From Jewish Priest to Roman Historian: On Josephus’s God-Historical Viewpoint

Abstract

Josephus was a 1^st century Jewish priest who took part in the great Jewish revolt and became a Roman historian in deference to the Romans and the Roman citizenship. The Jewish War and Jewish Antiguities became one of the most important sources of information about the Jewish war and the early Jews in the first century AD. Josephus’s work was generally truth seeking, with references to religious texts such as the Bible, reported on early Judaism, and accounts of Christian figures such as Jesus, Pilate, and James, provided the most important background information about the New Testament era and became the key historical data of the New Testament era. Josephus’s work was characteristically utilitarian in that he introduced the Jews to the Greco Roman world and actively defended Roman rule. Josephus was the first Roman historian to put forward a theosophical view of history, constructed the Jewish creation myth, became the first theosophical declaration in Roman Times, and constructed a linear concept of time and the embryonic form of historical development, it provided a new paradigm for the writing of Roman history and became the source of Christian historiography.