 𝔊𝔊 have the spelling Ιερουσαληµ. Ant. 11:9 adds τάς τε εὐχὰς ἀπεδίδοσαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ τὰς νοµιζοµένας κατὰ τὸ παλαιὸν θυσίας ἐπετέλουν. Before the departure of the first caravan, Josephus adds: “And they made the offerings vowed to God and performed the customary sacrifices according to the ancient custom.” Such an unusual practice in Babylonia is unvouched for, and it seems that Josephus misunderstood a marginal gloss like Ezr 3:2 (// Esd 5:48): “They built the altar of the God of Israel, to make burnt offerings upon it, as it is 3 For the text of Esd, see too Michael F. BIRD, 1 Esdras: Introduction and Commentary on the Greek Text in Codex Vaticanus (Septuagint Commentary Series; Leiden / Boston: Brill, 2012).



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written in the law of Moses.” The renewal of the worship at Jerusalem is mentioned at Ant. 11:76, only after the temple has been built (however, see below Ant. 11:106). Ant. 11:11 adds ὅπως φυλάττῃ µέχρι τῆς οἰκοδοµίας τοῦ ναοῦ. Sheshbazzar receives the temple vessels, and Josephus adds that “he is ordered to keep them until the temple would be built”. He purposely omits that according to Esd 5:52 // Ezr 3:6, Zerubbabel and Jeshua performed all the sacrifices upon the newly rebuilt altar, though the foundations of the temple were not yet laid. Ant. 11:12 adds τήν τε πόλιν ἀνακτίζειν Esd 6:23 & Ezr 6:3 om. The record of Cyrus’ decree mentions the building of the temple, and Josephus adds “to rebuild the city”. Ant. 11:13 adds κατέπεµψα... Μιθριδάτην καὶ Ζοροβάβηλον Esd 6:23 & Ezr 6:3 om. Quoting the record of Cyrus’ decree, Josephus adds: “I sent Mithredath and Zerubbabel.” At 11:11 he mentioned more accurately Mithredath and Sheshbazzar, and his error shows that he already read somewhere “Zerubbabel”, probably at the contest (Esd 4:13). Anyhow, this is a deliberate change, for he has to show that Zerubbabel was a prominent Jewish leader by the time of Darius (see below Ant. 11:32); however, he was not yet aware of Zerubbabel’s pedigree (below, Ant. 11:73) Ant. 11:15 ὁ ἀριθµὸς αὐτῶν Esd 2:9-11 ἀριθµός Ezr 1:9-11 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἀριθµός ‫מספרם‬ ψυκτῆρες χρύσεοι 50 ψυκτῆρες χρυσοῖ 30 ‫אגרטלי זהב‬ “ ἀργύρεοι 400 “ ἀργυροῖ 1,000 ‫אגרטלי־כסף‬ θηρίκλεια χρύσεα 50 θυίσκαι ἀργυραῖ 29 παρηλλαγµένα 29 ‫מחלפים‬ “ ἀργύρεα 300 κεφφουρη χρυσοῖ 30 ‫כפורי זהב‬ κάδοι χρύσεοι 50 “ ἀργυροῖ 200; 410 ‫כפורי כסף‬ “ ἀργύρεοι 500 σπονδεῖα χρύσεα 40 σπονδεῖα χρυσᾶ 1,000 “ ἀργύρεα 300 “ ἀργυρᾶ 1,000 φιάλαι χρυσαῖ 30 φιάλαι χρυσαῖ 30 “ ἀργύρεαι 2,400 “ ἀργυραῖ 2,410 σκεύη τε ἄλλα 1,000 ἄλλα σκεύη 1,000 σκεύη ἕτερα 1,000 ‫כלים אחרים‬ (om.) πάντα σκεύη 5,469 πάντα σκεύη 5,400 ‫כל־כלים‬ King Cyrus restored the temple vessels; Josephus’ list has first some affinities with Ezr, then with Esd, but it is longer, and very different from Solomon’s temple furniture (Ant. 8:91); the identity of the various items is not always clear. Only the total given by Esd is correct. Ant. 11:16 κτηνῶν, οἴνου, ἐλαίου δραχµὰς Esd 6:28 ≈ Ezr 6:9 ‫תורין ודכרין ואמרין‬ 205,500, εἰς σεµίδαλιν πυρῶν ἀρτάβας 20,500 ‫חנטין מלח חמר ומשׁח‬ In his additional decree, Darius offers “young bulls, rams, and lambs..., wheat, salt, wine and oil”. Josephus has a different list: “205,500 drachmas of cattle, wine and oil, and 20,500 artabs of wheat for fine flour;” he gives quantities, omits “salt”, and specifies “fine flour”, which is suitable for sacrifices (see Ant. 3:235); he might depend on a (Hebrew) variant ‫( סלת חטים‬see below § I.6 end). Ant. 11:17 ἀνασταυρωθῆναι Esd 6:31 κρεµασθῆναι Ezr 6:11 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 παγήσεται ‫יתמחא‬ The king wrote that whoever transgresses his orders would be “impaled” (Ezr), or “hanged” (Esd), or “crucified” (Ant.); the last two ones may be different renderings of the same nifal ‫( יתלה‬see Chap. X, § III.2, Ant. 11:208).

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Ant. 11:19 βαλλοµένων τοὺς θεµελίους τοῦ ναοῦ Esd 5:55 & Ezr 3:10 ‫ויסדו הבנים‬ τὰ πέριξ ἔθνη καὶ µάλιστα τὸ Χουθαίων Esd 5:63 & Ezr 4:1 ‫צרי יהודה ובנימן‬ παρεκάλουν τοὺς σατράπας ἐµποδίζειν Esd 2:11 om.; Ezr 4:6 ‫כתבו שׂטנה‬ χρήµασιν διαφθαρέντες ὑπ’ αὐτῶν = Ezr 4:5 Esd 5:70 ἐπιβουλὰς, δηµαγωγίας. For Josephus, “when they were laying the foundations of the temple, the surrounding nations, especially the Chutheans-Samaritans (Esd-Ezr ‘the enemies of Judah and Benjamin’), urged the satraps to hinder (in the rebuilding), who, being corrupted by money, etc.” Though he omits Ahasuerus, Josephus knows Ezr 4:6 (against Esd), but he summarizes the rest: he omits that the Samaritans wanted to collaborate on the temple building (Esd 5:64-69a // Ezr 4:2-4), and identify them with the “people of the land” who hired consellors to block the works all the days of Cyrus, until Darius’ reign (Esd 5:70-71 alone has “two years” // Ezr 4:5). For chronological reasons, Josephus had to omit Darius here (see § I.6). Ant. 11:29 οἱ τούτοις συντεταγµένοι παραχρῆµα ≈ Esd 2:25 Ezr 4:23 ‫אזלו בבהילו‬ ἐπιπηδήσαντες ἵπποις ἔσπευσαν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυµα πλῆ‫לירושׁלם על־יהודיא‬ θος ἐπαγόµενοι πολύ, καὶ διεκώλυσαν οἰκοδοµεῖν ‫ובטלו המו‬ τοὺς Ἰουδαίους τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὸν ναόν ‫באדרע וחיל‬ With the king’s reply, the officers “and their colleagues immediately leaped on their horses, accompanied by a large crowd, hastened to Jerusalem and prevented the Jews to build the city (Ant. adds ‘and the temple’)”; Ant. and Esd have almost the same elements, with a slightly different wording; however, Josephus had to mention the temple because of the next sentence (see next note). Ezr conveys the same meaning as Esd, with another construction of the sentence: “They went in haste to Jerusalem against the Jews (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘and to Judah’) and stopped them by force (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘horses’) and strength”. Ant. 11:29 ἐπεσχέθη Esd 2:26 ἤργει ἡ οἰκοδοµὴ Ezr 4:23 ‫בטלת עבידת‬ τὰ ἔργα µέχρι τοῦ 2nd ἔτους τοῦ ἱεροῦ µέχρι... ‫בית־אלהא‬ According to the decree, the king’s officers came “and the works were stopped until the 2nd year” of king Darius”; both Esd and Ezr speak only of the building of the temple, which has nothing to do with Artaxerxes’ decree against the city; the interruption should follow Ezr 4:5 “the people of the land… broke their purpose... until the reign of Darius”, this note is given at Esd 5:70, after the temple foundation are laid. Josephus has avoided the problem by including the temple in the decree (see previous note). Ant. 11:32 adds as a prologue to Darius’ contest that “Zerubbabel came to Darius from Jerusalem and was appointed governor of the Jewish captives; as a friend of the king, he was deemed worthy of being bodyguard with two others”. Josephus, without any basis in his source, has prepared this position (see above Ant. 11:13). Ant. 11:67 τοὺς ἀναβησοµένους εἰς τὰ Esd 5:1 ἐξελέγησαν (Esd 2:3 εἴ τίς Ἱεροσόλυµα ἡγεµόνας... ἐπελέξαντο ἀναβῆναι ἀρχηγοί... ἐστιν ὑµῶν.) After Darius’ decree, “they selected the leaders... who were to go up to Jerusalem”; by the time of Cyrus, they were volunteers: Esd “if there is any of you” // Ezr 1:3, cf. Ant. 11:6 (a duplication). Ant. 11:68-73 Josephus summarizes the list of the returnees (Esd 5:1-45), which he has already alluded to by the time of Cyrus (11:18), see previous note.



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229

Ant. 11:73 Μαρδοχαῖος, Esd 5:8 𝔊𝔊 Ζαραιου, 𝔏𝔏 Σαραιου Ezr 2:2 ‫ מרדכי‬,‫שׂריה‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Μαρδοχαιου Σερεβαῖος // Neh 7:7 ‫ מרדכי‬,‫עזריה‬ According to Esd and Ezr, the returnees had 12 leaders, but Josephus names only 4 of them, at the end of the list: Zerubbabel, Jeshua, “Mordekai and Seraiah (𝔊𝔊 ‘Zeraiah’, closer to the Neh parallel ‘Azariah’)”. For the first two ones, he develops: “Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel of the tribe of Judah, being a descendant of David, and Jeshua son of Jehozadak the high priest”, somewhat close to Esd 5:5, which disagrees with the list of leaders: “The priests, sons of Pinhas son of Aaron, Jeshua son of Jehozadak son of Seraiah, and Joiakim son of Zerubbabel son of Shaltiel, etc.” It is remarkable that Josephus did not introduce Zerubbabel this way when he first mentioned him at Ant. 11:13 (see above). Ant. 11:73 οἳ καὶ συνεβάλοντο µνᾶς Esd 5:44 χρυσίου µνᾶς 1,000 καὶ ἀργυρίου µὲν χρυσίου 100, ἀργύρου δὲ 5,000 µνᾶς 5,000 καὶ στολὰς ἱερατικὰς 100. Josephus says that the leaders of the returnees “contributed 100 minas of gold and 5,000 of silver”; according to Esd, they vowed to set up the temple (house) and to give (1,000 and 5,000, then 100 priestly tunics); Josephus seems to have put together separated verses (see previous note), or else to have read a different text. Ezr 2:68-69 is similar to Esd, without vows; the parallel Neh 7:69-71 duplicates the gifts of the “heads of the households”, and adds the contributions of the people. Ant. 11:75 ἑβδόµῳ δὲ µηνὶ τῆς ἀπὸ Esd 5:45 ἐνστάντος δὲ τοῦ ἑβδόµου µηνός... Βαβυλῶνος αὐτῶν ἐξόδου 5:50 ἠγάγοσαν τὴν τῆς σκηνοπηγίας ἑορτήν. According to Esd (and Ezr 3:1-4), “when the 7th month came... they held the Feast of the Tabernacles”, but Josephus has: “In the 7th month after the departure of Babylon,” as if he were to omit the feast, which occurs the 7th month (Tishri); however, he mentions it in the sequel, and adds like Esd that those who had made vows paid them “from the new moon of the 7th month” (11:77). Thus, Josephus either did not pay attention to the passage as a whole, or else wrote clumsily, actually meaning “the first 7th month after the departure”. Ant. 11:80 ἀπαρτισθένEsd 5:57 καὶ ᾠκοδόµησαν Ezr 3:10 ‫ויסדו הבנים‬ τος δὲ τοῦ ἱεροῦ οἱ οἰκοδόµοι τὸν ναὸν ‫את־היכל יהוה‬ During the building of the temple, there was a musical arrangement, and Josephus states: “When the temple was finished...” He had not yet seen that there is another interruption in the sequel; indeed, Esd is somewhat ambiguous: “And the builders built” or “were building”; but Ezr is not: “And the builders laid the foundations.” Ant. 11:85 Σαλµανασσάρης... ἡµᾶς Esd 5:66 Ασβασαρεθ... Ezr 4:2 ‫אסר חדן‬ µετήγαγεν καὶ Μηδίας ἐνθάδε ὃς µετήγαγεν ἡµᾶς ἐνταῦθα ‫המעלה אתנו פה‬ The Samaritans, who want to take part in the building of the temple, say that “Esar-haddon... brought us up here”, but Josephus transforms this after the origins of the Samaritans (2 Kgs 17:24): “Shalmaneser brought us up from Kuthah and Mediah”; he has no doubts about the Israelite religion of the Samaritans, see Chap. VI, § III.2, 2 Kgs 17:28. Ant. 11:92 Ζοροβαβήλῳ Esd 6:17 Ζοροβαβελ παρεEzr 5:14 ‫ויהיבו‬ παραδοὺς καὶ Μιθριδάτῃ δόθη καὶ Σαναβασσάρῳ ‫לשׁשׁבצר‬ In the record of his decree, Cyrus delivered the cultic items to “Zerubbabel (Ezr om.) and Mithredath (Esd and Ezr ‘Sheshbazzar’); Josephus repeats what he

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said at 11:13 (see above), but later he mentions Sheshbazzar only (11:101), agreeing with Ezr. Ant. 11:97 Δαρεῖος τῶν Σαµαρειτῶν αὐτῷ γραψάντων Esd 2,12 om. Ezr 4:6 ‫כתבו שׂטנה‬ Josephus introduces a written complaint of the Samaritans, which mentions Cambyses’ letter forbidding the construction and stating that the temple resembles a fortress rather than a sanctuary. But Cambyses is Josephus’ place-holder of Xerxes, under whose reign “they wrote an accusation” (Ezr, Esd omits). The letter is not quoted, but in the next verse, “Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel... wrote to Artaxerxes” and the letter is introduced with “Rehum, Shimshai, their colleagues... and the Samaritans wrote to Artaxerxes”; in other words, two different letters have been mixed up, but Josephus had them as distincts pieces, in an order wich is difficult to restore (see § I.2, Ant. 11:22). Ant. 11:102 Cyrus and Darius Esd 7:5 and Ezr 6:14 add ‘and Artaxerxes’. The temple building was finished with the consent of “Cyrus and Darius (Esd and Ezr add ‘and Artaxerxes’)”. The addition is strange, since Artaxerxes was an opponent (Esd 2:12, Ezr 4:7), but it may have been a contamination from another “Artaxerxes”, the king who later helped Ezra (Esd 8:1, Ezr 7:1; cf. 11:120). Ant. 11:106-7 ᾠκοδοµήθη δὲ ἐν Esd 7:5 ἕως 23th µηνὸς Esd 6:15 3 ‫עד יום‬ th ἔτεσιν 7. τοῦ δ’ 9 τῆς Δαρείου Αδαρ τοῦ 6th ἔτους ‫לירח אדר די היא‬ βασιλείας ἔτους 23 µηνὸς 12 βασιλέως Δαρείου ‫ למלכות דריוש‬6 For Josephus, the temple “was completed in 7 years, and inaugurated in the 9th yar of Darius’ reign, on the 23/12 (Adar)”; the 23rd day agrees with Esd (Ezr ‘6th’), but both have “the 6th year of Darius”. Josephus’ “7 years” may have been an allusion to Solomon’s temple building (1 Kgs 6:38, Ant. 8:99), but his views are not very firm: at AgAp 1:154 he states that “according to our books” the temple foundations were laid “in the 2nd year of Cyrus”, and it was completed “in the 2nd year of Darius”, which is grossly rough. Ant. 11:118 βασιλεὺς Δαρεῖος Ταγανᾷ καὶ Σαµβᾷ, Esd and Ezr om. Σαδράκῃ καὶ Βουήδωνι... Ζοροβάβηλος καὶ Ἀνανίας καὶ Μαρδοχαῖος... Josephus quotes a letter otherwise unknown, with proper names: “King Darius to Taganas and Sambabas, Sardakes and Buedon... Zerubbabel, Ananiah and Mordekai have charged you with hampering them... and failing to pay...” At the end Josephus concludes with an unusual remark: “The letter contained this.” This suggests that Josephus had it as an isolated document, around which he built another story of the hostility of the Samaritans, who were supposed to pay for the sacrifices of the Jews; nothing specific is added to the content of the letter (11:114-9). At Esd 5:8, among the leaders of the returnees, there are “Nehemiah, Zerubbabel, ‘Enenios’ and Mordekai”; the third one, unknown to Ezr 2:3, could be “Ananiah”, Nehemiah’s brother (Neh 7:2). According to 2 Mac 2:13, Nehemiah founded a library and collected, among other books, “the letters of the kings about offerings”; Josephus may have had access to such documents as loose appendixes to Scripture, for here he does not refer to a “document laid in the temple”, as he does elsewhere, see Chap. II, § III.2, Josh 10:13 on Ant. 5:61. The letter might have a bearing on Edomite attacks, see below § II.1, Ant. 11:160. Ant. 11:131-3 adds that Ezra read the king’s letter to the Jews of Babylon and sent a copy to Media. Some welcomed the call, but the majority of the Israelite na-



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tion remained there (Josephus comments “outside the Roman dominion”). Following the view of Ezra, Josephus seems to consider that only the returned exiles were the true Israel. Ant. 11:140 τὸ ἱερατικὸν γένος Esd 8:67 τὸ σπέρµα τὸ ἅγιον = Ezr 9:2 ‫זרע הקדשׁ‬ It is reported to Ezra that some priest, Levites and commoners, have married foreign wives and mixed “the strain of the priestly race”, according to Josephus, but both Esd and Ezr have “the holy seed”. Josephus is wrong, probably out of absent-mindedness, which suggests that he did read ‫הקדשׁ‬. In fact, we learn from AgAp 1:31 that his main concern was the pedigrees of the priests. Ant. 11:151 ἀρξάµενοι τῇ νουµηνίᾳ Esd 9:16-7 = Ezr 10:16-7 from τοῦ 10th µηνὸς... ἕως τῆς τοῦ the 1st day of the 10th month µηνὸς τοῦ ἐχοµένου νουµηνίας to the 1st day of the 1st month. For Josephus, “they began the trial on the 1st day of the 10th month... until the 1st day of the next month”, but Esd and Ezr say it lasted 3 months; Josephus is wrong (and/or careless), but it suffices to replace the 2nd µηνός with ἔτους, in order to obtain a correct timespan. Ant. 11:155 περὶ δὲ τῶν παρῳχηµένων ἐδυσφόEsd 9:50 ≈ Neh 8:9 ‫בוכים כל־העם‬ ρουν καὶ µέχρι τοῦ δακρύειν προήχθησαν ‫כשׁמעם את־דברי התורה‬ When Ezra read aloud the law of Moses, “all the people were weeping when they heard the words of law”; Josephus adds that “they were troubled about the past”, which is reminiscent of Josiah’s reaction when the law was unearthed (2 Kgs 22:11). However, he does not point out that in previous circumstances the law was supposed to be known (all the sacrifices on the new altar, Ant. 11:9 and 77; the foreign wives, 11:140; feast of the Tabernacles 11:154). The context of the reading of the law in Neh 8 does not involve such inconsistencies.

I.2 Josephus Parallel to Esd-Ezr Ant. 11:11 Ἀβεσσάρῳ Esd 2:8 Σαναβασσάρῳ Ezr 1:8 ‫לשׁשׁבצר‬, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Σασαβασαρ. Cyrus gives the temple vessels to Mithredath, who has to deliver them to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah. Ant. 11:22 Ῥᾴθυµος Esd 2:13 Ραουµος Ezr 4:8 Ραουµ ‫רחום‬ ὁ πάντα τὰ πραττόµενα γράφων ὁ τὰ προσπίπτοντα βααλταµ ‫בעל־טעם‬ καὶ Σεµέλιος καὶ Σαµσαῖος καὶ Σαµσαι ‫ושׁמשׁי‬ ὁ γραµµατεύς ὁ γραµµατεύς ὁ γραµµατεύς ‫ספרא‬ A letter is sent to the king by “Rehum (Ant. ‘Nonchalant’, from an uncial error Θ/Ο, which occurs in some 𝔊𝔊 mss, too) the recorder (Ezr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes, see § I.3, Ant. 11:26), and Shimshai the scribe”. In the previous verse, ignored by Josephus, the letter is said to be sent by “Bishlam (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἐν εἰρήνῃ), Mithredath, Tabeel” (Ezr), which is confusing, and Esd further adds to these Rehum and Shimshai. It is likely that two different letters have been mixed up: at Ezr 4:6, a letter to the king is mentioned, but not quoted, see above § I.1, Ant. 11:97 and 118). Ant. 11:145 Ἀχόνιός τις Esd 8:89 Ιεχονιας Ezr 10:2 Σεχενιας ‫שׁכניה‬ When Ezra was upset by the problem of the foreign wives, a man stood up, “Achoniah” (Ant., from ‫)אכניה‬, “Jechoniah (Esd, from ‫יכניה‬, like king JoiachinJechoniah), “Shechaniah” (Esd), with a confusion at the first letter.

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I.3 Josephus with Esd against Ezr Ant. 11:1 διὰ Ἱερεµίου Esd 2:1 ἐν στόµατι (= ‫ )בפי‬Ιερεµιου Ezr 1:1 ‫מפי ירמיה‬ Cyrus had to fulfill the word of Yhwh “from (Esd ‘in’) the mouth of Jeremiah”; Josephus has “through Jeremiah”, closer to Esd (instrumental ‫)ב‬. Ant. 11:12 Σισίνῃ, Esd 6:26 Σισίννῃ Ezr 6:6 𝔊𝔊 δώσετε, 𝔏𝔏 Θανθαναιε ‫תתני‬ Σαραβασάνῃ Σαθραβουζάνῃ Σαθαρβουζανα ‫שׁתר בוזני‬ Josephus says that Cyrus wrote to “Thatthenai (Ant. and Esd ‘Sisines’, from ‫ )ששני‬and Shethar-boznai, officers of Beyond the River”; Ant. and Esd give a Hebrew equivalent of Thatthenai. According to Ezr 6:3 // Esd 6:22 Darius later found Cyrus’ decree at Ecbatana, and upon a request of Thatthenai and Shetarboznai, he confirmed Cyrus’ will and ordered them to let the temple to be built; Josephus, by quoting here the record of the Cyrus decree out of context, mixes it up with Darius’ order (see 11:89 below). Under Darius, that very decree will be quoted again (11:99). Ant. 11:17 τὰς οὐσίας Esd 6:31 τὰ ὑπάρχοντα Ezr 6:11 ὁ οἶκος αὐτοῦ ‫וביתה‬ αὐτῶν εἶναι βασιλικάς εἶναι βασιλικά τὸ κατ᾿ ἐµὲ ποιηθήσεται ‫נולו יתעבד‬ The king states that whoever transgresses his orders, “his house shall be made a dunghill (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘made my belonging’)”, according to Ezr. Josephus and Esd agree with Ezr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, with different wordings: “Their properties shall be confiscated.” The word ‫ נולו‬has been rendered the same way, but it is difficult (maybe related to ‫)נבל‬: it occurs in similar contexts as ‫ נולי‬at Dan 2:5 (𝔊𝔊 ὑµῶν τὰ ὑπάρχοντα εἰς τὸ βασιλικόν, Θ οἱ οἶκοι ὑµῶν διαρπαγήσονται “shall be seized”, or “plundered” as res nullius) and 3:29 (𝔊𝔊 ἡ οἰκία αὐτοῦ δηµευθήσεται “taken as public property”, Θ οἱ οἶκοι αὐτῶν εἰς διαρπαγήν). The Greek translators of Dan did not clearly recognize the word, but Rabbinic tradition understands it as “quagmire”, and uses ‫“ מנוול‬corrupt” as adjective. Ant. 11:22 τήν τε πόλιν τὴν ἀποστάτιν ≈ Esd 2:14 ≈ Ezr 4:12 ‫קריתא‬ καὶ πονηρὰν οἰκοδοµοῦσιν ≈ ≈ ‫מרדתא ובאישׁתא בנין‬ καὶ τὰς ἀγορὰς αὐτῆς = Esd 2:14 om. καὶ ναὸν ἀνεγείρουσι καὶ ναὸν ὑποβάλλονται om. The officials wrote that the Jews are in Jerusalem, “and are building the rebellious and wicked city (Ant. and Esd add ‘and its market-places, and erecting a temple’)”. In the sequel, the letter urges the king to search the records of his fathers to find that the city is indeed rebellious; in the context of Ant. and Esd, this is not logical, since the “fathers” cannot be but Cyrus’. Ant. 11:25 ἀποκλείεταί σοι ἡ ὁδὸς ≈ Esd 2:18 Ezr 4:16 ‫חלק בעבר נהרא‬ ἡ ἐπὶ κοίλην Συρίαν καὶ Φοινίκην oὐκ ἔστιν σοι εἰρήνη ‫לא איתי לך‬ The officials warn: if the city is rebuilt and the wall finished, “the road to CoeleSyria and Phoenicia will be closed to you”. Ezr is different: “You will not have a part in Transeuphratena-Eber-nari (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘you have no peace’); the geography, followed by Josephus, is difficult if the king is in Babylon, and Ezr 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 tried to correct this by omitting it. Ant. 11:26 γράφοντι τὰ προσπίπτοντα = Esd 2:19 Ezr 4:17 ‫רחום‬ καὶ Βεελζέµῳ καὶ Σεµελίῳ Esd 2:19 Βεελτεέµῳ, Σαµσαίῳ ‫בעל־טעם ושׁמשׁי‬ The king replies to Rehum “the recorder (Ant. and Esd add ‘and Beelteem’ a transcription of ‫בעל־טעם‬, hence a doublet) and Shimshai”; the doublet is some-



