Customer Reviews

Josephus: The Essential Writings

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This was the first book on Josephus that I have read. The reason I selected this edition over other full length, unabridged versions is that it looked a lot less intimidating (I get shivers down my spine when I think that I am going to have to read through an encyclopedia length tome from cover to cover). My hunch was rewarded with a well organized version that is very easy to read and understand. It covers the essentials of "Jewish Antiquities" and "The Jewish War" in a way that allows you to read through it fairly quickly without having to ponder very long what you have read. The only difficulty I encountered was to keep straight in my mind the family relationships of the nobility in "The Jewish War". Although it is still a fairly long read, I recommend it to anyone who is just starting their studies on Josephus.

For most people, such as myself, reading all of Josephus' Antiquities and The Jewish War is a daunting and time-consuming task. This book does a wonderful job of summarizing both of these important works in under 400 pages. It's easy reading and the footnotes and timelines added by Mr. Maier are helpful. If you want to learn about ancient Hebrews and Israelites as well as the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans(which Josephus witnessed)then this is your book without reading the complete and voluminous works of Josephus then here's your book.

I should note that the majority of Antiquities paraphrases what is already found in the Old Testament, which is common knowledge to scholars in this subject.

Instead of reading through alot of Old English interpretation and opinion, the facts here are presented straightforward, clear and easy to read for the average reader. The pictures help immensely as they transports you to the era. Still, the book is thorough and stuffed with facts, historical, personal and cultural. A great buy for anyone interested in this period.

If we want to know more about the history of the Jews and events at the time of Jesus from a secular Jew's writings, you must read Josephus.

This book is excellent, but it is on a doctoral level. Not recommended for young people.

It's Josephus straight up. The reader is left to approach the translation as he will from previous perspectives regarding the author and potential tampering's by later Christian editors. There is minimal introduction to the translated works. The critical "Jesus" narrative is well researched with the latest in modern word correlations.

Antiquities was written to introduce Jewish history to a Roman audience in their own recent 'Imperial' context of utter conquest in Jerusalem and Emperor worship for the grandest of monumentally illustrated victories in the forum.

Josephus is utterly boring in the recitation of otherwise irrelevant figures from Jewish history. The Romans would have known of Christians independently one must suppose as Josephus provides an ever so brief mention and context for Christians that the late 1st century Roman audience would have encountered. Josephus's Christians are seemingly no longer Jews just as Josephus parses Samaritans as no longer Jews and in far fewer words. Josephus's Jesus is simply boring and in the boring context, Jesus historical claim gets a contextual boost.If later Christians indeed tampered with Antiquities, they were an uninspired and boring lot ... not at all like the tampering one might expect of history 're-writers' for a zealous cause and totally unlike Gnostic traditions of historical reference who are the suspects in a rewrite conspiracy.

If Christian zealotry was passed on through Antiquities, it would seem to be an unconvincing argument. There is absolutely no theological reason to get excited over the Josephus account. Jesus is a footnote in Josephus's chronicle of myriad rulers, priests and wannabes. Much more is said about dozens of serially and historically irrelevant persons. If Christian historical rewriting was going on, it emerges here as a highly unremarkable effort.

This book is great when it comes to understanding a little bit of the early first century culture, and how it relates to Scripture. Yes their are many others, but this one is helpful also.

This was a new book on a research topic, that I have wanted for a price I could not turn down. Even with shipping it was $5 below the lowest price I could find in discount book stores. A very satisfied customer.