Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith.

• Author: Attridge, Harold W.

Edited by FAUSTO PARENTE and JOSEPH SIEVERS. Studia Post-Biblica, vol. 41. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1994. Pp. x + 392. HF1 160, $91.50.

The eighteen essays in this collection are the results of an international conference on Josephus organized by Professors Parente and Sievers at the suggestion of the late Professor Morton Smith, of Columbia University. Smith, who died in 1991, had planned to participate in the conference and to subsidize it with his own resources. A bequest from Smith, whose life and scholarly achievement are reviewed in an introductory essay by Shaye Cohen, enabled the conference to proceed.

The essays are arranged into six sections. The first, on "Philological Questions," contains two pieces. Lucio Troiana, of the University of Pavia, in "The [Greek Text Omitted] of Israel in the Graeco-Roman Age," treats not the social issue of Jewish social organization, but the ideal of a political constitution or set of ancestral laws. Josephus offers his version of the notion in Ant. 4 [section]198-302; Troiana usefully compares similar presentations in Philo and other Hellenistic Jewish literature. Shaye Cohen, of Brown University, in "[Greek Text Omitted] and Related Expressions in Josephus," argues persuasively that Josephus consistently uses the phrase to mean "Jewish by birth."

The second section, on "The Sources:" contains three essays. Louis Feldman, of Yeshiva University, in "Josephus' Portrayal of the Hasmoneans Compared with 1 Maccabees," offers a detailed study of the treatment of the Mattathias and his sons. Feldman finds that Josephus, proud of his Hasmonean heritage, embellished the heroic stature of Judah and his brothers while avoiding too close a connection between the Maccabean rebellion and the aspirations of revolutionaries of his own day. Fausto Parente, of the University of Rome, in "Onias III's Death and the Founding of The Temple of Leontopolis," deals with the conflicting reports about the founding of the Egyptian temple. 2 Macc 4:31-33 tells of the death of Onias III in Antioch, without any mention of activity in Egypt. Josephus (JW 1 [section]31-33) knows of a tradition that Onias founded the temple but reports later (Ant. 12 [section]237-39) of his death in Jerusalem prior to the Maccabean revolt. Josephus also reports (Ant. 12 [section]387) that it was Onias IV, son of Onias III, who built Leontopolis. Parente carefully sifts through all the ancient testimonies and concludes that Onias III did found the...