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what strange, since for Ezr the addressees were among the senders of the request, and there both Ant. and Esd do not have the doublet (see § I.2, Ant. 11:22). However, at Esd 2:13 the phrase Ραουµος ὁ τὰ προσπίπτοντα lacks a verb like γράφων, as the one we read here, and we can imagine a revision in two independent steps: a) Esd 2:13 had first γράφων καὶ Βεελτεέµος (like Ezr 4:7 𝔊𝔊𝔏𝔏); b) here, an unfortunate corrector emended Josephus’ text according to Esd 2:19, for it is quite unlikely that Josephus could not understand the Aramaic ‫בעל־טעם‬. Ant. 11:27 φορολογήσαντας ≈ Esd 2:22 Ezr 4:20 ‫בכל עבר נהרה‬ κοίλην Συρίαν καὶ Φοινίκην ‫ומדה בלו והלך מתיהב להון‬ The king found in the records that the powerful kings of Jerusalem used to “levy tributes on Coele-Syria and Phoenicia”; Ezr is different: “Powerful kings used to rule the whole Transeuphratena-Eber-nari (here only 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 curiously translates ὅλης τῆς ἑσπέρας τοῦ ποταµοῦ ‘all the evening of the river’), and tributes, custom and toll were given to them”. Again, the geography is difficult (see above, Ant. 11:25). Ant. 11:28 ἐγὼ τοίνυν προσ- Esd 2:23 νῦν οὖν ἐπέταξα Ezr 4:21 adds έταξα µὴ συγχωρεῖν τοῖς ἀποκωλῦσαι τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ‫עד־מני‬ Ἰουδαίοις οἰκοδοµεῖν ἐκείνους τοῦ οἰκοδοµῆσαι ‫טעמא יתשׂם‬ The king states: “Now, I have ordered not to permit the Jews (Esd ‘those people’) to build;” the wordings of Ant. and Esd are similar, but not identical. Ezr adds “until a decree is issued by me” (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 is different: ὅπως ἀπὸ τῆς γνώµη “so that according to the decree”, which is to be attached to the next verse “you shall beware, etc.”); this addition of Ezr is necessary, because the order is given by Artaxerxes, and in the sequel Artaxerxes, supposed to be the same one, makes a decree in favor of Ezra (Ezr 7:21); Esd ignores the problem, and Josephus replaces the second Artaxerxes with Xerxes (11:120). Ant. 11:74 κατῳκίσθησαν εἰς τὰ Ἱερο- Esd 5:45 κατῳκίσθησαν Ezr 2:70 ‫וישׁבו‬ σόλυµα, τὸ δὲ ἄλλο πλῆθος εἰς οἱ ἱερεῖς... καὶ πᾶς Ισραηλ ‫ בעריהם‬...‫הכהנים‬ τὰς ἰδίας ἀνεχώρησεν πατρίδας ἐν ταῖς κώµαις αὐτῶν ‫וכל־ישׂראל בעריהם‬ After the selection of the exiles, “they emigrated to Jerusalem, and the rest of the people went off to their native places” (in Babylonia); Esd here is less clear: “The priests (and Levites and those from the people) emigrated to Jerusalem and in the country) and all Israel in their villages.” Josephus did not see Esd; his rendering is possible, but one may understand that the true Israel (the returnees) came back to the original places, where their ancestors were dwelling before the exile; in fact, Ezr conveys this very meaning: “And the priests and Levites and those from the people... dwelt in their towns, and all Israel in their towns”, the last phrase being a kind of summary, all the more so that in the next verse “all the people gathered together in Jerusalem”. However, Josephus did not see Esd 5:8, which unambiguously indicates that the returnees arrived in their own towns in Judah. Ant. 11:78 τὰ πρὸς τροφὴν. Esd 5:53 βρωτὰ καὶ Ezr 3:7 ‫ומאכל‬ H ‫ומאכל‬ τοῖς Σιδωνίοις ἡδὺ καὶ ποτὰ καὶ χαρα ‫ומשׁתה‬ ‫ומשׁתה‬ κοῦφον ἦν τὰ ξύλα κέδρινα τοῖς Σιδωνίοις ‫ושמחה לצדנים ושמן לצדנים‬ For the building of the temple, Josephus says that they gave the workmen “the money for their subsistence; it was pleasant and easy for the Sidonians to bring cedar wood”; the comment “pleasant” is unusual. Esd says that they gave “food and drink and χαρα (𝔊𝔊 B, sometimes understood χαράν ‘joy’ like Syr, A κάρρα

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‘carts’, 𝔏𝔏 κάρυα ‘nuts’) to the Sidonians”, where the strange χαρα has been corrected in various ways. Ezr has a plain “food and drink and oil to the Sidonians”. Now, a comparison of Josephus and Esd leads to a simple explanation: both depend on a corrupt reading ‫ שמחה‬instead of ‫ ;שמן‬the 𝔊𝔊 translator, puzzled by such a word in this context, left it in the nominative as a signal, while Josephus found his own way. Ant. 11:78 σχεδίαν πηξαµένοις εἰς Esd 5:53 ξύλα κέδρινα διαφέρειν Ezr 3:7 ‫אל‬ τὸν τῆς Ἰόππης κοµίζειν λιµένα σχεδίας εἰς τὸν Ιοππης λιµένα ‫ים יפוא‬ The Sidonians had to “bind the logs together in a raft”, similar to Esd “transport cedar wood in rafts to the harbor of Joppe”, which is reminiscent of Solomon’s works (1 Kgs 5:23); this is a secondary development, for Ezr has only “to the sea of Joppe”. Ant. 11:79 Ἰησοῦν καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς Esd 5:56 Ιησοῦς καὶ οἱ Ezr 3:9 ‫ישׁוע‬ αὐτοῦ καὶ τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς καὶ υἱοὶ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ καὶ ‫בניו ואחיו‬ Ζοδµοῆλον τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰούδα Καδµιηλ ὁ ἀδελφός, καὶ ‫קדמיאל ובניו‬ τοῦ Ἀµιναδάβου καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰησοῦ Ηµαδαβουν ‫בני־יהודה‬ Among the builders of the temple were, for Josephus, “Jeshua and his brothers and his sons and Kadmiel the brother of Judah son of Aminadab and his sons”; Esd and Ezr have the same beginning, then they differ: Esd has “and Kadmiel the brother (of Jeshua), and the sons of Jeshua Aminadab”, from a double reading of ‫אחיו‬, plural then singular, and Kadmiel’s sons have disappeared. As for Josephus, a comparison with Ezr shows that he read ‫ ואח‬instead of ‫ובניו בני‬, a variant vaguely similar to Esd; for both, the identity of Kadmiel was corrupt. Ant. 11:89 Σισίνου Esd 6:3 Σισίννης, Ezr 5:3 Θανθαναι (-νας) ‫תתני‬ Σαρωβαζάνου Σαθραβουζάνης Σαθαρβουζανα ‫שׁתר בוזני‬ Here, Josephus reports all the story of Thatthenai at its right place, under Darius, but he has already used a part of it, the record of Cyrus’ decree (see 11:12 above). Ant. 11:107 ταύρους 100, κριοὺς = Esd 7:7-8 Ezr 6:17 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µόσχους 100, κριοὺς 200, ἄρνας 400, χιµάρους 12 200, ἀµνοὺς 400, χιµάρους αἰγῶν 12. For the temple inauguration, they offered “100 bulls, 200 rams, 400 lambs, 12 goats”; Ant. and Esd use the same words. Ant. 11:108 ἔστησαν οἵ τε ἱερεῖς Esd 7:9 ἔστησαν οἱ ἱερεῖς Ezr 6:18 ‫והקימו כהניא‬ ... θυρωρούς ... καὶ οἱ θυρωροί om. For the temple officials, Josephus simply says that “the priests... set porters” at each gateway, while for Esd “the priests... and the gate-keepers stood”; both depend on the same verb ‫ויעמדו‬, but Josephus saw it as hifil ‫ויע ִמדו‬. For Ezr, “they appointed priests, etc.” and the gate-keepers are not mentioned. Ant. 11:121 Ἔζδρας, γίνεται Esd 8:4 ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ Ezr 7:6 ‫ויתן־לו המלך כיד‬ φίλος τῷ βασιλεῖ Ξέρξῃ ὁ βασιλεὺς δόξαν ‫יהוה אלהיו עליו כל בקשׁתו‬ For Josephus, “Ezra becomes a friend of king Xerxes”; although for chronological reasons he has replaced Artaxerxes with Xerxes, Darius’ heir, he agrees with Esd “the king gave him honor”. Ezr is different: “The king granted him all he requested, because the hand of Yhwh his God was upon him”. Ant. 11:123 τῆς ἐµαυτοῦ φιλανθρωπίας Esd 8:9 τὰ φιλάνθρωπα Ezr 7:12 ‫מני‬ ἔργον εἶναι νοµίσας... προσέταξα ἐγὼ κρίνας προσέταξα ‫שׂים טעם‬



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

235

For Ezr, Artaxerxes reports his decision to Ezra: “I have issued a decree (that any of the people of Israel who offers to go).” Both Josephus and Esd prefix similar introductive statements, in different wordings: “Considering it to be an effect of my philanthropy... I ordered, etc.” φιλάνθρωπος and its derivatives are current in Josephus’ works, but never occur in any 𝔊𝔊 translation, hence a suspicion that Esd borrowed from Josephus; the latter may have rendered a simple ‫( חסד‬Ezr gives the decree in Aramaic). Ant. 11:137 ταύρους 12, Esd 8:63 ταύρους 12, Ezr 8:35 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µόσχους 12, κριοὺς 90, ἄρνας 72, κριοὺς 96, ἄρνας 72, κριοὺς 96, ἀµνοὺς 77, ἐρίφους 12 τράγους 12 χιµάρους 12. These are the sacrifices performed by Ezra at his arrival in Jerusalem. Josephus is closer to Esd; for a similar list, see above Ant. 11:107. Ant. 11:154 πρὸς τὴν πύEsd 9:37 ἐπὶ τὸ εὐρύχωNeh 8:2 ‫לפני הרחוב‬ λην τὴν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀνατορον τοῦ πρὸς ἀνατολὰς ‫אשׁר לפני שׁער־המים‬ λὴν ἀποβλέπουσαν τοῦ ἱεροῦ πυλῶνος (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 omits) Ezra read the law of Moses “before the square in front of the Water Gate (Esd ‘square of the temple gate towards the east’)”; according to Neh 3:26 the Water Gate was towards the east. Esd seems to be wrong, for the event took place at a gate of the city wall, not of the temple, but it possibly depends on a phrase like ‫שער המזרח הקדש‬, with some ambiguity, if it refers to Nehamiah’s reform, because for him the city walls were holy (see Neh 7:1, 13:22). Josephus has “near the gate facing east”, and he was not led astray by the wording of Esd.

I.4 Josephus with Ezr against Esd Ant. 11:8 πολλοὶ κατέµειναν τὰ Esd 2:4 ὅσοι κατὰ Ezr 1:4 ‫וכל־הנשׁאר‬ κτήµατα καταλιπεῖν οὐ θέλοντες τόπους οἰκοῦσιν ‫מכל־המקמות‬ For Josephus, “many remained in Babylon, unwilling to leave their possessions”; he develops Ezr “and whoever remains from every place”, while Esd has “those who dwell according to their places”. Ant. 11:21 Καµβύσου Κύρου Esd 2:11 Ἀρταξέρξου Ezr 4:7 Αρθασασθα ‫ארתחשׁשׂת‬ Josephus credits “Cambyses, Cyrus’ son” with the official opposition to the rebuilding of the temple; for Esd (“Artaxerxes”), it comes immediately after Cyrus’ delivery of the temple vessels, but for Ezr, just after the very beginning of the works; thus, Ezr and Josephus display here the same order (see § I.1, Ant. 11:19). The latter, who knows the Greek historians, restores the proper sequence of kings: Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius I Hystaspes (11:30). Ant. 11:109 τὴν ἑορτὴν Esd 7:11 adds πάντες οἱ υἱοὶ τῆς αἰχµαλωσίας Ezr 6:20 ‫כלם‬ ἤγαγον ἁγνεύοντες οὐχ ἡγνίσθησαν, ὅτι οἱ Λευῖται... ἡγνίσθησαν ‫טהורים‬ Josephus says that “being pure, they celebrated the festival (Passover)”, a possible meaning of Ezr, too; but Esd has an interesting addition, unknown to Josephus and Ezr: “All the returned exiles were not purified, because the Levites... were purified;” this gloss, though not very clear, is quite reminiscent of Hezekiah’s Passover, when most people were not purified, and only the Levites performed the slaughterings (2 Chr 30:16-18). Ant. 11:147 ἐκείνην τὴν ἡµέραν Esd 9:1 αὐλισθεὶς ἐκεῖ Ezr 10:6 ‫וילך שׁם‬ Ezra went to the chamber of Jehohanan and “spent there the whole day (Esd ‘spent the night’ from ‫וילן‬, Ezr ‘and went there’, a faulty doublet of ‫ ;”)וילך‬Jose-

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

phus did not see Esd, but rather the inferior variant of Ezr (doublet). Ant. 11:148 τῆς οὐσίας αὐτῶν Esd 9:4 ἀνιερωθήσονται Ezr 10:8 ‫יחרם‬ ἀφιερωθησοµένης τὰ κτήνη αὐτῶν ‫כל־רכושׁו‬ It is decided that whoever does not heed the summons, “their property (Esd ‘cattle’, with a grammatical mistake) will be confiscated to the temple (Ezr ‘will be anathema’, of similar meaning)”; Josephus and Ezr are close.

I.5 The Contest of the Bodyguards (Josephus and Esd) Ant. 11:33-38, the stage setting for the contest of Darius’ bodyguards, is parallel to Esd 3:1-17, but with noteworthy differences. Ant. 11:

Τῷ δὲ πρώτῳ τῆς βασιλείας ἔτει Δαρεῖος ὑποδέχεται λαµπρῶς καὶ µετὰ πολλῆς παρασκευῆς τούς τε περὶ αὐτὸν καὶ τοὺς οἴκοι γεγονότας καὶ τοὺς τῶν Μήδων ἡγεµόνας καὶ σατράπας τῆς Περσίδος καὶ τοπάρχας τῆς Ἰνδικῆς ἄχρι τῆς Αἰθιοπίας καὶ τοὺς στρατηγοὺς τῶν ἑκατὸν εἰκοσιεπτὰ σατραπειῶν. 34 ἐπεὶ δὲ κατευωχηθέντες ἄχρι κόρου καὶ πλησµονῆς ἀνέλυσαν κοιµηθησόµενοι παρ’ αὐτοὺς ἕκαστοι Δαρεῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐλθὼν ἐπὶ τὴν κοίτην καὶ βραχὺ τῆς νυκτὸς ἀναπαυσάµενος ἔξυπνος γίνεται, καὶ µηκέτι κατακοιµηθῆναι δυνάµενος εἰς ὁµιλίαν τρέπεται µετὰ τῶν τριῶν σωµατοφυλάκων. 35 καὶ τῷ λόγον ἐροῦντι περὶ ὧν αὐτὸς ἀνακρίνειν µέλλει τὸν ἀληθέστερον καὶ συνετώτερον, τούτῳ γέρας δώσειν ὑπισχνεῖται νικητήριον 33

πορφύραν ἐνδύσασθαι καὶ ἐν ἐκπώµασιν χρυσοῖς πίνειν καὶ ἐπὶ χρυσίου καθεύδειν καὶ ἅρµα χρυσοχάλινον καὶ κίδαριν βύσσινον καὶ περιαυχένιον χρύσεον καὶ µετ’ αὐτὸν ἕξειν προεδρίαν διὰ τὴν σοφίαν “καὶ συγγενής µου, ἔφη, κληθήσεται”.

Esd 3:

καὶ βασιλεὺς Δαρεῖος ἐποίησεν δοχὴν µεγάλην πᾶσιν τοῖς ὑπ᾿ αὐτὸν καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς οἰκογενέσιν αὐτοῦ καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς µεγιστᾶσιν τῆς Μηδίας καὶ τῆς Περσίδος, 2καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς σατράπαις καὶ στρατηγοῖς καὶ τοπάρχαις τοῖς ὑπ᾿ αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰνδικῆς µέχρι τῆς Αἰθιοπίας ἐν ταῖς ἑκατὸν εἴκοσι ἑπτὰ σατραπείαις. 3 καὶ ἐφάγοσαν καὶ ἐπίοσαν καὶ ἐµπλησθέντες ἀνέλυσαν, 1

ὁ δὲ Δαρεῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς ἀνέλυσεν εἰς τὸν κοιτῶνα καὶ ἐκοιµήθη καὶ ἔξυπνος ἐγένετο. 4 τότε οἱ τρεῖς νεανίσκοι οἱ σωµατοφύλακες* τοῦ βασιλέως εἶπαν ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον. 5 εἴπωµεν ἕκαστος ἡµῶν ἕνα λόγον ὃς ὑπερισχύσει· καὶ οὗ ἂν φανῇ τὸ ῥῆµα αὐτοῦ σοφώτερον τοῦ ἑτέρου, δώσει αὐτῷ Δαρεῖος ὁ βασιλεὺς δωρεὰς µεγάλας καὶ ἐπινίκια µεγάλα, 6καὶ πορφύραν περιβαλέσθαι καὶ ἐν χρυσώµασιν πίνειν καὶ ἐπὶ χρυσῷ καθεύδειν καὶ ἅρµα χρυσοχάλινον καὶ κίδαριν βυσσίνην καὶ µανιάκην περὶ τὸν τράχηλον, 7καὶ δεύτερος καθιεῖται Δαρείου διὰ τὴν σοφίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ συγγενὴς Δαρείου κληθήσεται. 8 καὶ τότε γράψαντες ἕκαστος τὸν ἑαυτοῦ λόγον ἐσφραγίσαντο καὶ ἔθηκαν ὑπὸ τὸ προσκεφάλαιον Δαρείου τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ εἶπαν 9ὄταν

Comments

Josephus adds “the first year of his reign”; see next note. Same content with different words; Esd has more officials. “from India to Ethiopia, 127 satrapies”, cf. Est 1:1 (and Ant. 11:186). Same content; Esd shorter.

hapax in Josephus and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.

*Esd adds οἱ φυλάσσοντες τὸ σῶµα, doublet. Esd would logically imply that the youths are in the presence of the king, but this is impossible with v. 8-9 below (for the king is asleep). The gifts to be granted to the winner are similar, and close to Dan 5:7, 16, 29. However, in Josephus’ version the king has the relevant authority, but Esd is confused, for it never explains how the youth are entitled to voice such a proposal without the king’s approval. 8 “Then everyone wrote his sentence, sealed it, and laid it under the pillow of king Darius.” They said: 9When the king is



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

ἐγερθῇ ὁ βασιλεύς, δώσου- risen, he will be given the σιν αὐτῷ τὸ γράµµα... writing...”

ταύτας ἐπαγγειλάµενος αὐτοῖς παρέξειν τὰς δωρεὰς ἐρωτᾷ µὲν τὸν πρῶτον, εἰ ὁ 10ὁ εἷς ἔγραψεν ὑπερισχύει ὁ οἶνος ὑπερισχύει, οἶνος, τὸν δεύτερον δέ, εἰ οἱ βασι- 11ὁ ἕτερος ἔγραψεν ὑπερισλεῖς, χύει ὁ βασιλεύς. τὸν τρίτον δέ, εἰ αἱ γυναῖκες 12ὁ τρίτος ἔγραψεν ὑπερισχύουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες, ἢ τούτων µᾶλλον ἡ ἀλήθεια. ὑπὲρ δὲ πάντα νικᾷ ἡ ἀλήθεια. ταῦτα προθεὶς αὐτοῖς ζητεῖν ἡσύχασεν. 37 ὄρθρου δὲ µεταπεµψάµε- 14καὶ ἐξαποστείλας ἐκάλεσεν νος τοὺς µεγιστᾶνας καὶ σα- πάντας τοὺς µεγιστᾶνας τῆς τράπας καὶ τοπάρχας τῆς Περσίδος καὶ τῆς Μηδίας καὶ Περσίδος καὶ Μηδικῆς σατράπας καὶ στρατηγοὺς καὶ τοπάρχας καὶ ὑπάτους καὶ καθίσας ἐν ᾧ χρηµατίζειν καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐν τῷ χρηµαεἰώθει, τιστηρίῳ, τῶν σωµατοφυλάκων ἕκασ- καὶ ἀνεγνώσθη τὸ γράµµα τον ἐκέλευσεν ἀκουόντων ἐνώπιον αὐτῶν. πάντων ἀποφαίνεσθαι τὸ δοκοῦν αὐτῷ περὶ τῶν προκειµένων. 15 καὶ εἶπεν καλέσατε τοὺς νεανίσκους, αὐτοὶ δηλώσουσιν τοὺς λόγους αὐτῶν· καὶ ἐκλήθησαν καὶ εἰσήλθοσαν. 16 καὶ εἶπαν αὐτοῖς ἀπαγγείλατε ἡµῖν περὶ τῶν γεγραµµένων. 38 καὶ ὁ πρῶτος ἤρξατο λέγειν 17καὶ ἤρξατο ὁ πρῶτος ὁ εἴτὴν τοῦ οἴνου δύναµιν οὕτως πας περὶ τῆς ἰσχύος τοῦ οἴαὐτὴν ἐµφανίζων. νου καὶ ἔφη οὕτως. 36

237

For Josephus, the king gives the topics, and the youths study them without writing down; for Esd, the youths choose the topics, then write a presentation.

The list of officials in Esd is longer (cf. v. 1-2).

Esd shows two steps: -the king reads the writings before the officials; -then he summons the youths in order that they present orally their views. Josephus has only the second step.

Josephus’ story is consistent: a feast; the king’s insomnia; summoning the three bodyguards and giving them topics to prepare for a contest; promising the winner a huge reward; resting again; the following morning, inviting the court to listen to the speeches. Esd is more complicated: after the king’s insomnia, the three youths decide to write on the same topics, for the same contest and with the same royal reward, the king being asleep; in the morning, the king reads out the writings to the court, then summons the youths to give their speeches. Two different narratives are mixed up in Esd: the one given by Josephus, and a written contest which would fit the context of a rhetoric school, maybe before the king, but without his insomnia. As a result of this combination, the king’s reward offer is transferred to the initiative of the youths, which is properly meaningless. It is doubtful that Josephus was able to disentangle clearly such an awkward story. Ant. 11:33 τῷ δὲ πρώτῳ τῆς Esd 5:6 ἐλάλησεν ἐπὶ Δαρείου… λόγους σοφοὺς βασιλείας ἔτει Δαρεῖος ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ ἔτει τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ According to Josephus, the contest took place “in the first year of Darius’ reign”, but he did not see Esd here, which states that Zerubbabel “spoke wise words before Darius in the second year of his reign”.

