Josephus's 20-book Greek history of the Jewish people from creation to 66 CE, retelling the Bible and adding centuries of political history absent from scripture.
The Jewish Antiquities is Flavius Josephus's twenty-book history, written in Greek in Rome around 93-94 CE, tracing the Jewish people from the creation of the world down to the eve of the war against Rome in 66 CE. Books 1-11 retell the biblical narrative -- creation, the patriarchs, the exodus and lawgiving under Moses, the conquest, the judges, the united and divided monarchies, the exile, and the return from Babylon -- often expanding scripture with explanatory detail, apologetic argument, and material drawn from other ancient sources. Josephus tells his readers plainly that he is translating and interpreting "the sacred books," and he frames the whole work around a thesis stated in his preface: that those who follow the will of God and obey rightly established laws prosper, while those who depart from them come to ruin.
Books 12-20 leave scripture behind and cover the centuries the Bible does not narrate: the Persian and Macedonian periods, the Ptolemies and Seleucids, the Maccabean revolt and the rise of the Hasmonean priest-kings, the Roman conquest under Pompey, the reign of Herod the Great and his sons, and the succession of Roman procurators governing Judea up through the 50s and early 60s CE -- ending just before the outbreak of the war Josephus had already chronicled in his earlier work, the Jewish War. These later books are the primary surviving narrative source for Hasmonean and Herodian Judea and for figures such as John the Baptist and James the brother of Jesus.
Josephus wrote as a Jewish priest and former rebel commander who had surrendered to Rome, and the Antiquities is explicitly an act of cultural defense: he tells Greek and Roman readers that Jewish antiquity, law, and piety deserve the same respect given to Greek philosophy and history. He closes the work with an account of his own reasons for writing, his qualifications as a priestly interpreter of the sacred writings, and a promise of further books to come -- an autobiography and a treatise on God and the laws.
“for those who follow the will of God and do not dare to transgress laws that have been rightly established, all things turn out beyond belief successfully, and happiness is set before them”
— Antiquities – Book 1 · read this chapter →
“In the beginning God created heaven and earth. But the earth did not come into view; rather it lay hidden in deep darkness, while a wind swept over it from above”
— Antiquities – Book 1 · read this chapter →
“Life in the wilderness wore the Hebrews down, unpleasant and harsh as it was, and made them impatient to test themselves against the Canaanites even though God forbade it”
— Antiquities – Book 4 · read this chapter →
“Cyrus learned this by reading the book that Isaiah had left behind of his prophecy two hundred and ten years earlier”
— Antiquities – Book 11 · read this chapter →
“It was Florus who forced us to take up war against the Romans, we judging it better to perish all at once than by degrees”
— Antiquities – Book 20 · read this chapter →
It is Josephus's twenty-book history of the Jewish people written in Greek around 93-94 CE, running from the creation of the world to the eve of the Jewish-Roman war in 66 CE. The first eleven books retell the Hebrew Bible; the last nine cover the Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and Roman periods that scripture does not narrate.
Flavius Josephus was a Jewish priest and military commander who took part in the Jewish revolt against Rome, surrendered, and later wrote in Rome under Flavian patronage. He identifies himself in the closing book as qualified to interpret 'the sacred writings' by priestly descent and training.
He states his purpose in the preface: to explain to a Greek-reading audience who the Jews were, what laws and piety trained them, and how obedience to God's will and just laws leads to success while transgression leads to ruin. It is both a national history and a defense of Jewish antiquity and law before a Greco-Roman readership.
No. The Antiquities ends where the Jewish War begins -- Josephus says explicitly at the close of Book 20 that he brings the Antiquities to a close 'after which I began to write the War,' covering events up to the twelfth year of Nero's reign.
Books 12 through 20 narrate the Maccabean revolt, the Hasmonean priest-kings, Pompey's conquest of Judea, the reign of Herod the Great and his sons, and the successive Roman procurators of Judea -- centuries of political history with no biblical narrative counterpart.
For the Hellenistic, Hasmonean, and early Roman periods it is the principal surviving connected narrative and is widely used by historians, though Josephus writes with clear apologetic aims and his biblical books are paraphrase and interpretation rather than independent testimony.