Reading the First Century

Zusatztext

The writings of Flavius Josephus provide much of what we know about the first century CE - which witnessed the birth of Christianity, the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, and the concomitant rise of rabbinic Judaism. However, Josephus was an author, not a video camera, and what he wrote often reflects much apart from what actually happened in the first century: Josephus' works were affected both by his literary models and by current events, and they functioned in various ways for Josephus as an individual and also as a Jew and a Roman, writing in a time of tumult and radical change. Daniel R. Schwartz argues that by building from the bottom up - first establishing the text and its meaning, then moving on to issues of Josephus' models, sources, and purposes - we may nevertheless reconstruct, with some confidence, the events and processes of this crucial era.

Autorenportrait

Born 1952; 1971 immigrated to Israel; 1979 PhD; since 1979 teaching at Dept. of Jewish History, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; since 1995 full professor; since 2011 academic head of Mandel Scholion - Interdisciplinary Research Center in the Humanities and Jewish Studies.

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