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Ant. 11:38-67 the speeches of the bodyguards and the promotion of Zerubbabel; Josephus’ paraphrase is in general longer and clearer, with the same meaning as Esd. Here are some special cases. Ant. 11:46 ὅταν... θερίσωσιν Esd 4:6 θερίσαντες ἀναφέρουσιν τῷ βασιλεῖ· καὶ τοὺς καρποὺς συνέλωσιν, καὶ ἕτερος τὸν ἕτερον ἀναγκάζοντες τοὺς φόρους τῷ βασιλεῖ κοµίζουσιν ἀναφέρουσι τοὺς φόρους τῷ βασιλεῖ. About the king’s power over farmers, Josephus renders: “When they have reaped and gathered in the produce, they bring tribute to the king”; Esd has a kind of duplication-expansion: “Having reapt, they bring to the king; and, compelling one another, they bring taxes to the king”. Josephus, who is wont to paraphrase, makes the first part longer (reaping), then he omits the second, because he did not have it. Ant. 11:47 ὃ δ’ ἂν οὗτος εἴπῃ Esd 4:7 καὶ αὐτὸς εἷς µόνος H ‫והוא אחד לבדו‬ καὶ κελεύσῃ, τοῦτο ἐστίν· ἐὰν εἴπῃ ἀποκτεῖναι, ‫אם יאמר להרוג‬ ἐξ ἀνάγκης... γίνεται ἀποκτέννουσιν, κτλ. ‫והרגו וגו׳‬ The second bodyguard speaks of the king’s power: “Whatever he says and commands is performed of necessity”; here, Josephus expands then summarizes Esd 4:7-10: “And he is the only one: if he says to kill, they kill, etc.” The king is granted a kind of divine attribute, and behind the formulations of Josephus and Esd we can conjecture a Hebrew source. Ant. 11:48 φυλάσσεται δὲ ὑπὸ γρηγο- Esd 4:11 αὐτοὶ δὲ τηροῦσιν H ‫ואיש לא יוכל‬ ρούντων καὶ ὡσανεὶ δεδεµένων ὑπὸ κύκλῳ περὶ αὐτὸν καὶ οὐ ‫ללכת והם שומרים‬ φόβου, καταλιπεῖν οὐδὲ εἷς τολµᾷ δύνανται ἕκαστος ἀπελθεῖν ‫מסביב לו‬ When the king sleeps, “he is guarded by watchmen as if they were shackled by fear, for nobody dares to leave him”; Esd has: “And these keep watch around him, and no one may go away;” who these watchmen are is not clear, but a common Hebrew source can be restored, allowing an adverbial clause: “When they keep watch around him, etc.” Ant. 11:49 ἰσχυρὸς µὲν καὶ Esd 4:14 οὐ µέγας ὁ βασιλεὺς H ‫לא גדול המלך‬ ὁ οἶνος καὶ ὁ βασιλεύς καὶ πολλοὶ οἱ ἄνθρωποι ‫המ ֹ ֵלך באנשים רבים‬ ᾧ πάντες ὑπακούουσιν καὶ ὁ οἶνος ἰσχύει; ‫והיין חזק‬ Before speaking of women, the third bodyguard recalls: “Strong are surely wine and the king, whom all obey”; Esd asks, in a longer way: “Is not the king great, nor many people, and is wine not strong?” The “many people” are strange, but if we compare with Josephus’ “whom all obey”, a common Hebrew source is discernible ‫ גדול המלך המלך באנשים‬with Esd omitting one ‫ המלך‬by haplography, hence “the king with many people”. Ant. 11:50 τὰ κατ’ οἶκον διὰ ταύτας Esd 4:17 αὗται ποιοῦσιν H ‫הנן עשות‬ ἐπιµελείας καὶ φυλακῆς ἀξιοῦται δόξαν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ‫הליכות לאנשים‬ In Zerubbabel’ speech about the women, Josephus reports: “Through them, the affairs of the household receive care and attention”; against this, Esd says that “they make prestige to people”, which sounds different. The encomium of the women is reminiscent of the “praise of the good wife”, in which we read at Prov 31:27 ‫“ צופיה הליכות ביתה‬she looks well to the ways of her house” (στεγναὶ διατριβαὶ οἴκων αὐτῆς); after this, it is possible to bridge the gap between Josephus and Esd, with ‫“ הליכות‬the (good) ways”. Ant. 11:51 πάντα ἐκεῖνα ἀφέντες τῷ εἴδει τῆς ὁραθείσης προσκεχήναµεν

Esd 4:19 εἰς αὐτὴν ἐγκέχηναν καὶ χάσκοντες τὸ στόµα θεωροῦσιν αὐτήν.



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

239

Josephus goes on, about a beautiful woman: “We let all these things go; at her appearance, we are staring at her gaping;” Esd has a doublet: “They have gaped and are open-mouthed when they see her.” χάσκοντες τὸ στόµα renders a Hebrew ‫פוצים את פיהם‬, and the perfect ἐγκέχηναν is an unfortunate repetition, close to Ant. (προσχάσκω is a hapax). Ant. 11:54 Ῥαβεζάκου τοῦ Θεµασίου Esd 4:29 Βαρτάκου (𝔏𝔏 Βαζά-) τοῦ θαυµαστοῦ. Apame, the king’s concubine, was a daughter of “Rabezakos Themasios (Esd ‘the illustrious Bartakos-Bazakos’)”; Esd’s “illustrious”is probably wrong, and Josephus did not see it. As for the identity of this Apame, the context implies that she was Darius’ concubine, since Zerubbabel saw her, but this hardly matches what the Greek historians say of a prominent woman named Apame by the time of Alexander the Great. Ant. 11:55 δεῖ... µηδὲν πρὸς Esd 4:36 καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν µετ᾿ H ‫ואין בה‬ αὐτὴν τὸ ἄδικον δυνάµενον αὐτοῦ ἄδικον οὐθέν ‫מעוול‬ Zerubbabel speaks of truth: “Of necessity... no injustice can prevail against it;” Esd seems to be different: “And with it there is nothing unjust;” A common Hebrew source can explain the gap: “In it, there is nothing coming from injustice”, hence “injustice cannot prevail”. Ant. 11:61 ἐκώλυσεν ἐπιτάττειν τοῖς Esd 4:49 ἔγραψεν... µὴ ἐπελεύ- H ‫ לא‬...‫כתב‬ Ἰουδαίοις τὰς βασιλικὰς χρείας σεσθαι ἐπὶ τὰς θύρας αὐτῶν ‫יבאו שעריהם‬ According to Josephus, the king “forbade (the officials) to require of the Jews any service to the king”; for Esd, “he wrote... that (no official) should advance against their doors”, a metaphor. A Hebrew source could offer a useful flexibility, for ‫ שער‬means “door, gate” as well as “part, portion”, hence “tribute”, and ‫ יבאו‬can be read as a hifil “shall bring”; in other words, Josephus is more accurate. Ant. 11:61 Ἰδουµαίους, Σαµαρείτας, τοὺς ἐκ Esd 4:50 οἱ Ιδουµαῖοι H ‫ארם‬/‫אדם‬ τῆς κοίλης Συρίας ἀφεῖναι τὰς κώµας ἀφιῶσι τὰς κώµας ‫כפרים‬/‫חוות‬ The king orders “the Idumeans and Samaritans and those of Coele-Syria to give up the villages” taken from the Jews; Esd has only “Idumeans”, with a variant “Chaldeans” (B), which may explain Josephus’ “Coele-Syria”, for this is the way he renders “Transeuphratena-Eber-nari” or “Aram”; thus, he must have had a variant in the margin. He has omitted Esd 4:45 (the Edomites had burned the temple). Here, he adds the Samaritans, too, the permanent rivals he already mentioned (11:19). Ant. 11:66 εἰς πότον καὶ κώµους τραπέντες Esd 4:63 ἐκωθωνίζοντο H ‫ישׁבו לשׁתות‬ Upon hearing of the king’s decision, the Jews praised God and “gave themselves to feasting (lit. ‘drinking’) and dancing”; Esd has “they drank” with the meaning of “feasting”, the same Hebraism; cf. the Hebrew ‫משתה‬. Ant. 11:67 προέπεµπε... Esd 5:3 πάντες οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτῶν H (‫וישלח כל )אח‬ τὸ ὑπολειπόµενον... παίζοντες, καὶ ἐποίησεν αὐτοὺς ‫הנשאר והם‬ πλῆθος µετὰ παιδιᾶς συναναβῆναι µετ᾿ ἐκείνων ‫עולים ומשחקים‬ After the selection of the returnees, the king sent “the crowd of those who were left behind with merriments”; Esd is confused: “their brethren were playing, and he made them go up together with them”, as if they were to go up to Jerusalem with the selected ones (see previous note). However, by combining this with Ant., it is possible to restore a Hebrew source, which Josephus renders better: “He sent all (the brethren) who were left behind, and they went up and played.”

240

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

I.6 Conclusions The historical problems of Esd-Ezr are difficult, because the succession of the Persian kings does not match what is known from the Greek historians. Josephus used them to give the following succession: Cyrus, Cambyses (Ant. 11:20), Darius I Hystaspes (§ 30), Xerxes-Ahasuerus (§ 120 with Ezra’s arrival), Artaxerxes-Artahshasta I (§ 184 with Esther), another Artaxerxes (§ 297), another Darius (§ 302). The Biblical order is different. Ezr has: Cyrus, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius, Artaxerxes; Esd has the same sequence, but omits Xerxes. The order of the passages in Ant., Esd and Ezr has discrepancies that do not appear in the detailed analyses above. Here is a summary: Ant. 11

(The last kings of Judah; exile; Jeremiah’s prophecy 1-4 decree of Cyrus to build the temple of Jerusalem 5 the prophecy of Isa 44:28 on Cyrus 6 Cyrus summons the Jewish leaders 7-8 Cyrus is to write to the satraps; first departure of Jews 9a the friends help, maybe the neighbors 9b they perform customary sacrifices (? // § 75-77) 10-11 restitution of the temple vessels for future use 12-14a Cyrus’ letter to the satraps of Syria (// § 99-103) 14b Zerubbabel head of the returning exiles (// § 69) 15 inventory of the temple vessels 16-17 Cyrus’ decree (within Darius’ letter, // § 98-103) 18 numbering the returning exiles (// § 68) 19 beginning of the temple building (// § 78-79) 20 the enemies (Samaritans) stop the works (// § 88) 21-29 letter to Cambyses on Jerusalem’s danger; reply 30 works stopped until Darius’ second year 31-57 contest of Darius’ pages; Zerubbabel wins 58-67 Darius sends him, grants privileges to the Jews 68-74 numbering the returning exiles (summarized) wrongdoings of the Edomites-Idumeans 75-77 the altar restored; sacrifices; feast of the Tabernacles 78-83 beginning of the temple building; music 84-86 refusal of the Samaritans’ collaboration 87 the temple will be open to anyone (Josephus’ comment) 88 the enemies (Samaritans) stop the works 89-95 Thatthenai and Shethar-bozenai write to king Darius 96 fear of the Jews; Haggai and Zechariah encourage them 97-98 the Samaritans write to Darius against Jerusalem 99-105 Darius finds Cyrus’ records, confirms his decision 106-110 finishing the works; inauguration; the first Passover 111-113 Josephus’ remarks on the institutions 114-119 the Samaritans accuse the Jews; Darius’ reply 120-132 Ezra, helped by the king, calls the exiles 133 most Israelites stay in exile; only the returnees are Israel 134-138 Ezra’s caravan prepares, moves, arrives 139-152 the crisis of the foreign wives; their expulsion 153 Ezra’s reform is to hold forever (Josephus’ comment) 154-156 Ezra proclaims the law; penance and feast 157 the feast of the Tabernacles

Esd

Ezr

1 2:1-3

2 Chr 35-36) 1:1-3

2:4-5

1:4-5

2:6

1:6

2:7-8

1:7-8

2:9-11

1:9-11

2:12-25 2:26 3:1-4:46 4:47-5:6 5:7-45a 5:45b & 50 5:46-52 5:53-62 5:63-68

4:7-23 4:24

5:69-70 6:3-21 6:1-2 ? 6:22-7:1 7:2-15

4:4-5 5:3-17 5:1-2 ? 6:1-13 6:14-22

? 8:1-40

? 7:1-8:14

8:41-64 8:65-9:36

8:15-36 9:1-10:44

2:1-70 3:1-6 3:7-13 4:1-3

9:37-55 (end) Neh 8:1-13a 8:13b-18



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

241

The general outline of Josephus’ rendering matches Esd, but some differences appear: he offers several personal comments, and has some minor omissions (on the Edomites, see above, § II.2, Ant. 11:160). More importantly, he displays numerous additions involving sources; they can be sorted out into three kinds: first, at the beginning of the whole story, he anticipates a number of details, which causes repetitions that blur the narrative; second, he introduces further complaints of the Samaritans from unknown sources (maybe parallel accounts of the same facts); third, he finishes with a feast of the Tabernacles unknown to Esd, but clearly witnessed by the parallel account of Neh 8. The last fact is a proof that he did not use Esd as it stands. As for Josephus’ main source, it is obvious that in many places he has the very same wording as Esd, which never happens in other books (see appendix below). Among other things, both render the Aramaic name Thatthenai into a Hebrew equivalent, Shashenai, which suggests a possible Hebrew common source. Now, the story of the contest of Darius’ bodyguards or pages is instructive: the first part is a kind of stage setting, which Josephus presents clearly, whereas Esd is unintelligible, maybe because of a mixing up two parallel stories; then, the contest itself displays minute differences, but in several cases the gap can be understood through a common Hebrew source. Moreover, towards the end of the book, Josephus has some contacts with Hebrew parts of Ezr against Esd. To sum up, a very simple working hypothesis can be ventured, in two steps: first, both Josephus and Esd depend on the same Hebrew source, the former with some significant additions, the latter with minor additions – and poorly transmitted; second, the translator of Esd took advantage of Josephus’ work in an uneven way, and not the reverse. For instance, Ant. 11:123 uses the word φιλανθρωπία, a notion Josephus is familiar with, while the parallel Esd 8:9 has τὰ φιλάνθρωπα, a hapax in 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; the radical φιλανθρωπ- never occurs elsewhere. As for the possible anteriority of that Hebrew source in relation to Ezr, the chronological problems are beyond the scope of this study. The only thing that can be said in the present context is the inconsistency of Esd concerning the law of Moses: it is applied several times before being proclaimed by Ezra. On the contrary, the book of Ezr does not entail this problem, for the law is known and applied from the very beginning (Ezr 3:2), but its formal proclamation is transferred into another book (Neh 8), which is somewhat awkward.

242

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

I.7 Appendix: Josephus Paraphrasing a Greek Book About the current view that Josephus used Esd in Greek, it is useful to have look at the way he paraphrased a Greek book. The Letter of Aristeas has been transmitted in Greek, and nothing suggests that it has ever had a Hebrew or Aramaic form. Josephus paraphrased most of it (Ant. 12:13-118), but without mentioning the author. It is instructive to see how he worked.4 Here is an example: Aristeas

Josephus, Ant. 12:

(Δηµήτριος ὁ Φαληρεὺς εἶπεν) προσήγγελται δέ µοι καὶ τῶν Ἰουδαίων νόµιµα µεταγραφῆς ἄξια καὶ τῆς παρὰ σοὶ βιβλιοθήκης εἶναι...

(Δηµήτριος ὁ Φαληρεύς) 14 µεµηνῦσθαι δ’ ἔλεγεν αὐτῷ πολλὰ εἶναι καὶ παρὰ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις τῶν παρ’ αὐτοῖς νοµίµων συγγράµµατα σπουδῆς ἄξια καὶ τῆς βασιλέως βιβλιοθήκης,

10

Τί τὸ κωλῦον οὖν, εἶπεν, ἐστί σε τοῦτο ποιῆσαι; πάντα γὰρ ὑποτέτακταί σοι τὰ πρὸς τὴν χρείαν. Ὁ δὲ Δηµήτριος εἶπεν ἑρµηνείας προσδεῖται· χαρακτῆρσι γὰρ ἰδίοις κατὰ τὴν Ἰουδαίαν χρῶνται […] καθὸ καὶ φωνὴν ἰδίαν ἔχουσιν. ὑπολαµβάνονται Συριακῇ χρῆσθαι· τὸ δ’ οὐκ ἔστιν, ἀλλ’ ἕτερος τρόπος. 11

ἃ τοῖς ἐκείνων χαρακτῆρσιν καὶ τῇ διαλέκτῳ γεγραµµένα πόνον αὐτοῖς οὐκ ὀλίγον παρέξειν εἰς τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν µεταβαλλόµενα γλῶτταν. 15 δοκεῖ µὲν γὰρ εἶναι τῇ ἰδιότητι τῶν Συρίων γραµµάτων ἐµφερὴς ὁ χαρακτὴρ αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν φωνὴν ὁµοίαν αὐτοῖς ἀπηχεῖν, ἰδιότροπον δὲ αὐτὴν εἶναι συµβέβηκεν… µεταλαβὼν δὲ ἕκαστα, ὁ βασιλεὺς εἶπε γρα- 16 (ὁ βασιλεὺς) γράφει τῷ τῶν Ἰουδαίων φῆναι πρὸς τὸν ἀρχιερέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ἀρχιερεῖ ταῦτα γίνεσθαι. ὅπως τὰ προειρηµένα τελείωσιν λάβῃ. 10 (Demetrius of Phalerum said) “I am told (Demetrius of Phalerum) 14 said he had been that the laws of the Jews are worth transcrib- informed that among the Jews also there ing and deserve a place in your library”... were many works on their laws, which were worthy of study and of a place in the king’s 11 “What prevents you from doing so? he (the library, king) said, all the necessary means are at your disposal”. But Demetrius said: “Translation is required, but being written in the script and idiom of for in Judaea they use a peculiar script […] this people, there would be no small trouble and have a peculiar language. to have them translated into the Greek tongue. They are supposed to use the Syrian tongue, 15 For their script seems to be similar to the now it is not so, but another type.” peculiar Syrian writing, and their language to sound like the other, but it happens to have been of a distinct type […] 12 When he learned all this, the king ordered 16 (And so the king) wrote to the high priest a letter to be written to the Jewish high of the Jews that this should be done. priest, so that the project above might reach completion. 4 See André PELLETIER, Flavius Josèphe adaptateur de la Lettre d’Aristée (Paris: Klincksieck, 1962; ID. “Josephus, the Letter of Aristeas, and the Septuagint”, in Josephus, The Bible, and History (ed. Louis H. Feldman; Leiden: Brill, 1989), p. 97-115. Fr a thorough discussion of Josephus’ method, compared with the Greek and Latin historians, see Shaye J.D. COHEN, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a Historian, Leiden, Brill, 1979, p. 24-33.



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

243

Josephus is reasonably faithful to the content of his source, but he feels quite free to shorten, lengthen or rephrase the original, as he does everywhere for the Biblical books, except Esd. This does not prevent him to introduce some views of his own: here, for instance, his knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic (Syrian) is more accurate, which is not surprising.

II – Nehemiah The contents of Josephus’ account and Neh 𝔐𝔐 are so different that the comparison would be meaningless without conjecturing a kind of common denominator. The Greek translation of Neh is the second part of Esdras B (chapters 11-23); for the present purpose, its variants are seldom significant. II.1 Josephus’ Special Features Ant. 11:160 πῶς αὐτῶν ἔχει τὸ πλῆθος Neh 1:2 ‫ואשׁאלם על־היהודים הפליטה‬ καὶ ἡ µητρόπολις Ἱεροσόλυµα ‫אשׁר־נשׁארו מן־השׁבי ועל־ירושׁלם‬ People came from Judah, and Nehemiah “asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and had survived the captivity, and about Jerusalem” (Neh); without additional clues, this must plainly refer to the captivity and exile under Nebuchadnezzar, but this entails various problems. Josephus is more cautious, for Nehermiah’s story begins after the successful mission of Ezra, under the same Persian king Xerxes, and something must have happened under that king; indeed, Josephus is aware of some other events involving captives, for he goes on and says that “the surrounding nations were inflicting many injuries to the Jews... so that many had been carried of as captives”. In fact, he has omitted two mentions of the wrongdoings of the Edomites-Idumeans against Judah and Jerusalem (Esd 4:45 & 50), and the situation described at Neh 1:3 might be related to these: “The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are burned.” The retaliation against Edom, prophesied by Obadiah, could probably be related to such events, too; Ps 137:7 suggests that the Edomites helped the Babylonians. Ant. 11:165 τὸ τεῖχος ἀνεγεῖραι καὶ τοῦ Neh 2:5 ‫תשׁלחני אל־יהודה‬ ἱεροῦ τὸ λεῖπον προσοικοδοµῆσαι ‫אל־עיר קברות אבתי ואבננה‬ Nehemiah requests from the king: “Send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, and I shall build it.” Josephus expands: “To raise up the walls and to complete the building of the temple that remains to be done.” The addition is not consistent with the previous Ezra story, since the temple is complete, but in the letter that Nehemiah requested from the king, he asks for building materials for the gates, the wall “and the house that I will go to” (‫)ולבית אשׁר־אבוא אליו‬, which can be understood of the temple, hence Josephus. Moreover, it is stated at Esd 4:45 that the Edomites-Idumeans had burned the temple (see previous note). Ant. 11:167 πρὸς Ἀδδαῖον ἐπιστολὴν κοµίσαι τὸν τῆς Συρίας καὶ Φοινίκης καὶ Σαµαρείας ἔπαρχον

Neh 2:7 ‫אגרות יתנו־לי על־פחוות‬ 2:8 ‫ואגרת אל־אסף שׁמר הפרדס‬

244

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

Nehemiah “asks for letters to be given to the governors of TranseuphratenaEber-nari, and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the forest”; Josephus mentions one letter to be brought “to Addaios, the governor of Syria, Phoenicia and Samaria”, an official who concentrates all the positions; he possibly leapt from ‫ אגרות‬to ‫אגרת‬, and “Addaios” could be a bad corruption of “Asaf”, but he may as well have had a different source. Ant. 11:168 25th ἔτος ἤδη βασιλεύοντος Ξέρξου Ne 2:1 ‫ לארתחשׁסתא‬20 ‫שׁנת‬ Nehemiah’ story begins “in the 20th year of Artaxerxes”, but Josephus says that he arrived at Jerusalem in “the 25th year of Xerxes; for chronological reasons, he replaces Artaxerxes with Xerxes (see § I.6 above), but he may have had a dating in his source (with some uncertainty, since Xerxes reigned only 20 years). Ant. 11:168 om. the opposition of Sanballat and Nehemiah’s inspection Neh 2:10-16. In Neh 3, the building of the wall and the gates is the work of all the people, led by the high priest Eliashib, while Nehemiah’s secret inspection by night was limited to the southern part of the city (Ophel). Josephus credits Nehemiah with the whole undertaking, but this must not imply a different source, for he was probably very careful to enhance his stature, and to avoid any split within Jerusalem. In fact, his presentation leads to the conclusion that there were two different undertakings, see Ant. 11:179 below. Ant. 11:174 πολλούς τε τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἀπέκτειναν, Neh 4:2 ‫ויקשׁרו כלם יחדו לבוא‬ ἐζήτουν τὸν Νεεµίαν διαφθεῖραι µισθούµενοί ‫להלחם בירושׁלם ולעשׂות לו תועה‬ Josephus says that the enemies were constantly attacking, “and they killed many Jews; they sought to destroy Nehemiah, hiring foreigners”; Neh has: “All of them plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause disturbance in it (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 om. ‫ ;)ולעשׂות לו תועה‬Josephus or his source summarizes some threats, which were indeed frustrated (Neh 4:1-14, 6:1-14). Ant. 11:177 σαλπιγκτὰς ἀπὸ πεντακοσίων ἔστησεν ποδῶν προσNeh 4:12 ‫והתוקע‬ τάξας ἂν ἐπιφανῶσιν οἱ πολέµιοι τοῦτο σηµῆναι τῷ λαῷ ‫בשׁופר אצלי‬ The wall builders had to get prepared to any attack, and according to Neh, “the trumpeter stood near me (Nehemiah)”, but Josephus reports a more likely device: “He stationed trumpeters at intervals of 500 feet, with the command to give a signal to the people if the enemy appeared.” Josephus followed either a larger source, or else his own experience as a field general. Ant. 11:179 ὑπέµεινε τὴν ταλαιπωρίαν ἐπὶ ἔτη 2 καὶ µῆνας 4 Neh 6:15 ‫ לאלול‬25-‫ב‬ ἐν τούτῳ τῷ χρόνῳ, 28th τῆς Ξέρξου βασιλείας ἔτει µηνὶ 9th ‫ יום‬52-‫ל‬ The wall was completed “on the 25th Elul (6th month), in 52 days”; Ant. is different: “Nehemiah endured the hardship for 2 years and 4 months, till the 28th year of Xerxes’ reign, in the 9th month;” thus, the works began in the 5th month of Xerxes’ 26th year, in contradiction with 11:168, which states that they began in Xerxes’ 25th year. Besides this minor problem, such a dating cannot be reconcilied with Neh, and we must conclude that there were two different sources. Now, Neh suggests that there were two very different jobs (see Ant. 11:168 above): one led by Nehemiah on the narrow perimeter that he had inspected secretly (Neh 2:11-16), with enemies even within Jerusalem (Neh 6:10-14); another one led by Eliashib on a big scale. Thus, the best hypothesis is to connect the shorter timespan with Nehemiah’s work, and the longer with Eliashib’s. Ant. 11:180 Νεεµίας καὶ τὸ πλῆθος ἔθυσαν τῷ Neh 12:27-43 ...‫ובחנכת חומת ירושׁלם‬ θεῷ..., καὶ διῆγον ἐφ’ ἡµέρας 8 εὐωχούµενοι ‫ויזבחו ביום־ההוא זבחים וישׂמחו‬



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

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For the dedication of the wall, “Nehemiah and the people sacrificed to God..., and continued feasting for 8 days”; somewhat out of place, Neh has a lengthy story of “the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem”, with a short ending “on that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced”. Ant. 11:180 τὰ ἔθνη τὰ ἐν τῇ Συρίᾳ... ἐδυσφόρει Neh 6:16 ‫ויראו כל־הגוים אשׁר סביבתינו‬ After the completion of the wall, “all the nations surrounding us feared (𝔐𝔐 can be understood ‘saw’)”; on the contrary, Josephus says that “the nations dwelling in Syria were angry”, which is reminiscent of the various treats of the nations (see above Ant. 11:174). Ant. 11:181 τοὺς ἱερεῖς τε καὶ Λευίτας παρεκάλεσεν... Neh 7:4 ‫ואין בתים בנוים‬ µετελθεῖν εἰς τὴν πόλιν καὶ µένειν ἐν αὐτῇ, καταNeh 11:1 ‫וישׁבו שׂרי‬ σκευάσας τὰς οἰκίας αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ἀναλωµάτων ‫העם בירושׁלם‬ After the completion of the wall, Neh says that the city was large, but with very few people, for “no house had been built”; in view of the previous remarks on the two separate undertakings of Nehemiah and Eliashib (see Ant. 11:179 above), this strange statement seems to mix up two different positions: Eliashib’s large city with inhabitants, and Nehemiah’s smaller area, which was empty. Then Neh moves to other topics (7:5-10:40end) and resumes with a result that may or may not concern Nehemiah’s area (11:1): “And the leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem.” A link is missing, but we find it in Ant.: “Nehemiah urged the priests and Levites... to move to the city and to stay there, for he had prepared for them houses at his own expense.” This is alluded to at Sir 49:13, without distinguishing between areas: “He set up the gates and bars, and rebuilt our ruined houses.” Ant. 11:182 τόν τε γεωργοῦντα λαὸν τὰς δεκάτας Neh 12:44-47 ...‫ויפקדו אנשׁים‬ τῶν καρπῶν ἐκέλευσε φέρειν εἰς Ἱεροσόλυµα ...‫לתרומות לראשׁית ולמעשׂרו‬ After the dedication of the wall, Neh expounds several appointments to temple responsibilities: “They appointed men... for the contributions, the first fruits and the tithes.” Josephus is shorter and clearer, and credits Nehemiah with the appointments (maybe reading ‫)ויפקד‬: “And he ordered the farming people to bring the tithes of their produce to Jerusalem”.

