Convenient Fiction or Causal Factor? The Questioning of Jewish Antiquity according to Against Apion 1.2.

Abstract

This volume highlights and explores the crossroads between literary analysis and historical reconstruction. Most contributions examine the relationship between ‘what Josephus wrote’ in Rome and ‘what actually happened’―primarily in the Land of Israel. Presently, however, I am concerned with a different kind of historical reconstruction: What is the relationship between what Josephus wrote and his actual situation in Rome, his actual audience, the actual response to his writings, etc.?