II.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐

Ant. 11:177 ἐκέλευσεν τοὺς οἰκοδοµοῦντας Neh 4:11 ‫הבונים בחומה‬ ὅπλα περιζωννυµένους ἐργάζεσθαι (ἐν ὅπλοις) ‫והנשׂאים בסבל ע ֻמשים‬ According to Josephus, Nehemiah “ordered the builders to gird weapons when they worked”, close to Neh 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “The builders of the wall and the carriers of burdens were loaded (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘with arms’, from ‫)ח ֻמשים‬. 𝔐𝔐 ‫ ע ֻמשים‬seems to be misspelt.

II.3 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊

Ant. 11:159 πρὸ τῆς µητροπόλεως Σούσων Neh 1:1 ‫בשׁושׁן הבירה‬, ἐν Σουσαν αβιρα. Nehemiah was walking before “Susa, the metropolis (Neh ‘the capital’, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 transcribes). The phrase ‫ בשׁושׁן הבירה‬occurs elsewhere (Dan 8:2, Est 1:2 etc.), and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 always renders it into ἐν Σούσοις τῇ πόλει.

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II.4 Conclusions Josephus’ account of Nehemiah’s life is much shorter than Neh’s. Here is its outline: Ant. 11:

159-161a Nehemiah meets people from Jerusalem and questions them 161b wrongdoings of the surrounding nations (Edomites, etc.) 162 Nehemiah’s laments on the fate of Jerusalem 163-168a king Xerxes allows Nehemiah to leave; letters and escort 168b-172 Nehemiah urges the people to rebuild the wall; organization 173 on the meaning of the name “Jews” (see above § I.6, table, 11:133) 174a the building begins, led by Nehemiah (in Neh: led by Eliashib) 174b-175 plots of the Ammonites, Moabites, Samaritans 177-178 Nehemiah organizes the defense against the enemies completing Nehemiah’s works on the wall in 52 days (see § II.1 above) 179 completing (Eliashib’s) works on the wall in 2 years and 4 months 180a dedication of the wall, sacrifices, eight-day feast (short) 180b anger of the surrounding nations 181a Nehemiah sees that the well-walled city has a very small population 181b Nehemiah urges the priests and Levites to settle in Jerusalem the leaders of the people eventually dwell in Jerusalem 182 appointments by Nehemiah to temple responsibilities (Neh: anonymous)

Neh

1:1-3

1:4-11end 2:1-9 2:17-18 (3:1-32end) 4:1-17 6:1-14 6:15 12:27-43 7:4 11:1 12:44-47end

This table shows that Josephus holds Nehemiah as a builder, with a touch of interest for the temple. He follows the order of Neh, with one exception: he puts the dedication of the wall at its natural place, contrarily to Neh. As for the common content, a comparison with Neh sheds some light on three points: first, the poor state of Jerusalem mentioned at Neh 1:3 can reasonably be ascribed to the wrongdoings of the Edomites (see above § I.6, table); second, a chronological discrepancy allows us to disentangle two different wall-building projects in Jerusalem: Eliashib’s on a large scale, and Nehemiah’s on a smaller area, hence his need to bring in some citizens; third, Josephus credits Nehemiah with everything, including a definite authority on priests, Levites and temple matters. Such a trend is somehow in the make in Neh, and it should probably be resisted, but this is beyond the scope of this study. Josephus’ source broadly matches the short notice of Sir 49:13, which was first written in Hebrew. Another observation is that, in sharp contrast with the paraphrase of Esd-Ezr, Josephus never displays the phraseology of the Greek parallel, here Neh 𝔊𝔊 (Esdras B). To sum up, the very short sections II.3 and II.4 above show that there is no objection to hold that Josephus only used a Hebrew source – which can hardly be restored.



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CHAPTER TEN ESTHER





The book of Esther has been transmitted in Hebrew and in two Greek forms, 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏, which are very different, but have in common two significant features. First, both 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 contain six larges Additions, unknown to 𝔐𝔐: A (Est 1:1-1r Ra.), Mordekai’s dream and his discovery of a plot that is summarized at Est 2:21-23 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊, a passage omitted by 𝔏𝔏; B (3:13a-g), the king’s decree against the Jews; C (4:17a-z), Mordekai’s and Esther’s prayers; D (5:1-2b, ten verses replacing 5:1-2 𝔐𝔐), Esther’s appearance before the king; E (8:12a-x), the king’s decree in favor of the Jews; F (10:3a-k), an interpretation of Mordekai’s dream (A).1 A colophon of the whole 𝔊𝔊 (Est 10:3l) indicates that the translator knew a Hebrew source of these additions, which display the usual 𝔊𝔊 style.2 Josephus himself knew and rendered Additions B-E. In spite of this analogy, the second feature is that in general 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 are so different that they can hardly be viewed as translations of the same source. (Sometimes, 𝔏𝔏 is called “A-Text”, for its “Lucianic” shape is doubtful,3 but we keep the symbol for convenience.4) In most cases, 𝔏𝔏 is shorter than 𝔊𝔊; it omits many verses; its phrasing and content are in general different, even sometimes longer. Moreover, in the common passages, the 𝔐𝔐 verses are often longer than 𝔊𝔊.5 Here is an example:

Est 3:2 𝔏𝔏 πάντων οὖν προσκυνούντων αὐτῷ κατὰ τὸ πρόσταγµα τοῦ βασιλέως. 𝔊𝔊 καὶ πάντες οἱ ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ προσεκύνουν αὐτῷ, οὕτως γὰρ προσέταξεν ὁ βασιλεὺς ποιῆσαι. 𝔐𝔐 ‫וכל־עבדי המלך אשׁר־בשׁער המלך כרעים ומשׁתחוים להמן כי־כן צוה־לו המלך‬ 1 A detailed presentation of the various textual traditions is given by Beate EGO, Ester (Biblischer Kommentar, 21; Göttingen / Bristol, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017) p. 4-10; curiously, Josephus is not mentioned. 2 See Elias J. BICKERMAN, “The Colophon of the Greek Book of Esther”, in: Studies in Jewish and Christian History. Part One (Leiden: Brill, 1976), p. 225-45. 3 See Emanuel TOV, “The ‘Lucianic’ Text of the Canonical and the Apocryphal Sections of Esther: A Rewritten Biblical Book”, Textus 10 (1982), p.1-25. 4 For a useful synoptic presentation, see Robert HANHART, Esther (Septuaginta 8/3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). 5 See David J.A. CLINES, The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story (JSOTS, 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984), who gives the text and translation of 𝔏𝔏 (A-Text), p. 215-48.

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However, 𝔏𝔏 sometimes is longer than 𝔊𝔊. Here is an example:



Est 5:6 𝔏𝔏 Ἡ βασίλισσα, τί τὸ θέλεµά σου; αἴτησαι ἕως ἡµίσους τῆς βασιλείας µου, καὶ ἔσται σοι ὅσα ἀξιοῖς. 𝔊𝔊 Τί ἐστιν, βασίλισσα Εσθηρ; καὶ ἔσται σοι ὅσα ἀξιοῖς. 𝔐𝔐 ‫מה־שׁאלתך וינתן לך ומה־בקשׁתך עד־חצי המלכות ותעשׂ‬

All this indicates that we cannot safely restore a Hebrew original below the extant forms of the book, because there may have been expansions and reductions without coordination; this is somewhat analogous to the literary history of the synoptic Gospels. Therefore, Josephus cannot be more than a witness among others. No Qumran fragment that are certainly ascribed to Est has been found. This makes sense, because the story has nothing to do with the Land of Israel; Josephus, a Jerusalemite, indicates that “the Jews” celebrate the days of Purim (Ant. 11:295), whereas for the other Biblical feasts, he always says “we celebrate”.6

I – Josephus’ Agreements with the Greek Since 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 are quite different, it is necessary to distinguish the cases. I.1 Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏

𝔊𝔊 Μουχαῖος 𝔏𝔏 Βουγαῖος. Ant. 11:193 Μουχαίου εἰπόντος Est 1:16 ‫ממוכן‬ Τhe king was given an advice by “Memukan (Ant. and 𝔊𝔊 ‘Mouchaios’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘Bougaios’ or ‘Boaster’); 𝔏𝔏 is certainly wrong (“Boaster” is Haman’s nickname, see below § III.3, Ant. 11:209). Ant. 11:221 βοῶν ὅτι µηδὲν Est 4:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ויזעק זעקה‬ἐβόα φωνῇ µεγάλῃ Αἴρε- 𝔏𝔏 om. ἀδικῆσαν ἔθνος ἀναιρεῖται ‫גדלה ומרה‬ ται ἔθνος µηδὲν ἠδικηκός. Mordekai went out “and cried out loudly and bitterly (𝔊𝔊 ‘A nation that has done no wrong is taken up’, 𝔏𝔏 om.)”; 𝔊𝔊 αἴρεται could be replaced with αἱρεῖται (cf. Ant., both rendering ‫)נלקח גוי‬. Josephus, with “cried that a nation that has done noting wrong was being destroyed”, is close to 𝔊𝔊.

𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 11:295 διὰ ταῦτα οἱ Est 9:24 ‫𝔊𝔊 = והפיל פור הוא הגורל‬ 𝔊𝔊 Φρουραι (𝔏𝔏 Φουραια) Ἰουδαῖοι τὰς ἡµέρας προσ9:26 ‫פורים‬ 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 διὰ τοὺς κλήρους. αγορεύσαντες Φρουραίους ‫על־שׁם הפור‬ “Purim” is explained in two steps: “Haman has cast a Pur (𝔊𝔊 ψήφισµα), that is the lot (𝔏𝔏 om.)”, and “they called these days Purim after the name of Pur (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 because of the lots’, with a different word)”. According to Est 3:7 𝔐𝔐 “Pur, that is the lot, was cast before Haman”, 𝔊𝔊 “Haman cast the lots”, 𝔏𝔏 om. Josephus gives a name similar to 𝔊𝔊; the root φρουρ- means “guard”, which makes sense here, but he may have been influenced by the Hebrew root ‫פור‬-‫“ פרר‬break, 6 See Sidnie W. CRAWFORD, “Has Esther Been Found at Qumran? 4QProto-Esther and the Esther Corpus”, RQ 17 (1996), p. 307-25.



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249

thwart”, for he mentioned just before the victory over the enemies, with God’s help.

I.2 Agreements with 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊

Ant. 11:187 σκήνωµα πηξάµενος ἐκ Est 1:5 ‫𝔊𝔊 בחצר גנת‬-𝔏𝔏 ἐν αὐλῇ οἴκου (𝔏𝔏 om.) χρυσέων καὶ ἀργυρέων κιόνων ‫ביתן המלך‬ τοῦ βασιλέως. The banquet is organized “in the court of the garden (𝔊𝔊 om.) of the king’s palace (𝔊𝔊 ‘house’, maybe from ‫ ;”)בית‬for Josephus, “he set up a pavillon on gold and silver pillars”; he did not see 𝔊𝔊, and may have understood “garden” as a special open place. Moreover, at 1:6, 𝔏𝔏 has σκηνὴ τεταµένη “a pavillon was stretched out”, which agrees with Josephus. Ant. 11:192 ἑπτὰ τῶν ΠερEst 1:13 ‫לחכמים‬ 𝔊𝔊 φίλοις ποιήσα𝔏𝔏 σοφοῖς εἰσῶν οἳ τὴν τῶν νόµων ‫ידעי העתים‬ τε περὶ τούτου δόσι νόµον ἐξήγησιν ἔχουσι ‫לפני כל־ידעי דת ודין‬ νόµον καὶ κρίσιν καὶ κρίσιν. The king said to “the (Ant. ‘seven’) sages (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘knowing the times’, 𝔊𝔊 ‘friends’), who know (𝔊𝔊 ‘About this, make’) law and justice”; Josephus, with “seven of the Persians in charge of the interpretation of the laws”, agrees with 𝔏𝔏; the “seven” are named in the next verse in 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊. Ant. 11:227 ἔσεσθαι µὲν αὐτῷ Est 4:14 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ≈ רוח והצלה‬ 𝔏𝔏 ὁ θεὸς ἔσται βοηβοήθειαν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ ‫יעמוד ליהודים ממקום אחר‬ θὸς καὶ σωτηρία. Mordekai warns Esther that if she does not heed his advice, “relief and salvation will arise for the Jews from another place”; 𝔏𝔏 is shorter: “God will be help and salvation.” Josephus agrees with 𝔏𝔏, but he may well have understood “another place” as “God”. Ant. 11:244 τοῦ δὲ βασιEst 5:8 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 om. 𝔏𝔏 εἶπεν ὁ βασιλεύς· Ποίησον λέως ὑποσχοµένου κατὰ τὸ θέληµα σου Esther invited the king, and “the king said: Do as you please (𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 om.)”, like Josephus “the king promised”. Ant. 11:256 τὴν διάνοιαν συνεχύθη Est 6:10 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 om. 𝔏𝔏 συνετρίβη ἡ καρδία αὐτοῦ. When Haman heard the king’s order, “his heart was utterly crushed (𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 om.)”; Josephus differently says the same: “He was confused in his thoughts.” Ant. 11:257 ὁ δὲ οὐκ εἰδὼς τἀληθές, Est 6:11 𝔏𝔏 alone adds ἐταράχθη Μαρἀλλὰ χλευάζεσθαι νοµίζων... δοχαῖος ὡς ἀποθνῃσκων... When Haman told Mordekai to put off his sackcloth, “he was shattered, like dying... he thought he saw a monster... and he became speechless”; Josephus paraphrases: “Mordekai, who did not know the true position, thought he was being mocked, etc.”

I.3 Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐

Ant. 11:225 µὴ ἀδοξῆσαι λα- Est 4:8 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 µνησθεῖσα ἡµερῶν ταπεινώσεώς 𝔐𝔐 om. βεῖν σχῆµα ταπεινόν, Ἀµάνην... σου, Αµαν ἐλάλησεν καθ᾿ ἡµῶν εἰς θάνατον. Mordekai urges Esther “to remember your humble days; Aman has spoken against us for death”; Josephus read these two details, and transformed the first: “She should consider it under her dignity to put on humble garment.” Ant. 11:245 παρελθὼν πρὸς αὑτὸν Est 5:10 ‫ויבוא אל־ביתו‬ 𝔐𝔐 adds ‫ויתאפק המן‬

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THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

After seeing Mordekai, Haman “went home”; so Ant. and 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but 𝔐𝔐 adds before this: “Haman controlled himself”. Ant. 11:247 (ὁ θεός...) τοῦ βασι- Est 6:1 ‫𝔊𝔊 נדדה‬-𝔏𝔏 ὁ κύριος (𝔏𝔏 δυνατὸς) ἀπέστηλέως... ἀφαιρεῖται τὸν ὕπνον ‫שׁנת המלך‬ σεν τὸν ὕπνον ἀπὸ τοῦ βασιλέως. That night, “the king’s sleep fled” (𝔐𝔐), or “the Lord removed sleep from the king” (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏); Josephus agrees with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏: “(God) deprived the king of sleep.” Ant. 11:259 τὸν θεὸν εἶναι σὺν αὐτῷ Est 6:13 𝔊𝔊 ≈ 𝔏𝔏 θεὸς ζῶν µετ᾿ αὐτοῦ 𝔐𝔐 om. Zeresh and Haman’s friends tell him that “the living God is with him (𝔐𝔐 om.).

II – Josephus in Partial Disagreement with the Greek II.1 Agreements with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔊𝔊

Ant. 11:184 (Ξέρξου υἱὸν) Κῦρον Est 1:1 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אחשׁורושׁ‬Ἀρταξέρξης 𝔏𝔏 Ἀσσύηρος. At the beginning of Esther’s story, Josephus says that “after Xerxes’ death, the kingdom passed to his son Cyrus, whom the Greeks call Artaxerxes”; the name “Cyrus” is wrong, but this indicates that Josephus did not read “Artaxerxes” like 𝔊𝔊 (which normally renders ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;)ארתחשׁסתא‬has a normal transcription of 𝔐𝔐 ‫“ אחשׁורושׁ‬Ahasuerus” (see Ezr 4:6), and Josephus’ “Cyrus” is certainly a copyist’s mistake for “Ahasuerus”. Ant. 11:187 ἔπειτα Est 1:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = ובמלואת הימים‬ἀνεπληρώθησαν αἱ ἡµέραι τοῦ γάµου. The king offered a lengthy entertainment, and “when these days (𝔊𝔊 the days of the marriage’) were completed”; Josephus, with a plain “then”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏, without “marriage”. Ant. 11:187 τὰ ἔθνη... ἐν Σούσοις Est 1:5 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 = לכל־העם בשׁושׁן‬πότον τοῖς ἔθνεσιν... ἐπὶ ἡµέρας κατευώχησεν 7 ‫ משׁתה שׁבעת ימים‬εἰς τὴν πόλιν ἐπὶ ἡµέρας 6. The king made “a banquet for all the people (𝔊𝔊 and Ant. ‘the nations’) in Susa (𝔊𝔊 ‘the city’) for 7 (𝔊𝔊 ‘6’) days”; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏. Ant. 11:188 µὴ βιάζεσθαι πίνειν τὸ Est 1:8 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 = והשׁתיה כדת‬ὁ δὲ οὗτος οὐ κατὰ ποτὸν συνεχῶς προσφέροντας ‫ אין אנס‬om. 𝔏𝔏 προκείµενον νόµον. The king had ordered that “the drinking should be according to the rule (𝔊𝔊 ‘not be according to any rule set before’), nobody was to compel them (𝔊𝔊 om.)”; Josephus says that the servants were ordered “not to force them to drink by bringing continually” and to permit everyone “to use his own judgement”; he comments that was contrary to the Persian custom, which means that he agrees with “no compelling servant” of 𝔐𝔐. In any case, ‫ כדת‬of 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏 is difficult, because it contradicts the context; but Josephus’ allusion to “judgement” suggests that he read (or spontaneously corrected) ‫“ כדעת‬according to one’s knowledge, or will”. 𝔊𝔊 paraphrases, possibly with a reading or correction ‫לא כדת‬. Ant. 11:190 ἡ βασίλισσα Οὐάστη Est 1:9 ‫ושׁתי המלכה‬ 𝔊𝔊 Αστιν 𝔏𝔏 Ουαστιν. Queen Vashti, also, made a banquet for the women. Ant. 11:190 ἐπιδεῖξαι βουλόµενος ≈ Est 1:11 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏 𝔊𝔊 adds βασιλεύειν αὐτήν. The king wanted “to show her to his guests (𝔊𝔊 adds ‘to enthrone her’)”.



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𝔊𝔊 οὐκέτι ἐµνήσθη Ant. 11:195 διακείµενος δὲ Est 2:1 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ≈ זכר את־ושׁתי‬ πρὸς αὐτὴν ἐρωτικῶς, ... τῆς Αστιν... καὶ ὡς κατέκρινεν αὐτήν. διὰ τὸν νόµον οὐκ ἐδύνατο ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ואת אשׁר־נגזר עליה‬om. The king “remembered (𝔊𝔊 ‘did not remember anymore’) Vashti (𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 add ‘and what had been decreed against her’); Josephus understood well the hint of 𝔐𝔐: “The king was (still) in love with her, but he could not be reconciled to her, because of the law”. 𝔊𝔊 ἐπαίδευσεν αὐτὴν 𝔏𝔏 ἦν ἐκτρέφων Ant. 11:198 παρὰ τῷ θείῳ Est 2:7 ‫לקחה‬ Μαρδοχαίῳ τρεφοµένη ‫מרדכי לו לבת‬ ἑαυτῷ εἰς γυναῖκα πιστῶς Εσθηρ. Esther is introduced: “Mordekai took her as his daughter” (𝔐𝔐), or “brought her up to become his wife” (𝔊𝔊), or “he was bringing up Esther faithfully” (𝔏𝔏); Josephus, with “she was brought up at her uncle Mordekai’s home”, is close to 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏; at 11:204, he says that “he loved her as his own daughter”. Ant. 11:243 µηδ’ ἂν τὸ µέρος Est 5:6 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 עד־חצי‬om. 𝔏𝔏 ἕως ἡµίσους τῆς βασιλείας τῆς βασιλείας ἐθελήσῃ ‫המלכות ותעשׂ‬ µου, καὶ ἔσται σοι ὅσα ἀξιοῖς. The king is prepared to give Ester what she desires, “even half of the kingdom, it shall be done (𝔊𝔊 om.)”; Josephus softens, with “even if she desires a part of the kingdom”. Ant. 11:255 ἵππον, στολὴν, στρεπτόν Est 6:10 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 ;𝔏𝔏 ≈ מהר קח את־הלבושׁ ואת־הסוס‬om. ἐπιζήτησον Μαρδοχαῖον, ταῦτα δοὺς ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ כאשׁר דברת ועשׂה־כן למרדכי‬-𝔏𝔏 The king said to Haman: “Quickly, take the robe and the horse (𝔊𝔊 om.) as you said, and do so to Mordekai.” Josephus reworks 𝔐𝔐-𝔏𝔏, anticipating the transfer of power from Haman to Mordekai: “You have the horse and the robe and the sceptre, look for Mordekai and give him this.” The addition of “sceptre” is quite approximate, for in Haman’s advice to the king it was a “necklace” (see § III.3, Ant. 11:254); at 11:257, Josephus returns to “necklace”.

II.2 Agreements with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔏𝔏

Ant. 11:197 προσέταξε ἐπιλεξαµένους τὰς Est 2:3 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 ≈ ְויפקד המלך פקידים‬om. εὐδοκιµούσας τῶν ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ παρθένων ἀγαγεῖν ‫בכל־מדינות מלכותו‬ His friends advised “the king to appoint overseers in all the provinces of the kingdom (𝔏𝔏 om. all)”, but Josephus says that “he ordered (his people) to select the most beautiful virgins in the kingdom”, which means that contrarily to 𝔊𝔊, he understood the verb as a hifil ‫ ַויַּפקד‬, that is, the king’s action. Ant. 11:219 εἰς τὰς πόλεις καὶ τὴν χώραν Est 3:14 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 𝔊𝔊 ≈ דת בכל־מדינה ומדינה‬om. The king’s decree is sent to all the provinces, but for 𝔏𝔏 only to Susa (3:15). 𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 11:222-3 οὐ πεισθέντος ἀποδύσασθαι... Est 4:4 ‫𝔊𝔊 = ולא קבל‬ προσκαλεσαµένη τὸν εὐνοῦχον Ἀχράθεον (𝔊𝔊 Αχραθαῖον) ‫ותקרא אסתר להתך‬ Having learned that Mordekai was wearing sackcloth, Esther sent garment, “but he was not persuaded... then she called the eunuch Hatach”; 𝔏𝔏 is confused: nobody warned Esther; Mordekai sends an unnamed eunuch to her; she tells him to remove Mordekai’s sackcloth and to bring him to her; he tells her the threat and urges her to go to the king. 𝔏𝔏 παραγγείλατε θεραπείαν Ant. 11:228 νηστεῦσαι πάντων Est 4:16 ‫𝔊𝔊 = וצומו‬ ἀποσχοµένους ἐπὶ 3 ἡµέρας ‫ ימים‬3 ‫עלי‬ δεήθητε τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκτενῶς. Esther instruction to the Jews is “to fast for her for three days”; Josephus agrees

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with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, while 𝔏𝔏 has: “Proclaim a service and pray to God constantly”, without the “3 days”. This change may be related to Passover (14th of Nisan): the king’s decree was issued on the 13th of the 1st month (Nisan, Est 3:12) and Esther launched a three-day fast, which would collide with the feast; however, 𝔏𝔏 omits Est 3:8-12, and there may have been another reason. Ant. 11:246 πρωὶ παρὰ τοῦ Est 5:14 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 𝔊𝔊 ≈ ובבקר‬κρέµασον αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ βασιλέως αἰτησάµενον ἀνα‫אמר למלך‬ ξύλου, ὀρθρίσας πρὸς τὸν σταυρῶσαι τὸν Μαρδοχαῖον ‫ויתלו את־מרדכי‬ βασιλέα λαλήσεις αὐτῷ. Zeresh advises her husband Haman: “And in the morning tell the king, and they will hang Mordekai;” 𝔏𝔏 is different: “Hang him on the tree, then early in the morning go to the king and speak to him.” Josephus, with “in the morning ask the king to crucify Mordekai”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊, but his “crucify” renders 𝔐𝔐 ‫ויתלו‬, and not 𝔊𝔊 κρεµασθήτω (see below § III.2, Ant. 11:208). Ant. 11:256 Μαρδοχαῖον εὑρών... ≈ Est 6:11 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 adds καθότι ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡµέρᾳ ἐκέλευσεν ἐνδύσασθαι τὴν πορφύραν ἐκεκρίκει ἀνασκολοπίζειν αὐτόν. Haman took the robe and the horse, and arrayed Mordekai, but 𝔏𝔏 alone inserts before Mordekai’s arraying: “He did reverence to Mordekai on the very day he had determined to hang him.” Ant. 11:259 εἰσῄει πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα ≈ Est 6:12 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 ἀπῆλθε εἱς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ. After a triomphant tour in Susa, Mordekai “returned to the king’s (𝔏𝔏 ‘home’). Ant. 11:260 οἱ τῆς Ἐσθήρας εὐ- ≈ Est 6:14 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 adds οὕτως ἱλαρώθη καὶ πορευνοῦχοι τὸν Ἀµάνην ἐπὶ τὸ δεῖπνον... θεῖς ἀνέπεσε µετ᾽ αὐτῶν ἐν ὥρᾳ. The eunuchs hastened to bring Haman to Esther’s banquet; 𝔏𝔏 alone adds: “And so he was gladdened, and he came and fell along (or ‘lay at table’) in time.” Ant. 11:262 ὁ βασιλεὺς µετὰ τοῦ Ἀµάνου εὐ- ≈ Est 7:1-2 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 adds ὡς δὲ προωχηθεὶς ἠξίου τὴν βασίλισσαν λέγειν αὐτῷ... ῆγεν ἡ πρόποσις. At the second banquet, the king asks Esther the same questions (see Est 5:4), but here 𝔏𝔏 puts before: “When the drinking (or ‘toast’) was well advanced.” 𝔏𝔏 τί ἐστιν ὁ κίνδυνος; Ant. 11:262 τίνος βούλεται δωρεᾶς τυχεῖν ≈ Est 7:2 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 The king asks Esther (previous note): “What is your petition (𝔏𝔏 ‘the danger’)?” Ant. 11:263 πρὸς ἀπώλειαν ἔλε- ≈ Est 7:4 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 ἐπράθηµεν ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ λαός µου γεν µετὰ τοῦ ἔθνους ἐκδεδόσθαι εἰς δούλωσιν... µεταπεσεῖν τὸν ἄνθρωπον. Esther tells the king: “I and my people have been sold to be destroyed.” 𝔏𝔏 is different, and not very clear: “I and my people have been sold for slavery... the man who wronged us has been removed.” 𝔏𝔏 adds ἐθυµώθη ὁ βασιλεύς... Ant. 11:264 κατηγόρει τὸ λοιπὸν ≈ Est 7:6 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 ἤδη φανερῶς τοῦ Ἀµάνου Μὴ ὀργίζου κύριε... θαρσήσασα εἶπεν. Esther eventually charges Haman; 𝔏𝔏 (following her allusion to the wrongdoer, see previous note) introduces a confrontation before her accusation: “The king got angry and asked again... she said: Do not be angry, my lord” and she wanted to postpone her answer to the following day, but the king urged her, and “taking courage, she said, etc.” 𝔏𝔏 ἐπὶ τοὺς πόδας. Ant. 11:265 ἐπὶ τῆς κλίνης αὐτοῦ πεσόντος ≈ Est 7:6 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 Haman “fell on the couch (𝔏𝔏 ‘at the feet’)” of Esther. Ant. 11:265 εἰς τοὺς κήπους Est 7:7 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 אל־גנת הביתן‬εἰς τὸν κῆπον 𝔏𝔏 ἦν περιπατῶν.



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After Esther’s denunciation, the king rose up and went “into the garden (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘of the palace’)”; for 𝔏𝔏, “he was walking about”. 𝔊𝔊 σταυρωθήτω 𝔏𝔏 κρεµασθήτω Ant. 11:267 ἐξ τοῦ σταυροῦ Est 7:9 ‫תלהו‬ κρεµασθέντα ἀποθανεῖν ‫עליו‬ ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐπ᾿ αὐτοῦ. Upon learning of the gallows, the king condemns Haman: “Let him be hanged (Ant. and 𝔊𝔊 ‘crucified’, 𝔐𝔐 ambiguous).” The 𝔊𝔊 rendering here is unusual, suggesting another hand, see below § III.2, Ant. 11:208. Ant. 11:269 τὴν δὲ οὐσίαν αὐτοῦ ≈ Est 8:1 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 ἐκάλεσεν ὁ βασιλεὺς τὸν Μαρἐχαρίσατο τῇ βασιλίσσῃ δοχαῖον καὶ ἐχαρίσατο αὺτῷ The king presented Haman’s property to the queen, but 𝔏𝔏 is different: “The king called Mordekai and presented him” with all Haman’s property. However, according to Est 8:2 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊, “Esther set Mordecai over the house (𝔊𝔊 ‘all’) of Haman”, and Ant. 11:270a is similar. Ant. 11:270b-272 Esther obtains a new decree ≈ Est 8:3-10 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊; 𝔏𝔏 Mordekai does. In 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊, Esther entreats the king first, then he asks both Mordekai and Esther to write a new decree. 𝔏𝔏 πολλοὶ τῶν Ἰουδαίων περιAnt. 11:285 πολλὰ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ≈ Est 8:17 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 ἐθνῶν διὰ τὸν ἐκ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ετέµοντο καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐπανέστη φόβον περιτεµνόµενα τὴν αἰδῶ αὐτούς, ἐφοβοῦντο γὰρ αὐτούς. After Haman’s defeat, “many among the peoples of the land became Jews (‫מתיהדים‬, 𝔊𝔊 περιετέµοντο καὶ ἰουδάιζον ‘got circumcised and Judaized’), for the dread of the Jews had fallen on them (𝔊𝔊 is shorter)”; Josephus has the same content (with “circumcized”), but 𝔏𝔏 is quite different, without conversions: “And many of the Jews got circumcized, and no one opposed them, for they feared them.” The previous attitude of the Jews is reminiscent of 1 Mac 1:15: “They made themselves uncircumcized.” Ant. 11:288 ἀποκτεῖναι τῶν ἐχθρῶν περὶ 500 ≈ Est 9:6 & 12 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 𝔏𝔏 ἄνδρας 700. In Susa, the Jews “killed 500 (𝔏𝔏 ‘700’) men (Ant. ‘enemies’)”. Ant. 11:289 τὴν ἐπιοῦσαν ἡµέραν οὕτως ≈ Est 9:13 𝔏𝔏 δοθήτο τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις οὓς ἐὰν τοὺς 10 Ἀµάνου παῖδας ἀνασταυρῶσαι θέλωσιν ἀνελεῖν καὶ διαρπάζειν. Esther’s further request to the king is “on the following day, to treat the same way the remaining enemies, and to crucify (‫יתלו‬, 𝔊𝔊 ‘hang’) Haman’s ten sons”, whereas 𝔏𝔏 has: “Allow the Jews to slay and plunder whomever they wish.” 𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 11:290 ὡς 300, οὐδενὸς τῶν ὑπαρχόντων ἥψαντο ≈ Est 9:15 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊; In Susa, they slew “300 men and plundered nothing”; for 𝔏𝔏, see previous note.

III – Josephus Independent from 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 III.1 Josephus Parallel to 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏

Ant. 11:207 Βαγαθώου, Est 2:21 ‫בגתן‬ Est 1:1m 𝔊𝔊 Γαβαθα, 𝔏𝔏 Ασταου, Θεοδοσίτου, Βαρνάβαζος ‫ותרשׁ‬ Θαρρα Θεδευτου. Two eunuchs made a plot, “Bigthan and Theresh”; 𝔊𝔊 does not name them here, and 𝔏𝔏 ignores Est 2:21-23; however, a longer account of the plot is given in Addition A, which Josephus did not know. Here, he introduces one “Barnabazos”, a Jew, who informs Mordekai of the plot; this fills up a gap, since according to

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Est 2:22 “it became known to Mordekai”, without explanation. The name suggests that Josephus depends on a variant, but he may have introduced himself a Persian name (Pharnabazos, frequently used by Xenophon and others), giving it an Aramaic touch (Bar-); the same way, he has inserted at 11:203 a Persian equivalent of “the king’s messengers” (ἄγγαροι, from Herodotus 3.126 etc.). In Addition A, Mordekai directly overheard the plotters (Est 1:1n), which confirms that Josephus did not see it. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Ζωσαραν. Ant. 11:245 Γάζασαν, Ζάραζαν Est 5:10 ‫זרשׁ‬ Haman sent for his wife “Zeresh”. 𝔊𝔊 Βουγαθαν 𝔏𝔏 Αγαθας. Ant. 11:266 Σαβουζάνης Est 7:9 ‫חרבונה‬ The eunuch “Harbonah” knew of Haman’s gallows (see § IV.1, Ant. 11:261).

III.2 Agreements with 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏

Ant. 11:208 ἀνεσταύρωσεν Est 2:22 ‫ )𝔏𝔏(𝔊𝔊 ויתלו שׁניהם על־עץ‬ἐκρέµασεν αὐτούς. The eunuchs who had plotted “were hanged on a tree (𝔏𝔏 om.)”; 𝔏𝔏 lacks 2:21-23, but at Est 5:14 and 7:9, it uses the same verb κρεµάζω. For Josephus, the king “crucified them”, a possible meaning of ‫( תלה‬kept by the targums), but not of κρεµάζω. In Addition A, both 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 have a plain ἀπήχθησαν “the eunuchs were led away” (Est 1:1o). 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 Αµαν Αµαδαθου Ant. 11:209 Ἀµάνην δὲ Ἀµαδάθου Est 3:1 ‫המן בן‬ µὲν υἱὸν τὸ γένος δὲ Ἀµαληκίτην ‫המדתא האגגי‬ Βουγαῖον. Haman is introduced as “Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘Bougaios’ or ‘Boaster’, one 𝔏𝔏 variant has Γωγαῖον, akin to 𝔐𝔐, cf. Num 24:7 ‫אגג‬, 𝔊𝔊 Γωγ)”; elsewhere, Haman is dubbed “Macedonian” (𝔊𝔊 alone). Haman’s descent according to 𝔐𝔐 is meaningful, because Agag was the Amalekite king that caused the fall of king Saul, a Benjaminite like Mordekai (1 Sam 15:32-33, see Ant. 6:137); for Ezek 38:16, Gog is an eschatological enemy. Josephus, who identifies Haman as “Amalekite by race”, stresses the connection, for he knows that Amalek was a permanent enemy of Israel (Ant. 2:5, 3:40, 11:211 & 274). 𝔊𝔊 ἐπιγνοὺς Αµαν ≈ 𝔏𝔏 Ant. 11:210 παραφυλάξας ὁ Ἀµά- Est 3:5 ‫וירא המן‬ 𝔊𝔊 ὅτι οὐ προσκυνεῖ om. 𝔏𝔏 νης ἐπυνθάνετο, πόθεν εἴη ‫כי־אין מרדכי כרע‬ Everyone had to bow down before Haman “and Haman saw (𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 ‘knew’) that Mordekai did not bow down (𝔏𝔏 om.); Josephus, with “Haman observed (that he did not bow down) and asked where he was from”, agrees with 𝔐𝔐, but he ignores Est 3:3-4, that for many days the king’s servants urged Mordekai to comply, then they reported to Haman, telling him that he was a Jew. Ant. 11:242 Est 5:4 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds Ἡµέρα µου ἐπίσηµος σήµερόν (𝔏𝔏 αὔριον) ἐστιν. Esther invites the king and Haman to a banquet; 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 adds: “Today (𝔏𝔏 ‘tomorrow’) is a special day for me.” Both Ant. and 𝔐𝔐 omit this. Ant. 11:244 ἰδὼν ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ Μαρδοχαῖον. Est 5:9 ‫ 𝔏𝔏 ;𝔊𝔊 ≈ וכראות המן את־מרדכי בשׁער‬om. 𝔏𝔏 om. οὐδὲν αὐτῷ παρ’ αὐτοῦ πρὸς τιµὴν ἐγένετο 𝔐𝔐 adds ‫ולא־קם ולא־זע ממנו‬ After Esther’s banquet, “Haman saw Mordekai in the court (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘and he did not stand up or move for him’)”, he got very angry; Josephus agrees with 𝔐𝔐: “He saw Mordekai in the court; no honor was shown him.” Ant. 11:254 τὴν αὐτὴν ἐσθῆτά σοι φοροῦνEst 6:8 ...‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ יביאו לבושׁ מלכות‬-𝔏𝔏 τα καὶ περιαυχένιον χρυσοῦν ἔχοντα ‫ ואשׁר נתן כתר מלכות בראשׁו‬om. 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏.



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Haman advises the king about the man he wants to honor: “Let them bring a royal robe that the king has worn... (𝔐𝔐 adds ‘and put a royal crown on his head’);” Josephus has a similar addition: “And having a necklace of gold.” For ‫כתר‬, a noun unattested outside Est, 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 elsewhere puts in διάδηµα “crown”; in the other books, the more common ‫ עטרת‬is consistently rendered into στέφανος; here, Josephus understood after the verb ‫“ כתר‬to surround”, but at 11:255 he replaces it with “sceptre”. Ant. 11:290 ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ καὶ ταῖς πόλεσιν 75,000 = Est 9:16 𝔐𝔐; 𝔊𝔊 15,000 𝔏𝔏 70,100. The enemies slain “in the provinces (Ant. adds ‘and the cities’, i.e. without Susa) were 75,000 (𝔊𝔊 ‘15,000’, 𝔏𝔏 ‘70,100’) and they did not plunder (𝔏𝔏 om., see above § II.2, Ant. 11:289)”.

IV – Josephus’ Peculiarities The distinction between Josephus’ using a source and his own comments is not always clear. IV.1 Alterations, Misreadings, Corrections Ant. 11:188 ἐκπώµασι χρυ- Est 1:7 ‫𝔊𝔊 והשׁקות בכלי‬-𝔏𝔏 ποτήρια χρυσᾶ, 𝔊𝔊 adds καὶ σέοις καὶ τοῖς διὰ λίθου ‫ זהב וכלים‬ἀργυρᾶ καὶ ἀνθράκινον κυλίκιον πολυτελοῦς... πεποιηµένοις ‫מכלים שׁונים‬ ἀπὸ ταλάντων τρισµυρίων. In the banquet, “the drinks were in golden (𝔊𝔊 adds and silver’) vessels and vessels from various vessels (𝔐𝔐, 𝔊𝔊 ‘and a carbuncle cup – of the value of 30,000 talents’, 𝔏𝔏 om.)”; Josephus, with “vessels made of gold or precious stone”, is somewhat close to 𝔊𝔊 (where the value should be meant of all the vessels), but he omits “silver”, like 𝔐𝔐. The latter is certainly corrupt, and ‫מכלים שׁונים‬, with ‫ כל‬instead of ‫ בנ‬and a blurred ‫א‬, should be replaced with ‫מאבנים שונות‬, (or maybe with ‫מאבנים שונים‬, cf. Josh 4:3), “and vessels of various stones”, that is, something very close to Josephus’ source, without any valuation. Ant. 11:194 µεγάλην ζηµίαν Est 1:19 ‫𝔊𝔊 ≈ ומלכותה יתן המלך לרעותה הטובה ממנה‬-𝔏𝔏. Menuchan’s advice is that “the king should give her (Vashti’s) royal position to her neighbor, who is worthier than her”; for Josephus, the advice is “to inflict her a severe punishment”, so that the decision to cast her away and replace her is left to the king. This change does not imply a variant, but Josephus’ view of court customs. Ant. 11:198 εὑρέθη τις ἐν Βαβυλῶνι κόρη Est 2:5 ‫יהודי היה בשׁושׁן הבירה ושׁמו מרדכי‬ “There was a Jew in the city of Susa; his name was Mordekai”, but Josephus says that Esther was found in Babylon, most probably because Est 2:6 states that Mordekai had been taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, with a very strange chronology; at 11:204, Josephus lets Mordekai move from Babylon to Susa. Both 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏, as well as Josephus, omit Esther’s Hebrew name, Hadasa (Est 2:7). Ant. 11:200 ἐπὶ µῆνας 6, 400 οὖσαι Est 2:12 ‫ חדשׁים‬6 ...‫ חדשׁים‬6 ...‫ חדשׁ‬12 = 𝔊𝔊; 𝔏𝔏 om. The maidens were treated for “12 months... 6... and 6 (𝔏𝔏 om.)”; Josephus says “for 6 months; they were 400 girls”, an addition of unknown origin.

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𝔏𝔏 om. Ant. 11:202 γάµους αὐτῇ Est 2:16 ...‫ 𝔊𝔊 ותלקח אסתר‬εἰσῆλθεν Εσθηρ ποιεῖται 12th µηνί, Ἀδέρῳ ‫ טבת‬,10 ‫בחדשׁ‬ τῷ 12th µηνί, Αδαρ. After due treatment, “Esther was taken (𝔊𝔊 ‘entered’) in the 10th month, Tebet (𝔊𝔊 ‘the 12th month, Adar’)”; Josephus has “he made her wedding in the 12th month, Adar”. According to 2:18, the king made a great banquet, which is not called “wedding”; Josephus may have understood ‫ ותלקח‬as “was taken as a wife” (which is impossible with 𝔊𝔊). 𝔏𝔏 ignores 2:16, but mentions a splendid wedding at 2:18 (like 𝔊𝔊). Ant. 11:203 ἐπὶ µῆνα Est 2:18 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 משׁתה אסתר‬ἐπὶ ἡµέρας 7, γάµους 𝔏𝔏 τὸν γάµον. Esther’s wedding (𝔐𝔐 “banquet”) lasted “one month” for Ant., “7 days” for 𝔊𝔊.

Ant. 11:204 αὐτόθι διῆγεν, ἑκάστης ἡµέρας... Est 2:11 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 ‫ובכל־יום ויום מרדכי‬ διατρίβων καὶ πυνθανόµενος περὶ τῆς κόρης ‫ לדעת את־שׁלום אסתר‬...‫מרדכי מתהלך‬ After Esther’s wedding, Josephus says that Mordekai “dwelt (in Susa), and spent every day about the palace, inquiring bout the girl”. At Est 2:11, the same is said during the time of Esther’s preparation, but for Josephus, Mordekai was then in Babyon (see 11:198 above), and he had to discard or move this detail, so that he does not witness here a variant reading; a further clue is that he calls her “the girl”, and not “the queen”, which better fits the original context. Ant. 11:246 ξύλον κοπῆναι πηχῶν 60 Est 5:14 (‫ אמה‬50 ‫𝔊𝔊 יעשׂו )עץ גבה‬-𝔏𝔏 κοπήτω. Zeresh advises that “they should make (𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ‘should be cut’) a gallows 50 cubits high”; for Josephus, “a gallows 60 cubits high to be cut”. Ant. 11:261 Σαβουχάδας ἰδὼν τὸν σταυρὸν ἐν τῇ Ἀµάνου οἰκίᾳ Est 6:14 om. πεπηγότα, καὶ πυθόµενος ἐπὶ τίνα... γνούς... τότε µὲν ἡσυχίαν ἦγεν. Josephus adds: “Harbonah saw the cross put up at Haman’s house, inquired for who... he knew that it was for the queen’s uncle, but then he kept quiet.” This addition makes sense and may reflect a source, for at Est 7:9, Harbonah suddenly reveals to the king the purpose of the gallows (see above § III.1, Ant. 11:266). Ant. 11:289 τοῦ δὲ βασιλέως... περὶ τῶν ἐπὶ Est 9:7-10 has a list of slain people. τῆς χώρας τί ποτ’ εἴη γεγονὸς διαποροῦντος After mentioning the victims in Susa (see above § II.2, Ant. 11:288), Est 9:7-10 gives a list in other cities, which includes Haman’s sons (but according to 9:13 they are not yet executed). Josephus ignores it, since he says, in agreement with 9:12: “The king was uncertain about what happened to those in the provinces.” Ant. 11:292 οἱ ἐν Σούσοις Ἰουδαῖοι τὴν Est 9:17 ‫ בו‬14-‫ ונוח ב‬...‫ 𝔏𝔏 במדינות‬om. 14th καὶ τὴν ἐχοµένην... εὐωχήθησαν 9:18 ‫ בו‬15-‫ ונוח ב‬...‫בשׁושׁן‬ The rejoicing took place “in the provinces, on the 14th of the month, in Susa on the 15th”; after saying accurately that in the provinces the Jews took revenge on the 13th and feasted on the 14th, Josephus affirms that “the Jews in Susa feasted on the 14th and the following day”, which contradicts 11:290 (in Susa, they took revenge on the 14th). However, in the book Mordekai wrote, it is said without further precision that the Jews should keep these day for rejoicings, “the 14th and the 15th.

IV.2 Genuine Hebrew Variants of H Ant. 11:188 λίθου πολυτελοῦς Est 1:7 ‫ וכלים מכלים שׁונים‬H ‫שונות‬/‫וכלים מאבנים שונים‬ On the king’s vessels made of “precious stone”, see discussion above, § IV.1.



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Ant. 11:188 πρὸς ὃ βούλεται, ἕκαστος Est 1:8 ‫𝔏𝔏 = והשׁתיה כדת‬ H ‫והשתיה כדעת‬ At the banquets, Josephus says that the drinking was “according to everyone’s will”, see discussion above, § II.1, Ant. 11:188. Ant. 11:292 οἱ ἐν τῇ Est 9:19 ‫ 𝔊𝔊 היהודים הפרוזים‬οἱ Ιουδαῖοι οἱ H ‫היהודים הפזורים‬ οἰκουµένῃ Ἰουδαῖοι... ‫ הישׁבים בערי‬διεσπαρµένοι ἐν ‫)הישבים בערי‬ ἑορτάζουσιν ‫ הפרזות עשׂים‬πάσῃ χώρᾳ τῇ ἔξω ‫הפזרות( עשים‬ After a definition of the festival days, Josephus concludes: “All the Jews in the inhabited world celebrate these days.” This is somewhat close to 𝔊𝔊 (deest 𝔏𝔏): “The Jews dispersed in every foreign land keep etc.” 𝔐𝔐 sounds very different: “The Jews of the rural areas, who live in the rural towns, make etc.” But a simple metathesis ‫ז‬/‫ ר‬transforms it into: “The dispersed Jews, who live in the cities of the dispersions, make, etc.” which is very close to Josephus. (For the other Hebrew feasts, he always puts “we”, including himself, but here he speaks of “the Jews”: he is still a citizen of Jerusalem.)

V – On Additions B-E (Absent 𝔐𝔐)

Ant. 11:216 πάσης ἧς ἐβουλήθην Est 3:13b 𝔊𝔊 ≈ 𝔏𝔏 πάσης ἐπικρατήσας οἰκουµέκρατήσας οἰκουµένης... προνοηνης ἐβουλήθην... ἀνανεώσασθαί τε τὴν ποσάµενος εἰρήνης... εἰς ἅπαντα θουµένην τοῖς πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις εἰρήνην. The king says in his decree: “Having dominion over all the world... I wanted to renew the peace that all the people wish.” With the same elements, Josephus sounds different: “Having the dominion I wanted over all the world... I have looked out for their peace... for ever.” The position of ἐβουλήθην is changed, but this can be explained thanks to a tentative restoration of an original Hebrew ‫“ החזקתי את כל העולם בחפצי לחדש את השלום כאות כל‬I have held all the world, and I want to renew peace as all desire”; whatever the accuracy of such a back translation, if we change the key word ‫ בחפצי‬into ‫כחפצי‬, we obtain Josephus’ meaning “I have held all the world as I wanted”, which may or may not be original (the king is a newcomer, without a known ascendance). Ant. 11:218 κελεύω... πάντας σὺν Est 3:13f 𝔏𝔏 adds φονεύειν πάντας γυναιξὶ καὶ τέκνοις ἀπολέσαι Ἰουδαίους ἁρπάζειν νήπια. The king orders “to kill... all, with women and children, on the 13th of the 12th month, Adar (𝔏𝔏 adds ‘to kill all the Jews and to rob the infants”; the 𝔏𝔏 addition is a redundant gloss, but it fills in a lacuna, since the Jews are not named elsewhere in the decree. Josephus and 𝔏𝔏 omit the date of the decree, certainly because it is strange: according to Est 3:12 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊, it is sent to all the provinces on the 13th day of the 1st month (Nisan), but it has to be carried out at the end of the year, some eleven months later. Josephus and 𝔏𝔏 have omitted the lot casting done every day (Est 3:7 ‫“ פור‬Pur”, 𝔊𝔊 κλῆρος). Ant. 11:229-33 τὸν θεὸν σὺν αὐτοῖς ἱκέτευσε... Est 4:17a-z 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 καὶ ἐδεήθη κυρίου... Mordekai “prayed to the Lord”; Josephus adds “with them (the people)”, then summarizes his prayer as well as Esther’s (Addition C). Ant. 11:239 τὸ σκῆπτρον Est 5:2 ‫ויושׁט המלך‬ 5:1d 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ἄρας τὴν χρυσῆν αὐτῆς ἐνετίθει τῇ χειρὶ ‫את־שׁרביט הזהב‬ ῥάβδον (𝔏𝔏 τὸν σκῆπτρον) καὶ τὴν ῥάβδον ἐξέτεινεν ‫אשׁר בידו ותקרב‬ ἐπέθηκεν ἐπὶ τὸν ἐπὶ τὸν αὐχένα αὐτῆς ‫ותגע בראשׁ השׁרביט‬ τράχηλον αὐτῆς.

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The verse belongs to both 𝔐𝔐 (“the king extended to Esther the golden scepter which was in his hand, and Esther came near and touched the top of the scepter”) and Addition D (“then he raised the golden staff [𝔏𝔏 ‘the sceptre’, like 𝔐𝔐], and put it over her neck”). These two forms are quite different; moreover, according to 𝔏𝔏, the king has said just before: “Behold, the sceptre is in your hand.” Josephus seems to have a mixture of all these elements: “He placed the sceptre in her hand, and held out the staff over her neck.” The meaning is not obvious, but it broadly agrees with 𝔏𝔏; however, Josephus’ use of both “sceptre” and “staff” indicates that he read both words (maybe ‫ מקל‬for “staff”), one of them as a gloss. Ant. 11:273-283: the king’s edict, according to Est 8:12a-x 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 (Addition E); Est 8:10-12 𝔐𝔐-𝔊𝔊 has a summary of the letter that is ignored by Josephus, probably as a redundancy; 𝔏𝔏 gives later another summary of it (see 11:281 below). Ant. 11:280 πρὸ τῶν πυλῶν τῶν ἐν ΣούEst 8:12r 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 πρὸς ταῖς Σούσων πύλαις σοις ἀνεσταύρωσα µετὰ τῆς γενεᾶς ἐσταυρῶσθαι, 𝔊𝔊 adds σὺν τῇ πανοικίᾳ. Haman “has been hanged at the gates of Susa, with all his household (𝔏𝔏 om.)”. This contradicts the fact that Haman’s gallows was set up in his premises (Ant. 11:261; Est 7:9). 𝔏𝔏 om., then adds ἄγειν τὴν 14th τοῦ µηνός Ant. 11:281 τῇ 13th τοῦ = Est 8:12s 𝔊𝔊 th 12 µηνὸς ὅς ἐστιν Ἄδαρ ὅς ἐστιν Ἄδαρ, καὶ τῇ 15th ἑορθάσαι. The king allows the Jews to get their revenge “on the 13th of the 12th month, which is Adar”; 𝔏𝔏 replaces this with the decision of the Jews “to keep the 14th of the month, which is Adar, and to celebrate the 15th”; this anticipates Mordekai’s written records (9:20-28). Then 𝔏𝔏 appends to 8:14 a letter of Mordekai, which summarizes the king’s (see above 11:273).

VI – Conclusions The broad outline of the Esther story is clear, but Josephus’ version of the book differs from all other witnesses, as can be seen from the Greek Additions: it has most of them, unlike 𝔐𝔐, but A and F are absent, unlike 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏. As for the minute details, it has various additions and omissions, as well as scattered contacts with each one of them against the others: a) contacts with 𝔐𝔐 (§ III.2): the most striking case is that Josephus introduces Haman as an Amalekite (11:209); Josephus’ agreements with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐, especially about mentioning God, are rare (§ I.3); b) contacts with 𝔊𝔊 (§ I.1): nothing is significant, but the contacts of Josephus with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔊𝔊 are meaningful (§ II.1); c) contacts with 𝔏𝔏 (§ I.2): some additions in common with Josephus, but the main feature is 𝔏𝔏’s independence from the others, especially in the second half of the story (§ II.2). A good example of inconsistency is given at Ant. 11:256-7 (Est 6:10-11): Josephus and 𝔏𝔏



IX – EZRA-NEHEMIAH

259

have two additions against 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊, but they surround another 𝔏𝔏 addition that is ignored by all. No definite pattern of dependence emerges. The most that can be said is that Josephus’ source should be dated prior to 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏, or more accurately prior to their common source, for they are different. Incidentally, 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 are largely independent translations, and it seems that, beyond all the specific editings, various hands were at work: Haman becomes a Macedonian at 8:12k and 9:24 𝔊𝔊; the verb ‫ תלה‬is translated into either “hang” or “crucify”, whereas Josephus always puts “crucify”. Concerning the language of Josephus’ source, nothing compels us to view it as Greek, but there are positive clues that lean towards Hebrew: the race of Haman and the rendering of ‫תלה‬, as said above; some details of Josephus’ prose are best explained as Hebrew variants (§ IV.2). Of course, the fact that Josephus knew Additions B-E is no argument against this, for the colophon of 𝔊𝔊 proves that all Additions had a Hebrew origin.

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CONCLUSIONS It is certainly impossible to restore exactly Josephus’ Biblical sources, because his paraphrase is generally too loose. For this reason, some passages may have been overlooked, certain of our comments may have been overstated. However, the general picture is clear, and this study, as it stands in spite of its shortcomings, may provide some significant insight into the history of the texts, all the more so that the dating of Josephus’ works is reasonably clear. a) Josephus states that he “translated” a Hebrew Bible (AgAp 1:54), and the ten detailed chapters of this study show that on this point we have to believe him – but not on his accuracy or exhaustiveness. Moreover, his vorlage H was a reference copy, that is, a collection of scrolls, which had been stored in the Jerusalem temple until 70. From the various double readings and misreadings of Josephus, we can conclude that they included marginal glosses, as well as deteriorations due to extensive use. Some rare contacts with the Aramaic targums cannot imply that he saw them in written form. b) His Bible had the same books as 𝔐𝔐, which does not include Tobit, Judith or the Greek supplements of Daniel. He could have taken advantage of these stories, because he learned from the historians the chronology of the Persian period, from Cyrus through Alexander, and he took great pains to fill it up with the meager Biblical data. c) In spite of significant contacts with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏, i.e. their Hebrew sources, he never saw these Greek texts, but an opposite influence has surfaced, that some Greek translators or copyists glanced at Josephus’ works. For such a result, there is a simple criterion, when he uses the same word as 𝔊𝔊 and/or 𝔏𝔏: if it is common in Ant., but appears to be a hapax in 𝔊𝔊 and/or 𝔏𝔏, the assumption is that the latter borrowed from the former; but this was never done in a systematic way. This is not surprising, because of Josephus’ authority in Greek speaking circles and the availability of his works. This may have some consequences for the dating of the actual Greek forms of 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏. As for the content of each book in Josephus’ library, the relevant conclusions can be summarized as follows: a) The Pentateuch is stable; it has been transmitted in many ways, with a lot of minute variant readings. Josephus is just one witness



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among others, and his rendering is closer to the Hebrew vorlage of 𝔊𝔊 than to the others. b) The case of Josh is different: the source of Josephus was much shorter than the canonical form; it had contacts with some Qumran fragments, and above all undisputable similarities with the Samaritan parallel (Chronicles II); among other things, we can see that the allotment of the territories to the tribes has been a very flexible piece of literature. Josephus, who held the Samaritans as a deviant sect and despised them, cannot be suspected of having borrowed anything from them. Incidentally, the summary of Sir 46:1-10 is based on a shorter form of Josh, probably close to Josephus’. At Ant. 5:61, Josephus refers to a document kept in the temple, which corresponds to the Book of the Upright One, alluded to at Josh 10:13 𝔐𝔐 (the sun stopping). c) For Judg, important differences can be observed. Josephus seems to have had the stories of Dan’s migration and the Ephraim Levite, with the destruction of Benjamin (Josh 18–20), as floating documents: he put the second at the very beginning of the period, which is consistent with the (recovered) importance of Benjamin in 1 Sam; then, he attached the first to Judg 1:18 𝔐𝔐 (Judah had squeezed Dan’s territory). He did not report the story of Micah (Judg 17). After the judges, Josephus continues with Ruth, and he marvels about the outstanding detail that David was a commoner; thus, he ignores his genealogy according to Ruth 4:18-21 (and 1 Chr 2:3-12). d) For 1-2 Sam, when there is no 1-2 Chr parallels, Josephus has three major differences. Two of them are shared with longer variants of 4QSama: Samuel’s consecration as a permanent nazir, and king Nahash’s early conquests; the third is the omission of David’s dirge after Saul’s death, which “has survived until me”, Josephus says, whereas 2 Sam 1:19-27 quotes it as recorded in the same Book of the Righteous One; this means that for Josephus it was a separate document. Some lesser details are noteworthy: first, there are many contacts with 𝔏𝔏, but some disagreements, too; second, Ant. displays several double readings, probably from marginal glosses, of which some have been inserted in the wrong place. e) For the common sections of 2 Sam and 1 Chr, 4QSama has definite affinities with 1 Chr; therefore, it reflects an earlier form of 2 Sam. Josephus agrees with 1 Chr more often than with 2 Sam, and sometimes combines the two variants. f) For 1-2 Kgs, when there is no 1-2 Chr parallels, Josephus has two major differences: first, the exchange of the 1 Kgs chapters 20– 21, in agreement with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏; second, he ignores 2 Kgs 17:29-33, which shows a Samaritan syncretism. Elsewhere, Josephus admits

262

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that the Samaritan Yahwism is decent, albeit with some decline; he just reproaches them their doubtful origins. g) For the common sections of 1-2 Kgs and 1-2 Chr, there is no useful Qumran document. Josephus used first Kgs, then Chr as complements; in several cases, he inserts an additional detail of one into a long story of the other, and we may suspect that this was the position in his sources. As for the content, Josephus’ Chr had two remarkable features: first, about the genealogies of the high priests, he knows much more than 1 Chr, without invoking “documents kept in the temple”; second, his copy of 2 Chr included the Prayer of Manasseh. In view of these remarks and the observations made about 12 Sam, we can conclude that his 1-2 Chr was different from ours, but nothing more can be ventured here.1 h) Josephus knew the Prophets, but he used them only for his historical purpose. He gives a short summary of the book of Jonah, introduced by the time of Jeroboam II of Israel, and another brief account of Nahum, during the reign of king Jotam of Judah. He used the longer 𝔐𝔐 Jeremiah as a complement to 2 Kgs for the end of the monarchy, but the sources are not consistent, and the result is a cumbersome story, all the more so that he strove to insert it into the historical frame of the Greek historians. Of Dan, he omitted some eschatological chapters, and got swamped in chronological problems, because Dan 1–4 still runs by the time of Nebuchadnezzar. i) For Ezra, Josephus’ version is very close to 1 Esdras, known only in Greek, but with two major differences: first, he did not know 1 Esd 1, another translation of 2 Chr 35–36; second, he adds at the end a feast of the Tabernacles, unknown to 1 Esd (but given in the parallel Neh 8). The study of some features, especially the contest of the bodyguards, shows that both depend on the same Hebrew source, each one with little additions and omissions, and that the Greek 1 Esd depends heavily on Ant., and not the other way around. As for Neh, Josephus’ source is much shorter than the book: Nehemiah was mainly a builder, as at Sir 49:13 (which ignores Ezra); some details allow us to distinguish more clearly between Nehemiah’s narrow city wall and Eliashib’s much larger one. j) The book of Esther has been transmitted in several forms, from which it is impossible to restore the Hebrew original: first, 𝔐𝔐 is shorter than 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏, but its verses are often longer; second, the latter contain six large Additions (A-F). Josephus knew Additions B-E, and his overall source was in Hebrew. 1 Konrad SCHMID, The Old Testament: A Literary History (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2012), p. 187, reckons with updates and additions into the Hasmonean era; see too Reinhard G. KRATZ, The Composition of the Narrative Books of the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2005).



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Besides the Biblical text and the Jewish interpretive traditions, Josephus has sometimes a kind of parallel accounts, which may reflect ancient sources. This appears especially about Abraham; some passages are worth quoting. Josephus is faithful to Genesis when he has it before his eyes, but otherwise he may offer unexpected details. At Ant. 1:152, he says that “Terah came to hate Chaldea because of the loss of his lamented brother Haran, and they all migrated to Harran in Mesopotamia”. This could be held as a somewhat skewed interpretation of Gen 11:31 “Terah… went forth from Ur of the Chaldea to go into the land of Canaan, but when they came to Harran they settled there”. But, according to Ant. 1:181, God told Jacob: “It was I that led Abraham here from Mesopotamia when he was driven out by his relatives”, which is very different from the supposed source Gen 28:13, but resembles an addition to be found in the Slavonic version of War 1:164. All this cannot have been extracted from Gen as it stands. A different example is given at War 5:379: Josephus is urging the besieged Jerusalemites to surrender, because it is futile to wage war against Rome. He takes Abraham as an example: “Nechao, also called Pharaoh, the reigning king of Egypt, came down with a prodigious host and carried off Sarah, a princess and the mother of our race. Then, what action did her husband Abraham, our forefather, take? Did he avenge himself on the abductor by weapons? He did have 318 officers under him, each one in command of a vast army. Or did he not rather count these as nothing if unassisted by God? He raised pure hands towards this spot, which you have now polluted, to enlist the invincible ally on his side. And was not the queen, after one night’s absence, sent back immaculate to her husband, while the Egyptian, in awe for the spot you have tainted, fled, bestowing silver and gold to the Hebrews?” This is more of a patchwork of several passages showing Abraham as a ranking foreigner, that is, a kind of midrash that does not necessarily imply other sources.

ABBREVIATIONS add. AgAp Ak. Ant. aram. b... CAQUOT

Addition. Against Apion (Contra Apionem). Akila’s translation, see Field. JOSEPHUS, The Jewish Antiquities. Aramaic. (e.g. : b.Yoma 11b) Talmud of Babylon (Babli), folio, page. André Caquot & Philippe de Robert, Les livres de Samuel (Com. de l’Ancien Testament, 6 ; Genève: Labor et Fides, 1994). CD The Cairo Document. Codd Codices (all the mss). cor. Correction. DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (of Jordan) (Oxford; Clarendon, 42 vol., 1955-2010). Edd Modern editors (textual criticism). err. Error. FELDMAN Louis H. FELDMAN, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (19371980) (Berlin & New York: W. de Gruyter, 1984). Field Fridericus FIELD, Origenis hexaplorum quae supersunt (Oxford: Clarendon, 1875); presents the variants witnessed by Ak., Sym., Theod. and Or. 𝔊𝔊 (A, B, S…) Text of the Septuagint (major mss, Rahlfs’ edition). GINZBERG Louis GINZBERG, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 7 vols., 1909-38). hapax hapaxlegomenon. HN PLINY THE ELDER, Historia naturalis, Loeb Classical Library, 1966-1979; Budé collection, 1947-1977. Ibn Ezra R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, a major medieval exegete of the Hebrew Bible. j... (e.g. : j.Yoma 3:2, p. 40b) Talmud of Jerusalem (Yerushalmi). Jastrow Marcus JASTROW, Dictionary of Talmud Babli, Yerushalmi, Midrashic Literature and Targumim (New York: Putnam, 1903). Ket Ketib (𝔐𝔐). 𝔏𝔏 “Lucianic” recension of 𝔊𝔊. Le Déaut Roger LE DÉAUT, Targum du Pentateuque (SC, 245, 246, 261, 271; Paris: Éd. du Cerf, 1978-80). Life JOSEPHUS, Autobiography.



ABBREVIATIONS

265

JOSEPHUS, Works, transl. by Henry St. J. THACKERAY, Ralf MARCUS, Allan WIKGREN & Louis H. FELDMAN (Loeb Classical Library; London / Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 9 Vol., 1926-65). Luc. “Lucianic” recension of 𝔊𝔊. 𝔐𝔐 The Massoretic Hebrew Bible. m... (e.g. : m.Pea 3:2) Mishnah, tractate, chapter, mishnah. Mez Adam MEZ, Die Bibel des Josephus, untersucht für Buch V-VII der Archäologie (Basel: Jaeger & Kober, 1894) ms., mss Manuscript(s). n., nn. Note, notes. Niese FLAVII IOSEPHI Opera (ed. Benedikt NIESE; Berlin: Weidmann, 7 vol., 1885-95) (ed. maior). Niese2 FLAVII IOSEPHI Opera (ed. Benedikt NIESE; Berlin: Weidmann, 6 vol., 1888-95) (ed. minor). om. omit(s), omission. Onomast. Stefan TIMM, Eusebius von Caesarea: Das Onomastikon der biblischen Ortsnamen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005). Or. Origen’s Hexapla, see Field; p. page(s); parallel(s). Qer Qere (𝔐𝔐). Rashi Rabbi Shelomoh Yitzhaki, a major medieval exegete of the Hebrew Bible and Talmud. RENGSTORF Karl H. RENGSTORF (ed.), A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus, Leiden, Brill, 22002. Schalit Abraham SCHALIT, Namenwörterbuch zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 1968). Schlatter Adolf SCHLATTER, “Die hebräischen Namen bei Josephus”, in: Kleinere Schriften zu Flavius Josephus (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970; first published 1913). SCHÜRER-VERMES Emil SCHÜRER, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (updated by Geza VERMES et al.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1973-86). Stern Menahem STERN, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Magnes, 3 vol., 1974-84). Sym. Symmachus’ translation, see Field. t... (e.g. t.Yoma) Tosefta, tractate, chapter, halakha. Theodor J. Theodor & Ch. Albeck, Bereschit Rabba, mit kritischem Apparat und Kommentar (Berlin: Poppelauer, 1912-27). TNeof Neofiti Targum, see Le Déaut. TOnk Onkelos Targum, see Alexander SPERBER, The Bible in AramaLoeb

266

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

ic. Vol. I: The Pentateuch according to Targum Onkelos (Leiden: Brill, 1959). Tosefta kifshutah Saul LIEBERMAN, Tosefta kifshutah (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 10 vols., 1955-1988). TYon Ps.-Jonathan Targum, see Le Déaut. Theod. Theodotion’s translation, see Field. var. Variant reading. VetLat Vetus Latina. Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel, nach P. Sabatier neu gesammelt (Freiburg/B: Herder, 1949-). War JOSEPHUS, The Jewish War. Whiston William WHISTON, The Works of Josephus, Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, New Edition 1987 – 11736).

INDEXES JOSEPHUS War

1:3 1:13 1:32 1:32 1:67 1:164 2:119 2:152 2:573 4:512 5:391 6:103 7:15

4 62 221 222 7 263 6 28 54 13 175, 183 162 3

Antiquities 1:s8 1:8 1:13 1:25 1:27 1:33 1:34 1:36 1:37 1:39 1:51 1:52 1:54 1:58 1:60 1:63 1:73 1:77 1:104 1:110 1:124 1:126 1:128 1:129 1:129 1:135 1:137

5 8 3 18 11 4, 24, 31 17 5, 24 15 4, 35 19 35 24 11 20 33 20 35 24 11 27 36 24, 160 12 24 24 20, 27, 33

1:138 1:139 1:143 1:145 1:147 1:148 1:149 1:151 1:152 1:153 1:159 1:171 1:173 1:174 1:180 1:181 1:185 1:192 1:198 1:207 1:220 1:222 1:226 1:236 1:238 1:241 1:252 1:259 1:262 1:265 1:274 1:302 1:304 1:307 1:310 1:334 1:336 1:337 1:342 1:345 2:2 2:4 2:5

27, 31, 35 160 27 29 35 31 35 11, 27 263 35 20 11 27 15 24 24, 263 15 31 24 21 29 11 127 31 36 36 36 20 35 30 21 16 4 16 25 29 25 25 33 11 11 13, 33 33, 254

2:31 2:64 2:91 2:168 2:172 2:176 2:178 190 2:180 2:182 2:183 2:190 2:203 2:206 2:259 2:263 2:264 2:265 2:303 2:313 2:315 2:318 2:347 3:7 3:12 3:21 3:35 3:38 3:40 3:106 3:130 3:136 3:151 3:156 3:162f 3:165 3:165f 3:168 3:194 3:220 3:225 3:235 3:237

30 36 11, 13, 16 33 21 27 29, 30, 36, 36 36 21 30 16 16, 31 190 31 13 27 25 4 112 32 3 37 37 37 66 3, 199 254 38 34 6 4 4 77 25 187 25 27 18 18 227 189

3:241 3:250 3:252 3:253 3:256 3:257 3:258 3:261 3:294 3:295 3:300 3:305 3:318 3:383 4:7 4:14 4:47 4:67 4:71 4:72 4:73 4:78 4:82 4:83 4:84 4:115 4:125 4:150 4:153 4:154 4:161 4:166 4:176 158 4:194 4:197 4:213 4:214 4:219 4:225 4:228 4:253 4:255

38 22 4 13 51 25 183 147 38 38 13 15, 31 5 32 17 22 23 21 113 22 22, 34 173 22 22 11 25 34 26 32 28, 34, 38 29 28, 34, 53, 23 4 29 37 138 23 27 26 17

268 4:257 28 4:274 38 4:281 21 4:287 37 4:302 34 4:303 3, 199 4:313 17 4:327 22 4:327 34 5:s4 67 5:2f 46 5:4 54 5:7 11, 51 5:8 51 5:9 53 5:13 52 5:17f 46 5:20 46, 55 5:21f 51 5:31 52 5:33 51, 52, 54 5:34 5, 46 5:35 47, 52 5:47 52 5:49 47 5:50 53 5:58 54 5:60 53, 143 5:61 3, 47, 53, 55, 117, 199, 230, 261 5:62 53 5:62f 47 5:63 54, 61 5:68 50 5:73 53 5:76f 48 5:79 54 5:81f 45, 48 5:82 53 5:83 51, 53, 110 5:84 54 5:91 48 5:93 54 5:96f 48 5:114 53 5:115f 50 5:120 58 5:121 63, 66 5:124 67 5:125 60 5:127 64 5:128 60 5:130 61 5:137 68

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

5:142 5:149 5:150 5:156 5:166 5:176 5:177 5:177f 5:178 5:180 5:182 5:186 5:188 5:197 5:199 5:200 5:201 5:202 5:207 5:208 5:212 5:213 5:214 5:219 5:224 5:228 5:229 5:232 5:233 5:234 5:235 5:240 5:241 5:249 5:254 5:260 5:261 5:263 5:265 5:269 5:270 5:271 5:273 5:274 5:276 5:283 5:285 5:288 5:289 5:290 5:291 5:292 5:294 5:296

60 68 66 63 62 69 62 69 66 62 67 62 61 13, 58, 64 53 63 63 52, 58 61 58, 61 67 64 61, 64 36, 61 64 61 61 62 64 33 58, 65 65 62 58 62, 65 62, 65 61 63 65 67 60, 67 62 62, 65 65 62 65 63, 113 58 59 59 59 59 59 67

5:297 5:300 5:303 5:305 5:306 5:308 5:311 5:312 5:317 5:318 5:323 5:326 5:327 5:336 5:337 5:339 5:340 5:341 5:342 5:345 5:346 5:347 5:352 5:353 5:358 5:359 5:360 107 5:361 6:2 6:3 6:8 6:8f 6:11 6:12 6:15 6:16 6:18 6:19 6:22 6:28 6:31 6:32 6:35 6:38 6:40 6:41 6:45 6:48 6:50 6:52 6:54 6:55 6:56

62, 63 59, 92 66 60 67 66 60 67 67 60 63 63 62 64 68, 69 99 99 75 107 93, 116 99, 106 113 75, 99 107, 113 113 100 5, 100, 106,

6:57 6:61 6:65 6:66 6:68 6:68f 6:75 6:77 6:78 6:79 6:83 6:94 6:95 6:98 6:101 6:105 6:107 6:110 6:115 6:116 6:120 6:122 6:125 6:126 6:128 6:129 6:132 6:134 195 6:135 87 6:136 87 6:137 93 6:139 75 6:152 75, 93 6:153 100 6:154 75 6:155 76 6:156 108 6:157 87 6:158 106 6:161 93, 107 6:166 108 6:171 93, 108 6:175f 108 6:179 87 6:182 76, 87 6:185 76, 100, 113 6:186 93, 100 6:189 100 6:191 71, 76, 108 6:192 76, 100 6:193 76 6:194 71, 88, 100 6:196 93, 107 6:205

108 72 101 101 76 113, 116 101 101 101, 113 101 76 93 93, 113 108 101 108 93 109 77 77 113 114 101 49 94, 109 77, 94, 114 115 77 77 77 254 77 88 77 77 78, 94 107 69 88, 94, 109 71, 109 73 73, 78, 101 102 78 109 94 73, 94 102 78 109 78 78, 102 78 78

6:213 6:217 6:221 6:222 6:225 6:226 6:232 6:233 6:235 6:236 6:237 6:239 6:240 6:242 6:243 6:244 6:245 6:247 6:248 6:249 6:251 6:253 6:256 6:259 6:270 6:273 6:274 6:280 6:282 6:284 6:290 6:291 6:295 6:296 6:302 6:303 6:307 6:309 6:310 6:311 6:312 6:313 6:314 6:315 6:319 6:323 6:324 6:325 6:326 6:327 6:330 6:333 6:335 6:336

INDEXES

102 78 102 78 102, 109 79 79, 88 102 79 102 73, 102 79, 110 110 102 114 79 79, 161 110 72 79 72 110 80 102 73 80 103 88 80 80 80 80 88 73 107 94 80 103, 110 89 80, 110 95 74, 114 81 103 103 95 103 114 103 103 110 103 95 110

6:338 6:339 6:352 6:354 6:355 6:359 6:364 6:370 6:371 6:374 6:376 6:377 7:s13 7:1 7:6 7:9 7:10 7:11 7:15 7:17 7:21 7:23 7:23 7:24 7:30 7:31 7:34 7:35 7:36 7:43 7:45 7:46 115 7:48 7:54 7:55f 7:60 7:61 7:61f 7:64 7:65 7:66 7:67 7:70 7:71 7:76 7:77 7:78 7:79 7:81 7:83 7:85 7:86 7:87

114 103 95 89 81 104 115 115 95 123 104 72 125 72 53, 115, 117 81 5, 59, 107 111 74 72 95, 104, 142 89 115 89 111 81, 115 81 96 81 96 104 53, 96, 111, 82 115 126 157 115, 123 128 118 104 118 107 96 96 96 119 82, 119 97 119, 127 97 82, 123 74 82

7:88 7:92 7:93 7:94 7:95 7:98 7:99 7:100 7:104 7:105 7:106 7:107 7:108 7:109 7:110 7:113 7:116 7:117 7:119 7:121 7:126 7:127 7:128 7:129 127 7:130 7:131 7:132 7:142 7:150 7:154 7:156 7:158 7:159 7:160 7:161 7:162 7:164 7:172 7:173 7:174 7:178 7:181 7:186 7:189 7:190 7:191 7:196 7:197 7:199 7:202 7:203 7:207 7:208

269 82 126 123 175 69, 104 111, 123 97, 123 104 97, 179 83, 111 83, 119 83 111 119, 124 119 97, 111 89 97 104 119, 120 97 89, 124 120, 124 124, 125, 97 116, 160 97 98 104 89 98 83, 112 112 125 120 83, 98 89 72 83 84, 112 84, 90 84 84 91 85 85 90 85, 90 85 85 85, 98 90 90

7:209 7:210 7:211 7:213 7:215 7:218 7:219 7:222 7:225 7:226 7:228 7:230 7:233 7:234 7:235 7:236 7:238 7:239 7:240 7:241 7:242 7:243 7:245 7:246 7:247 7:250 7:256 7:257 7:259 7:262 7:264 7:266 7:267 7:268 7:272 7:274 7:284 7:288 169 7:289 7:293 7:294 7:296 7:298 7:301 7:302 7:307 7:308 7:309 7:310 7:315 7:318 7:319 7:320

105 90 98 105 90 98 105 98 90 98 90, 98, 105 90, 99 90 105 72 91 91 91 91 74, 105 99 99, 188 91 85 91 91 85 105 106, 112 92 116 92 86 86 86 92 106 86, 99, 106, 86 86, 92, 106 92 112 92, 116 121 121 112 92, 116, 118 92 92 86, 92, 118 121 121 121

270 7:321 106 7:326 86 7:327f 122 7:329 86, 122 7:330 122, 129 7:331 122, 124 7:333 127, 176 7:334 126 7:335 126, 167 7:337f 164 7:345 142 7:346 134, 163 7:358 150 7:359 142 7:360 133, 164 7:362 149, 189 7:363 127, 183 7:364 183 7:368 190 7:370 189 7:371 126 7:378 187 7:385 134 7:389 157 8:7 134, 142 8:12 195 8:13 134, 140 8:16 149 8:17 134 8:20 142 8:21 149, 152 8:22 126, 167, 212 8:24 175 8:27 134, 149 8:31 141 8:35 157, 164 8:36 142, 149, 157, 164 8:37 52, 142, 149 8:38 149 8:39 150 8:40f 150 8:42 132 8:43 150 8:44 150 8:50 150, 152 8:51f 175 8:54 142 8:57 175 8:58f 175 8:59 126, 142, 167

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

8:59 8:59 8:60 8:60 8:61 8:61 8:67 8:70f 8:71 8:72 8:76 8:77 8:78 8:79 8:80 8:81 8:83 8:84 8:85 8:88 177 8:91 8:99 8:100 8:103 8:106 8:111 8:118f 8:123 8:126 8:130f 8:133 8:134 8:140 8:142 8:150 8:151 8:152 8:162 8:163 8:164 8:181 8:188 8:191 8:198 8:199 8:201 8:203 8:205 8:206 8:207 8:208 8:209 8:210

142 167 150 176 127 176 134 195 177 167 176 176 151 151 168 135, 142 151 142 133, 165 133, 135, 227 230 177 177 177 178 168 135, 178 178 134 135, 150 151 179 151 135 143, 151 143 152 178 178 157, 207 152, 179 152 153 135 143, 152 152 135, 157 136, 143 136, 153 136 136 143

8:211 8:212 179 8:217 8:219 8:221 8:223 8:226 8:230 8:231 8:232 8:234 8:236 8:236f 8:237 8:238 8:242 8:246 187 8:247 8:248 8:249 8:250 8:252 8:254 8:259 8:263 8:264 8:266 8:274 8:286 8:287 8:288 8:291 8:292 8:293 8:294 8:299 8:303 8:305 8:306 8:307 8:310 8:311 8:312 8:315 8:317 8:318 8:319 8:320 8:325 8:327 8:329 8:329f

158 143, 153, 143 143 153 180 132 164 168 11, 164 143 136 164 136 158 153, 158 67, 147, 187 189 188 189 195 190 179 180 168 164 190 188 137, 153 144 189 184 190 191 147 144 169 93, 180 144 144, 147 137, 153 147 4, 159,166 144 51, 141 144, 158 144 144 153, 207 144 159

8:337 8:338 8:339 8:340 8:341 8:343 8:344 8:348 8:349 8:351 8:352 8:355 8:358 8:360 8:361f 8:362 8:363 8:367 8:371 8:372 8:374 8:377 8:383 8:384 8:385 8:387 8:389 8:390 8:392 8:393 8:394 8:396 8:397 8:398 8:400 8:401 8:403 8:406 8:410 8:412 8:413 8:414 8:415 8:416 8:417 9:s14 9:s16 9:3 9:6 9:7 9:8 9:10 9:11 9:14

153 158 154 154 154 154 144 137 137, 144 137 144, 158 145 137, 138 155 155 11, 155 154 137 154 137, 154 154 137 158 145 154 145, 159 159 137 145, 159 191 184 191 188 169 159, 169 180 145, 159 159 155 138 169 11, 145 138 133, 138 138, 155 161 161 189 188 189 184 184 188, 191 191

9:16 9:17 9:19 9:20 9:27 9:29 9:32 9:36 9:37 9:41 9:43 9:47 9:48 9:49 9:51 9:52 9:53 9:58 9:64 9:68 9:70 9:73 9:77 9:79 9:83 9:88 9:90 9:92 9:96 169 9:97 9:98 191 9:102 9:104 9:105 9:108 9:113 9:114 9:117 9:119 9:121 9:122 9:123 9:134 9:136 9:139 9:140 9:141 9:143 9:148 184 9:149 9:150

INDEXES

191 180 145 155 138, 141 155 132 155 146 139 139, 174 159 145 141 146, 159 139 139 160 132 160 164 146 160 156 139 146 146 160 11, 146, 170 146, 148, 190, 191 170 145 139 139 156 11, 160 140, 141 161, 181 140 140 146 191 132, 207 170 170 170 170, 171, 181 171

9:151 9:152 9:156 9:157 9:158 9:159 9:160 9:161 9:162 9:163 9:164 9:165 9:165f 9:168 9:170 9:171 9:172 9:173 9:176 9:178 9:184 9:185 9:186f 9:189 9:191 9:192 9:194 9:197 9:199 9:203 9:204 9:206 9:208 9:211 9:213 9:214 9:215 9:216 9:217 9:218 9:225 9:227 9:229 9:236 9:237 9:239 9:241 9:243 9:244 9:245 9:247 9:251 9:253 9:259

161 171 171 146, 171 171 146 146 172, 191 171, 178 172, 181 172 172 172 188 181 172 172 146 140 161 156 141 161 179, 191 173 184 191 146 147, 173 147 173 147 3, 207, 208 207 207 207 141, 156 147 192 192 185 33, 147, 173 147 161 173, 190 208 208 173 147 156 185, 188 188 161 147

9:260 9:268 9:273 9:274 9:277 9:278 9:279 9:288 9:289 9:290 9:290f 9:291 9:299 10:1 10:4 10:5 10:8 10:13 10:17 10:18 10:21 10:23 10:27 10:30 10:35 10:36 10:37 10:39 10:40 10:41 10:44f 10:46 182 10:47 10:48 10:50 10:52 10:53 10:55 10:58 10:65 10:67 10:70 10:72 10:73 10:75 10:76 10:77 10:79 10:81 10:83 10:84 10:84f 10:86

271 174 189 190 162 156 162 140 140 161 140, 165 44 43, 162 147 147 148 148 148 162 148 199 3 148 174 162, 185 206 182 174, 182 182 185 186 198 157, 174, 141, 182 148, 157 186 186 184, 195 189 174 162, 182 158 189 174 174 186 186, 225 187 206 148 148, 162 213 213 212

10:87 10:88f 10:95 10:97 10:98 215 10:99 10:100 10:101 10:102 10:103 10:112f 10:114 10:116 10:118 10:120 10:121 10:122 10:124 10:126 10:131 10:134 10:135 10:141 10:144 10:145 10:146 10:149 10:150 10:151 10:154 10:155 10:156 10:158 10:161 10:164 10:168 10:170 10:173 10:175 10:178 10:186 10:189 10:190 10:194 10:195 10:196 10:197 10:198 10:199 10:200 10:207 10:209 10:210

182 183 211, 213 211 149, 162, 183 163 163, 212 175, 183 183, 206 187 211 212, 213 214 206 13, 214 214 214 214 215 215 213, 214 211 220 8 163 216, 217 187, 217 187, 195 211 216 214 211 216 211 216 211, 215 212 215, 216 211, 212 219 221 219 219, 222 219, 222 221 219 220 222 222 221 220, 224 220, 224

272 10:212 10:213 10:214 10:216 10:218 10:229 10:233 10:234 10:237 10:243 10:247 10:249 10:263 10:267 10:270 10:271 11:1 11:5 11:6 11:8 11:9 11:11 11:12 234 11:13 230 11:15 11:16 11:17 11:18 11:19 239 11:20 11:21 11:22 11:25 11:26 11:27 11:28 11:29 11:30 11:32 11:33 11:33f 11:38f 11:46 11:47 11:48 11:49 11:50 11:51

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

223 222, 223 220, 223 222 3, 224 217 220 223 223 221 222 220 221 224 222 221 232 206, 226 226, 228 235 226, 231 227, 231 227, 232, 228, 229, 227 227 227, 232 228 228, 235, 240 235 230-233 232 231, 232 233 233 228 235, 240 227, 228 237 236 237 238 238 238 238 238 238

11:54 11:55 11:60 11:61 11:66 11:67 11:68f 11:73 229 11:74 11:75 11:76 11:77 11:78 11:79 11:80 11:85 11:89 11:92 11:97 11:99 11:102 11:106 11:106f 11:107 11:108 11:109 11:114f 11:118 11:120 240 11:121 11:123 11:131f 11:137 11:140 11:145 11:147 11:148 11:151 11:154 11:157 11:159 11:159f 11:160 243 11:165 11:167 11:168 11:174 11:177

239 239 241 239 239 228, 239 228 187, 227, 233 229 227 229, 231 233, 234 234 229 229 232, 234 229 230, 231 232 230 227 230 234, 235 234 235 230 230, 231 230, 233, 234 234, 241 230 235 231 231 235 236 231 231, 235 226 245 246 230, 240, 243 243 244 244, 245 244, 245

11:179 244 11:180 244, 245 11:181 245 11:182 226, 245 11:184 240, 250 11:186 236 11:187 249, 250 11:188 250, 255, 256, 257 11:190 250 11:192 249 11:193 248 11:194 255 11:195 251 11:197 251 11:198 251, 255, 256 11:200 255 11:202 256 11:203 254, 256 11:204 251, 256 11:207 253 11:208 228, 252, 254 11:209 248, 254, 258 11:210 254 11:211 254 11:216 257 11:218 257 11:219 251 11:222f 251 11:225 249 11:227 249 11:228 251 11:229f 257 11:239 257 11:242 254 11:243 251 11:244 249, 254 11:245 254 11:246 252, 256 11:247 250 11:254 251, 254 11:255 251, 255 11:256 249, 252 11:256f 258 11:257 249, 251 11:259 250, 252 11:260 252 11:261 254, 256

11:262 11:263 11:264 11:265 11:266 11:267 11:269 11:270f 11:273 11:273f 11:274 11:280 11:281 11:285 11:288 11:289 11:290 11:292 11:295 11:297 11:302 11:340 12:13f 12:257 13:171 13:256 13:288 15:371 18:12 18:109 18:259 20:27 20:231 20:259 20:263 20:267

Life 9 188 418 430

252 252 252 252 254, 256 253 253 253 258 258 254 258 258 253 253, 256 253, 255, 256 253, 255, 256 256, 257 36, 248 240 45, 240 43 242 43 6 29 7 7 7 173 18 8 187 8 4 8, 18 4 54 3 8

Against Apion 1:31 1:39 1:40 1:50 1:54 1:154 1:174

231 3, 23 206 4 260 163, 230 107



INDEXES

273

BIBLE Genesis

1:2 2:2 2:7 2:8 2:14 2:23 3:2 3:20 3:24 4:2 4:4 4:13 4:15 4:16 4:18 4:24 5:29 6:2 6:4 7:13 10:1 10:2 10:3 10:4 10:7 10:13 10:14 10:17 10:18 10:22 10:23 10:26 10:29 11:2 11:18 11:28 11:29 11:31 12:6 12:14 14:1 14:5 14:8 14:11 14:17 14:18 15:7 15:11 15:13 15:16

11 24, 31 17 15 35 24 5 24 19, 42 35 24, 34 11 20 20 33 20, 33 12, 29 20 15 35 31 27 219 24, 160 24 20 27, 33 31 27, 35 27 29 38 35 11 31, 35 27 11 27, 263 24 83 27 15, 60 156 24 35 24 27 15 32 25

15:20 15 17:14 31 18:12 24 18:27 182 19:22 24 20:2 20 21:33 15 22:2 24 22:13 31, 36 22:24 35 23:8 36 24:33 36 25:4 36 25:14 29 25:34 11 26:7 21 27:20 21 27:38 21, 34 27:42 102 28:13 263 30:14 16 30:15 20 31:19 25 32:31 29 33:6 190 33:16 25 34:2 25 35:4 33 35:8 11 35:16 61 36:2 30 36:11 33 36:22 35 36:24 30 37:24 30 40:11 36 41:45 11, 13, 16 43:34 97 45:26 33 45:47 168 46:2 21 46:13 29, 30, 36, 61, 190 46:16 36 46:17 21 46:21 36 46:27 27 46:28 26 47:11 16 47:21 30 48:18 20

49:10

Exodus 1:11 1:15 1:22 2:16 3:1 3:1 4:2 4:20 8:21 12:40 13:13 13:18 14:2 15:1f 15:25 16:3 17:4 18:1 21:6 21:29 21:37 22:10 25:5 25:15 25:20 26:7 26:15 28:9 28:9f 28:20 28:42 30:13 30:18 30:40 33:11 36:5 38:20 40:31

11 16 16 31 13 13 27 21 105 25 32 21 25, 54 112 46 37 37 37 64 37 21, 42 104 37 16, 41 6 177 34 16 25 187 25 25 27 178 21 37, 38 38 16 168

Leviticus 10:3 14:12 15:6 16:10 16:27 19:19 23:11 23:15

21 38 22 39 38 27 22 4, 22

23:17 23:18 24:16 25:9 25:10 27:2

101 13 28 72 5 22

Numbers 2:1f 3:35 4:3f 6:1f 7:13 10:9 10:10 10:29 11:34 11:35 12:16 13:9 13:22 13:23 13:32 14:6f 14:45 16:1 16:26 16:30 19:3 20:1 20:28 23:10 24:4 24:7 25:5 25:6 25:8 26:24 28:17 31:8 32:1 32:42 33:49 34:17f 34:21 35:4 35:7 37:8f

126 111 183 113 18 72 38 64 25 38 13 107 15, 60 62 118 55 32 17 93 22, 36 38 34 22 11 25 254 32 34 26 29, 30 13 28, 38 29 48 28, 53 48 27 23 48 48

Deuteronomy 1:3

34

274 1:36 2:11 2:20 3:4 3:11 6:8 8:8 10:3 10:22 11:29 11:30 12:5 17:6 19:14 21:3 21:12 22:1 22:9 24:1 25:7 27:5 27:32 28:68 31:9 32:49

Joshua 1:10f 1:12 2:1 2:1f 2:6 2:14 2:15 2:18f 3:1 4:3 4:12 4:12f 4:20 4:21f 5:2f 5:9 5:12 5:13f 5:30f 6:1f 6:26 141 7:1 7:2 7:21 7:26 8:1f

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

55 15 15 88 15 29 62 17 27 55 47, 48 55 138 23 94 28 38 27 26 17 55 47 17 23 158 46 56 11, 51, 53 46 53 51, 52 51 52 53 255 54 54 47 46 46, 53 5 51 50 48 47 51, 52, 111, 51, 54 52 52 47 47

8:18 55 8:26 52 8:30f 47 9:2 47 9:10 54 9:17 53 10:1 63 10:1f 47 10:2 21 10:5 54 10:8f 56 10:10 53, 90 10:11f 55 10:12 115, 117 10:13 3, 53, 199, 230, 261 10:43 53 11:1f 47 11:5 54 11:6 97 12:4 15 12:24 53 13:12 15 13:21 38 14:13f 55 15:1f 48 15:13f 56 15:51 90 15:56 110 16:5f 51 16:10 152 17:1f 56 17:8 147 17:11 52 17:15 15 18:9 54 18:16 185 18:23 13, 61 19:15 62 19:22 52 19:27 151 20:7f 48 21:1f 48 21:13 146 22:1f 48 23:1 50 24:1 50 24:30 53

Judges 1:1 1:2 1:4 1:5

58 58 66 63

1:7 1:16 1:17 1:18 1:19 1:20 1:23 1:34 2:11f 2:13 3:3 3:8 3:8 3:9 3:12 3:15 3:30 3:31 4:1 4:4 4:6 4:8 4:9 4:11 4:14 4:14 4:17 4:21 5:9 6:1 6:7f 6:11 6:15 6:17f 7:10 7:12 7:13 8:5 8:31 8:32 9:4 9:6 9:22 9:26 9:41 9:48 10:4 10:5 11:1f 11:3 11:6 11:11 11:33 11:37

66 64 191 62, 69, 261 60 15, 49, 60 61 62, 69 57 53 61, 150 62 69 67 62 61, 63 58 13, 64 64 63 63 58 80 64 52 58 61 58, 61 53 67 67 61, 64 61 64, 65 36, 61 64 61 61 64, 65 62 58 58 65 62 64 58 62, 65 62 63 62 65 61, 65 63 65

12:6 12:7 12:8 12:13 12:14 12:15 13:2 13:4 13:19 13:24 14:9 14:11 14:14 14:15 14:19 14:20 15:6 15:8 15:8 15:14 15:15 15:19 16:3 16:4 16:7 16:11 16:13 16:14 16:25 16:31 18:1f 18:2 18:7 18:24 19:2 19:18 19:30 20:1 20:16 21:14

Ruth 1:1 1:2 1:20 2:1 2:1 2:18 2:23 4:17 4:18f

67 60, 67 62 65 65 62, 65 62 113 64, 65, 66 63 58 59 59 59 74 59 67 62 63 59 59 66, 92 60 67 66 60 60 67 60 67 48 69 66 21 68 60 68 66 61, 63 62 57 60 63 63, 151 151 63 62 64 68, 69, 261

1 Samuel 1:1

94, 107

1:2 1:6 1:11 1:17 1:20 1:22 2:22 2:24 2:25 4:1 4:2 4:3 4:10 4:13 4:15 4:18 4:19 4:21 5:3 5:6 6:1 6:2 6:7 6:8 6:9 6:14 6:17 6:20 6:21 7:1 7:2 7:6 7:11 7:12 7:15 7:16 8:2 8:5 8:8 8:12 8:16 9:1 9:2 9:8 9:13 9:16 9:17 9:22 9:25 10:1 10:3 10:4 10:5 10:8

INDEXES

117 75 113, 116 93 99, 106 113 99 99 109 75 99 107 113 113 100 100 107 5, 100, 106 87 87 108 75 93 75, 93 100 75 93 76 119 71 87 106 93 107 69 108 93, 108 76, 108, 117 87 76, 87 76, 100, 113 69, 93 100 100 100 76, 108 71 76, 100 76 76 71, 88 100 93, 107 108

10:10 10:11 10:19 10:23 10:24 10:27 11:5 11:7 11:8 11:11 11:15 11:17 12:25 13:2 13:3 13:8 13:16 14:1 14:3 14:8 14:18 14:23 14:32 14:33 14:36 14:40 14:41f 14:45 14:47 14:48 14:49 15:1f 15:4 15:5 15:9 15:27 15:29 15:31 15:32 15:33 15:34 16:1 16:2 16:4 16:5 16:6f 16:11 16:14 17:1 17:4 17:6 17:7 17:11 17:12f

82 21 72 101 101 76, 113, 116 101 101 113 101 76 109 93 108, 113 93, 108 101 108 93 114 109 77 77 114 93, 113 114 101 101 94, 109 77, 114 114 94, 115 115 77 77, 88 77 88, 114 77 77 78, 254 78 94, 107, 144 69 94 109 88 109 88 73 101, 118 78, 118 73 37 78 102

17:32 17:35 17:39 17:40 17:43 17:49 17:52 17:53 17:55f 18:3 18:8 18:10f 18:17f 18:30 19:8 19:13 19:18 19:22 20:3 20:4 20:14f 20:19 20:20 20:25 20:29 20:30 20:31 20:34 20:41 21:1 21:2 21:3 21:8 21:11 22:1 22:4 22:5 22:6 22:8 22:14 22:17 22:22 22:23 23:5 23:7 23:8 23:11 23:14 23:15 23:25 24:1 24:8 24:20 24:23

275 78 109 94 94 73, 94 102 78 109 78 136 102 78 78 78 102 78 102 78 102, 109 79 79 88, 110 102 79 102 73 102 79, 110 88, 110 102 102 114 79 79 110 72 79 72, 215 110 80 102 73 80 73 80, 89 80 103 80 80 88 80 80 80 80

24:39 25:1f 25:2 25:9 25:25 25:26 25:36 25:43 25:44 26:4 26:5 26:6 26:10 26:11 26:14 26:16 27:1 27:9 27:10 27:12 28:1 28:2 28:4 28:7 28:8 28:14 28:17 28:19 28:23 28:24 29:3 29:10 29:11 2905 30:8 30:17 31:2 31:3 31:10 31:12 31:13

80 89 88 79 107 94 84 110 103 89 80, 95 110 95 74, 114 81 103 103 95 79 103 75, 79, 114 103 103 110 137 103 95 110 114 103 95 81 81 89 104 115 94 115 123 104 72

2 Samuel 1:2 1:9 1:11 1:18 1:19f 2:4 2:8 2:8f 2:12 2:13 2:21

72 95 215 53, 55, 115 115, 116, 261 76 5, 81, 107 94 108 212 74

276 2:23 111 2:28 72 3:2 110 3:2f 95 3:3 81, 115 3:4 104 3:7 86, 89, 115, 118 3:12 89 3:21 111 3:26 81 3:27 96 3:30 81 3:33 96 3:39 104, 110 4:1 115 4:2 60, 96 4:4 111, 117 4:6 82 4:7 82 5:4f 115, 123, 128 5:6 107, 115, 123, 157 5:8 118 5:9 104, 118 5:14 117 5:14f 96, 126 5:18 96, 116 5:21 119 5:23 96 6:1 82 6:1f 119 6:2 71 6:3 97 6:6 127 6:7 119 6:10 97 6:13 82, 123 6:14 82, 123 6:19 74 6:20 82 6:22 82 7:8f 126 7:14 123 7:18 69, 104 7:22 33 8:1 111 8:3 83, 123 8:4 97 8:7 83, 97, 179 8:8 83, 111, 119 8:10 83 8:11 111

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

8:13 8:16 8:17 8:18 9:2 9:5 9:6 9:11 10:2 10:4 10:6 10:13 10:15 10:16 10:17 10:18 11:1 11:3 11:8 11:21 12:6 12:16 12:19 12:24 12:26 12:29 12:30 13:1 13:3 13:20 13:21 13:22 13:23 13:27 13:32 13:39 14:21 14:27 14:30 14:31 15:7 15:12 15:16 15:30 15:31 15:32 15:34 16:5 16:10 16:12 16:14 16:17 16:21 17:1

119, 124 104 119 104 111 97 115 89 97 104 119 97 89 124 120 124 112, 124 97, 116 97 98 104 89 98 83, 112 112 125 120 83, 98 89 72 83 84 112 84 84, 89 84 84 83, 85, 188 85 85 90 85, 90 85 155 85 85, 98 85 90 90 105 90 98 105 90

17:9 17:11 17:16 17:18 17:19 17:23 17:24 17:27 18:2 18:3 18:5 18:6 18:9 18:11 18:17 18:18 118:19 18:21 18:23 18:29 19:8 19:9 19:10 19:11 19:15 19:19 19:23 19:25 19:27 19:32 19:34 19:38 20:8 20:14 20:15 20:16 20:24 20:25 21:2 21:7 21:16 21:18 21:19 21:21 23:8 146 23:9 23:11 23:18 23:20 23:21 23:34 23:38 24:2f

98 105 98 90 98 98, 105 99 90, 97 90 105 72 91 91 91 74, 99, 105 85, 89 91 85 91 91 85 105 112 106 92 116 92 86 86 90 86 92 106 99, 106, 169 86 86 92, 106 86, 119 92 112 92, 96, 116 121 121 90 92, 116, 118, 118 92 92 86 118 90 112 121

24:8 24:13 24:15 24:17 24:18 24:20 24:20f 24:21 24:22 24:23 24:24

1 Kings 1:5 1:6 1:8 1:39 1:41 1:49 1:53 2:3 2:9 2:11 2:19 2:28 2:29 2:35 2:37 2:46 179 3:1 3:4 3:9 3:12 3:14 3:16 3:17f 3:25 4:4 4:7 4:8 4:10 4:11 4:12 4:13 4:14f 4:15 4:16 4:17 4:18 4:19 4:20 5:1 5:2f

121 106 86 122 86, 122 122 128 122, 124 122 124 124 104, 142 134 163 150 142 133, 164 149, 189 134 164 157 134, 142 140 134 149 134 149, 150, 134, 149 167 167 175 175 149 134 141 149 157 164 157 164 149 164 157 142 52 149 142 149 149 150, 179 150

5:10 5:11 5:12 5:14 5:14f 5:15 5:16f 5:22 5:23 5:25 5:26f 5:28 5:29 5:31f 5:32 6:1 6:11f 6:20 6:32 6:38 7:1f 7:2 7:7 7:14 7:15 7:16f 7:17 7:21 7:23 7:26 7:27 7:28 7:30f 7:36 7:38 7:39 7:40 7:45 165 7:48 8:2 8:7 8:10 8:18 8:22 8:26 8:54 8:54f 8:64 8:65 9:5 9:12 9:13

INDEXES

132 150 150 149 152 150 175 142 234 175 175 106,142 167 176 150 150, 176 134 177 167 230 134 135, 150 151 151, 176 176 151 36 151, 177 151, 177 168 135, 142 142 151 142 133, 165 168 135 133, 135, 177 177 177 177 169 178 169 178 168 177 135, 178 178 151 151

9:15 135, 143, 161 9:16 151 9:17f 143 9:18 168 9:22 146 9:23 152, 178, 195 9:26 156 9:27 178 10:19 179 10:22 157, 207 10:26 179 10:27 152 10:29 179 11:1 152 11:1f 179 11:13 153 11:14 135 11:18 152 11:19 143 11:22 135 11:22f 152 11:26 135 11:27 157 11:29 136, 143 11:32 153 11:38 136 11:39 136 11:40 136, 143 11:42 158 12:2 153, 179, 195 12:10 143 12:16 143 12:17f 153 12:24 136 143, 153, 180 12:28 132 12:32 164 13:1 168 13:3 11, 164 13:7 143 13:11 136 13:14 158 13:31 153, 158 14:1 164, 169 14:6 21 14:20 153 14:21 143 14:25 83 14:26 179, 180, 195 14:28 180

14:30 14:31 15:7 15:10 15:17 15:20 15:21 15:22 15:25 15:27 16:9 16:16 16:17 16:21 16:22 16:23 16:24 16:31 16:34 17:1 17:3 17:8 17:17 17:22 17:24 18:3 18:21 18:22 18:27 18:28 18:32 18:39 18:42 19:3 19:4 19:5 19:11 19:16 20:1 20:6 20:10 20:11 20:12 20:16 20:20 20:30 20:31 20:34 20:35 20:38 20:42 21:1 21:5 21:8

277 180 164, 168 168 188 144 169 180 180 137 144 144, 147 144 147 137, 153 137, 153 147 155 144 51, 141 144 158 144 144 153 207 144, 159 153 158 154 154 154 154 144 137 144 137 137 144, 158 154, 156 137 154 154 137 154 137 145, 158 154 145 159 137 145, 159 145 21 137

21:10f 21:16 21:27 155 22:1 22:1f 22:2 22:3 22:6 22:8 22:19 22:26 22:27 22:30 22:32 22:34 146 22:36 165 22:37 22:38 22:40 22:42 22:49f 22:52

2 Kings 1:3 1:5 1:17 1:18 2:2 3:1f 3:4 3:9 3:18 3:25 3:27 4:1 4:2 4:5 4:8f 5:1 6:9 6:11 6:12 6:22 6:27 6:32 6:33 6:36 7:2 7:6 7:8

138 155 11, 89, 169 195 159, 169 169 180 145, 159 159 155 159 137, 138 169 138, 145, 133, 138, 138 155 190 3, 159, 166 180 181 155 21 141 138 145 138 155 132 155 139 139 159 145 141 159 159 146, 159 139 139 160 132 160 164 164 141, 146 160 156

278 7:14 8:8 8:11 8:15 8:19 8:21 8:22 8:24 8:26 9:2 9:7 9:15 9:16 9:17 9:20 9:24 9:25 9:26 9:27 9:28 9:32 9:33 10:16 10:25 10:29 10:30 10:33 10:35 11:1 11:2 11:4 11:9 11:10 11:11 11:12 11:13 11:15 11:16 11:19 12:1 12:2 12:4 12:5 12:6 12:10 12:11 12:12 12:14 12:14f 12:18 12:19 12:21 12:22 13:5

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

139 146, 148 146 160 169 170 146 170, 190 13, 146 145 139 139 156 156 11, 160, 166 140 141 178 161, 181 181 140 140 146 146 132 207 146 146 170 170 170 183 170 171 181 171 161 171 171 146 171 171 171 172 172, 181 172 172 172 172 162, 181 172, 181 172 172 140

13:11 13:13 13:24 13:25 14:2 14:7 14:9 14:12 14:19 14:21 14:22 14:25 14:29 166 15:1 15:2 15:5 15:7 15:14 15:16 15:33 15:35 15:37 16:3 16:6 16:9 16:16 17:3 17:4 17:24 229 17:25 17:27 17:28 17:28f 165 17:29f 17:34 18:2 18:8 18:9f 18:11 18:13 18:17 18:18 18:26 18:34 19:9 19:13 19:37 174 120:12 20:21 21:1

161 141 156 141 161 173 146, 173 147 147 173 156 147, 206 141, 156, 156 147 147 173 147 147 161, 174 173 147, 173 173, 174 178 161 156 147 156 140, 165, 161 161 162, 229 44, 140, 261 45, 162 174 162 44 161, 162 162 148 148 148 140 148 140 148, 156, 162 182 182

21:1f 196f, 200 21:9 174 21:10 182 21:10f 197 21:11f 182 21:18 141, 157, 174, 182 21:19 182 21:26 141, 166, 182 22:1 148, 157 22:7 174 22:11 231 22:13 209 23:4 162, 182 23:5 182 23:15f 186 23:18 158 23:22 174 23:24f 174 23:29 187, 198 23:30 148, 183 23:31 162 23:33 157 23:36 148, 223 23:36f 210 24:1 219, 223 24:1f 182 24:6 211 24:7 212 24:8 149, 162 24:9 162, 166 24:10 183 24:12 163, 211, 223 24:14 212, 215 24:14f 163 24:17 183 24:18 148, 183 24:19 206 24:20 175 25:1 132, 212, 215 25:3 163, 214 25:4 213 25:6 214 25:7 196, 219 25:8 163 25:11 219 25:12 216 25:18 216 25:19 217 25:20 187 25:22 216

25:24 25:25 25:26 25:27 26:27f

216 216 216 163, 217 198

1 Chronicles 1:11 1:12 1:16 1:17 2:3f 2:7 2:13f 2:16 2:42f 3:1 3:5f 3:9 3:15 3:16 4:6 5:30f 5:40f 6:12 6:12f 6:21 6:39f 7:1 7:31 7:36 8:33 8:63 9:46 10:1 10:10 10:25 11:3 11:4f 11:5 11:6 11:7 11:8 11:11 118 11:12 11:23 11:26 11:41 12:24f 12:40 13:1f 13:5 13:7

20 27 35 27, 29 69, 261 47, 51, 54 109 110 74 81 117, 126 96 148 163 142 195 187 117 107 36 48 29, 30 21 21 94 195 195 195 123 195 115 128 123 118, 123 104 118 92, 116, 118 118 121 112 126 157 82, 119 119 71

13:9 13:10 14:4f 14:9 14:12 15:25 15:26 15:27 16:3 17:1f 17:7f 17:12 17:13 17:16 18:1 18:2 18:3 18:7 179 18:8 119 18:10 18:12 18:16 19:6 120 19:14 19:16 19:17 19:18 19:19 20:1 20:2 20:4 20:5 20:7 21:1 21:4 21:12 21:14 21:18 21:20 21:20f 21:22 21:24 21:28 22:1 22:2 22:6 22:8 22:14 23:1f 23:3 23:24

INDEXES

127 119 96, 126 96 119 97 82, 123 82, 123 74 159 126 104 123 104 111 123, 159 83, 123 83, 97, 83, 111, 83 119, 124 86, 119 105, 119, 97 124 120 124 125 112, 124 120 121 121 90 121 121 106 86 86, 122 129 122, 128 122, 124 124 126 126 126, 167 164 126 125 183 183 183

24:1f 27:1 28:2 28:3 29:2

183 190 189 126 25, 187

2 Chronicles 1:3 1:5 1:10 1:12 1:13 1:17 1:19f 2:1 2:9 2:13 2:15 2:16 167 2:17 3:1 176 3:14 3:15 3:17 4:1 4:5 4:6 4:11 4:16 4:19 5:3 5:8 5:11 5:11f 5:13 6:12f 7:1f 7:7 7:9 7:18 8:3 8:10 8:17 8:18 9:2 9:18 9:21 9:25 9:26 9:28 9:29 9:30

126 167 167 175 175 152 175 126 175 176 175 126, 127, 126, 176 24, 127, 167 176 151 177 168 133, 168 135 133 177 177 177, 196 177 177 177 178 168 177 178 178 168 178 178 178 196 179 157 179 150, 179 152 168, 179 158

10:2 10:10 10:16 11:5f 11:10 11:12 11:13 11:13f 11:20 11:21 12:3 12:9 12:11f 12:13 12:15 12:16 13:2 13:4 13:22 13:23 14:7 14:8 14:9 14:12 15:19 16:1 16:4 16:5 16:6 16:7f 17:5 17:10f 17:12 17:18 18:1 18:2 18:5 18:7 18:18 18:25 18:29 18:31 18:33 159 19:5 19:5f 19:6 19:11 20:1 20:2 20:4 20:14 20:16 20:17

279 179 143 143 187 67 187 189 164 188 189 190 170, 179 180 143 180 168 188 190 168 188 189 184 190 191 188 188 169 180 180 180 184 184 191 188 169 169 180 145 159 155 138 169 11, 145, 195 184 189 188 189, 192 184 184 184 188, 196 191

20:23 20:25 20:35 20:37 21:6 21:7 21:9 21:10 21:11 21:16 21:16f 21:17 21:20 21:29f 22:1 22:2 22:9 22:10 22:11 23:1 23:8 23:9 23:10 23:11 23:12 23:14 23:15 23:20 24:1 24:2 24:4 24:6 24:7 24:8 24:10 24:11 24:12 24:14 24:14f 24:20 24:23 24:25 25:7 25:11 25:13 25:16 25:18 25:20 25:21 26:1 26:3 26:6 26:8 26:19

190 191 180, 181 180 121 169 170 146 191 191 122 146, 190 170 126 170, 190 169 181 170 170 170 183 170 171 181 171 161 161, 171 171 161, 171 171 191 171 172 181 172 172 172 172 172 188 181 172 191 173 184 191 146 173 147 173 147, 173 192 192 185, 206

280 26:21 27:1 27:3 27:4 27:8 28:2 28:3 28:5 28:7 28:8 28:15 29:1 29:21 30:16f 31:4 32:21 32:22 32:23f 32:33 33:1 33:9 33:10 33:10f 33:11 33:12f 33:13 33:20 33:25 34:3 34:5f 34:8 34:12f 34:14 34:32 35:7 35:18 35:19 225 35:20f 35:22 35:23 35:25 36:2f 36:6 36:7 36:9 36:9f 36:10 36:11 36:12 36:13 36:17f 36:21 36:22f

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

147 161 173, 190 190, 196 173, 195 173 174 156 188 185 188 174 189 235 190 182 174 174 182 182 174 182 197 185, 196f 199 12, 185 174 182 186 186 189 174 174, 186 182 189 174 174, 195, 198, 200 186, 225 187 209, 225 225 211 182 162 210 183 183 209 175 187 209 198, 225

Ezra

1:1 232 1:1f 225 1:3 226, 228 1:4 235 1:8 231 1:9f 227 2:2 229 2:3 230 2:68f 229 2:70 233 3:1f 229 3:2 226, 241 3:6 227 3:7 233, 234 3:9 234 3:10 228, 229 4:1 228 4:2 229 4:2f 228 4:5 228 4:6 228, 230, 231, 250 4:7 230, 233, 235 4:8 231 4:12 232 4:16 232 4:17 232 4:20 233 4:21 233 4:23 228 5:3 234 5:14 229 6:3 227, 232 6:6 232 6:9 227 6:11 227, 232 6:14 230 6:15 230 6:17 234 6:18 234 6:20 235 7:1 230 7:1f 187, 195 7:6 234 7:12 234 7:21 233 8:35 235 9:2 231 10:2 231 10:6 235 10:8 236 10:16f 231

Esdras A 1:7 1:19 1:25 1:27 1:30 1:42 1:47f 2:1 2:3 2:4 2:8 2:9f 2:11 235 2:12 2:13 2:14 2:18 2:19 2:22 2:23 2:25 2:26 3:1f 4:6 4:7f 4:11 4:13 4:14 4:17 4:19 4:29 4:36 4:45 4:49 4:50 4:63 5:1 5:1f 5:3 5:5 5:6 5:8 233 5:44 5:45 5:48 5:50 5:52 5:53 5:55 5:56 5:57

189 174 225 186 225 162 225 232 226, 228 235 231 227 225, 228, 230 231, 233 232 232 232, 233 233 233 228 228 236 238 238 238 227 238 238 238 239 239 239, 243 239 239, 243 239 228 228 239 229 237 229, 230, 229 229, 233 226 229 227 233, 234 228 234 229

5:63 5:64f 5:66 5:70 6:3 6:17 6:22 6:23 6:26 6:28 6:31 7:5 7:7f 7:9 7:11 8:1 8:4 8:5f 8:9 8:63 8:67 8:89 9:1 9:4 9:16f 9:37 9:55

228 228 229 228 234 229 232 227 232 227 227, 232 230 234 234 235 230 234 225 234, 241 235 231 231 235 236 231 235 225

Nehemiah 1:1 1:2 1:3 2:1 2:4 2:5 2:7 2:10f 2:11f 4:1f 4:2 4:11 4:12 6:1f 6:10f 6:15 6:16 7:1 7:2 7:4 7:5f 7:7 7:69f 8:2 8:13f

245 243 246 244 21 243 243 244 244 244 244 245 244 244 244 244 245 235 230 245 245 229 229 235 225

8:17 9:7 11:1 12:27 12:44f 13:19 13:22

Esther 1:1

INDEXES

51 27 245 244 245 31 235

220, 236, 247, 250, 253, 254 1:2 245 1:5 249, 250 1:6 249 1:7 255, 256 1:8 250, 257 1:9 250 1:11 250 1:13 249 1:16 248 1:19 255 2:1 251 2:3 251 2:5 255 2:7 251 2:11 256 2:12 255 2:16 256 2:18 256 2:21f 247, 253 2:22 254 3:1 254 3:2 247 3:3f 254 3:5 254 3:7 257 3:8f 252 3:12 252, 257 3:13 247, 257 3:14 251 4:1 248 4:4 251 4:5 21 4:8 249 4:14 249 4:16 251 4:17 247, 257 5:1f 247 5:2 257 5:4 252, 254 5:6 248, 251 5:8 249 5:9 254

5:10 5:14 256 6:1 6:8 6:10 6:10f 6:11 6:12 6:13 6:14 7:1f 7:2 7:4 7:6 7:7 7:9 256 8:1 8:2 8:3f 8:12 259 8:14 8:17 9:6f 9:7f 9:13 9:15 9:16 9:17f 9:19 9:24 9:24f 9:26 10:3

254 252, 254,

25:12 141:10

250 254 249, 251 258 249, 252 252 250 252, 256 252 252 252 252 252 253, 254,

Proverbs

253 253 253 247, 258, 258 253 253 256 253, 256 253 255 256 257 259 248 36, 61 247

1 Maccabees 1:1 1:15 12:6

224 253 6

2 Maccabees 2:13 5:22

Job

230 45

16:12 38:2 39:28 40:12 42:3

102 21 188 89 21

24:8

21

Psalms

281

6:31 27:22 231:27

21 160 104 66, 98 238

Ecclesiastes 2:2

Wisdom 11:17

Sirach 0:22 46:1f 49:10 49:13 262

Isaiah 2:21 40:11 44:28 51:20 63:1

21 25

148 55, 261 206 226, 245,

63 77 206, 226 160 21

Jeremiah 1:1 1:1f 21:1 22:11 22:18f 25:1 27:20 29:25 33:2f 34:5 36:26 37:3 37:12 38:2 38:6 38:7 38:16 38:23 39:1 39:3 39:5 39:10 39:12 39:13 40:7

211 209 36 148 211 213 163 36 183 211 213 36 211 213 13, 214 214 214 214 212 213, 214 214, 218 216 211, 214 213 216

40:8 216 40:14 211 41:1 216 41:2 215 41:5 211 41:7 215 41:12 212 41:16 215 41:17 212, 215 43:3 212 44:30 210 46:2 210 46:2f 213 46:6 211 46:7 21 46:27 212 48:31 139 49:6 213 49:19 21 50:44 21 52:4 212, 215, 216, 219 52:4f 163, 214 52:7 213 52:9 214, 218 52:16 219 52:24 216 52:25 217 52:28 211, 215, 223 52:28f 163, 212, 215, 218 52:30 212 52:31 217 58:28f 163

Lamentations 3:12 3:37 4:20

Ezekiel 23:47 27:8 27:11 38:16 47:19

Daniel 1:1 1:3 1:6 1:7 1:8

102 21 206 22 27 97 254 168

219, 223 219 218 221 219

282 1:17 2:1 2:2 2:5 2:13 2:14 2:15 2:16 2:18 2:19 2:24 2:34 2:40 2:41f 2:45 2:46 2:46f 3:1 3:4 3:12

THE BIBLE OF JOSEPHUS

219, 222 219 222 232 221 219 219 220 222 222 220 221 220, 224 220 220 223 224 222, 223 133 220

3:24 3:26f 3:29 4:5 4:8 4:13 5:5 5:7 5:7f 5:9f 5:10 5:25f 5:30 6:2f 6:8 6:29 7:25 8:2 8:3 8:14

223 223 232 223, 224 221 222 220 223 236 223 223 221 222 220 221 221 222 245 222 221

9:27 11:29f 12:11

Amos 1:1

221 224 221 185

Obadiah 1:20

Nahum 2:9 2:12 2:14

1:6 19:9

Luke

208 208 208

John

36 216

Zechariah

36 185

Matthew

144

Zephaniah 1:1 2:6

6:10 14:4

2:29f 3:23

Acts 7:14 7:19

51 26 199 211 27 31

Hebrews 7:2

35

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface, by Adrian Schenker ......................................................................... VII Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 I – About Bible Translations ................................................................................ 1 II – Josephus at Work ............................................................................................ 5 III – A Controversial Problem ............................................................................. 9 IV – Aim and Method ......................................................................................... 12

Chapter One – The Pentateuch ..................................................................... 15 I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 ..................................................................... 15 I.1 Inconclusive agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 .................................................. 15 I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 ......................................................... 17 I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 ..................................................... 19 II – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊 ............................................................. 23 II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 parallel ................................................................................. 23 II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 ............................................................................. 26 III – About the Position of the Samaritan ........................................................ 28 III.1 Agreements of Josephus and Sam alone ....................................................... 29 III.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 and Sam ............................................................. 30 III.3 Josephus (H), 𝔊𝔊 and Sam against 𝔐𝔐 ............................................................ 31 IV – Josephus’ Idiosyncrasies............................................................................ 32 IV.1 Misreadings (or alterations) of H.................................................................. 33 IV.2 Actual readings of H .................................................................................... 34 V – Conclusions ................................................................................................... 39

Chapter Two – Joshua ....................................................................................... 43 I – Josephus and the Samaritan Traditions ...................................................... 43 I.1 Josephus and the Samaritans ........................................................................... 43 I.2 The Samaritan Joshua and Josephus ................................................................ 45 II – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 .................................................................... 50 II.1 Inconclusive Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 ................................................ 50 II.2 Significant Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 ................................................... 51 III – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊 ............................................................ 52 III.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel ................................................................................ 52 III.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 ............................................................................ 52 IV – Josephus’ Idiosyncrasies............................................................................ 53 IV.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H ................................................................ 53 IV.2 Actual Readings of H ................................................................................... 54 V – Discussion, Conclusion ............................................................................... 55

Chapter Three – Juges ...................................................................................... 57 I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 ..................................................................... 58 I.1 Inconclusive agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 .................................................. 58 I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 ......................................................... 60 I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 ..................................................... 60

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II – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊 ............................................................. 60 II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel ................................................................................. 60 II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 ............................................................................. 62 II.3 Hebrew Explanations ..................................................................................... 63 III – Josephus’ Idiosyncrasies ............................................................................ 64 III.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H................................................................. 64 III.2 Actual readings of H .................................................................................... 66 IV – Conclusions .................................................................................................. 68

Chapter Four – Samuel .................................................................................... 71 I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) .................................................. 71 I.1 Inconclusive Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏)................................. 71 I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) ...................................... 72 I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐 ......................................... 75 I.4 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 and/or 𝔊𝔊 ....................................... 87 II – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 ......................................................... 92 II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel ................................................................................. 93 II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 Against 𝔊𝔊 (and 𝔏𝔏)................................................................ 99 II.3 Hebrew Explanations ................................................................................... 106 III – Josephus’ Peculiarities ............................................................................. 107 III.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H............................................................... 107 III.2 Actual Readings of H ................................................................................. 112 IV – Conclusions ................................................................................................ 116

Chapter Five – Samuel and Chronicles .................................................. 118 I – Josephus with 1 Chr Against 2 Sam ......................................................... 118 II – Josephus with 1-2 Sam Against 1 Chr .................................................... 123 III – Combined readings of 2 Sam and 1 Chr ............................................... 124 IV – Josephus with 1-2 Chr alone ................................................................... 125 IV.1 Josephus’ Peculiarities ............................................................................... 125 IV.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐 ......................................................... 127 IV.3 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) ......................................................... 127 V – Conclusions ................................................................................................. 127

Chapter Six – Kings ......................................................................................... 132 I – Josephus’ Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 ....................................................... 132 I.1 Inconclusive Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 ..................................... 132 I.2 Serious Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊-𝔏𝔏 .................................................... 133 I.3 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔊𝔊 (and 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐 ....................................... 134 Ι.4 Agreements of Josephus with 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 and/or 𝔊𝔊 ..................................... 140 IΙ – Josephus in Disagreement with 𝔊𝔊 and/or 𝔏𝔏 ......................................... 142 II.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel ............................................................................... 142 II.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 Against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) ......................................................... 149 III – Josephus’ Own Variants .......................................................................... 157 III.1 Misreadings (or Alterations) of H............................................................... 157 III.2 Actual Readings of H ................................................................................. 163 IV – Conclusions ................................................................................................ 165

Chapter Seven – Kings and Chronicles................................................... 167 I – Josephus with 2 Chronicles against 1-2 Kings ....................................... 167 II – Josephus with 1-2 Kings Against 2 Chronicles..................................... 175 III – Josephus with 1-2 Chronicles Alone ..................................................... 183 III.1 Josephus’ Special Features ......................................................................... 183 III.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) Parallel ............................................................. 187



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III.3 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) against 𝔐𝔐 ......................................................... 189 III.4 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) ......................................................... 190 IV – Conclusions ................................................................................................ 192 V – Appendix: The Prayer of Manasseh ........................................................ 196 V.1 The Context of the Prayer ............................................................................ 196 V.2 Josephus and the Prayer ............................................................................... 198 V.3 The Prayer ................................................................................................... 199 V.4 The Prayer in Context .................................................................................. 200 V.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 204

Chapter Eight – Prophets .............................................................................. 206 I – Jonah ............................................................................................................... 206 I.1 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel ................................................................................ 207 I.2 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 Against 𝔊𝔊 (and/or 𝔏𝔏) .......................................................... 207 I.3 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 208 II – Nahum .......................................................................................................... 208 III – Jeremiah ...................................................................................................... 209 III.1 Josephus’ Special Features ......................................................................... 211 III.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel .............................................................................. 213 III.3 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 .......................................................................... 213 III.4 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 .......................................................................... 213 III.5 Genuine Hebrew Readings of Josephus ...................................................... 215 III.6 Josephus, Jeremiah and 2 Kings ................................................................. 216 III.7 Conclusions ................................................................................................ 217 IV – Daniel .......................................................................................................... 218 IV.1 Josephus’ Special Features ......................................................................... 219 IV.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 Parallel.............................................................................. 221 IV.3 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 (Θ) ................................................................... 221 IV.4 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 (Θ) against 𝔊𝔊 ................................................................... 222 IV.5 Genuine Hebrew or Aramaic Readings of Josephus .................................... 223 IV.6 Conclusions................................................................................................ 224

Chapter Nine – Ezra-Nehemiah.................................................................. 225 I – Ezra ................................................................................................................. 226 I.1 Josephus’ Special Features ............................................................................ 226 I.2 Josephus Parallel to Esd-Ezr ......................................................................... 231 I.3 Josephus with Esd against Ezr ....................................................................... 232 I.4 Josephus with Ezr against Esd ....................................................................... 235 I.5 The Contest of the Bodyguards (Josephus and Esd) ...................................... 236 I.6 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 240 I.7 Appendix: Josephus Paraphrasing a Greek Book ........................................... 242 II – Nehemiah ..................................................................................................... 243 II.1 Josephus’ Special Features........................................................................... 243 II.2 Josephus and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 ........................................................................... 245 II.3 Josephus and 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 ........................................................................... 245 II.4 Conclusions ................................................................................................. 246

Chapter Ten – Esther ....................................................................................... 247 I – Josephus’ Agreements with the Greek ..................................................... 248 I.1 Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏 ............................................................ 248 I.2 Agreements with 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊............................................................. 249 I.3 Agreements with 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔐𝔐 ............................................................ 249 II – Josephus in Partial Disagreement with the Greek ................................ 250 II.1 Agreements with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔏𝔏 against 𝔊𝔊 ........................................................... 250 II.2 Agreements with 𝔐𝔐 and 𝔊𝔊 against 𝔏𝔏 ........................................................... 251

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III – Josephus Independent from 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 ..................................................... 253 III.1 Josephus Parallel to 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 ...................................................................... 253 III.2 Agreements with 𝔐𝔐 against 𝔊𝔊 and 𝔏𝔏 .......................................................... 254 IV – Josephus’ Peculiarities ............................................................................. 255 IV.1 Alterations, Misreadings, Corrections......................................................... 255 IV.2 Genuine Hebrew Variants of H .................................................................. 256 V – On Additions B-E (Absent 𝔐𝔐) ................................................................ 257 VI – Conclusions ................................................................................................ 258

Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 260 Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... 264 Indexes.................................................................................................................... 267