The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus.

• Author: Finkbeiner, Doug
• Position: Book review

The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus. By REINHARD PUMMER. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, vol. 129 Tubingen: MOHR SIEBECK, 2009. Pp. xv +356. [euro] 109.

Reinhard Pummer, who teaches in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa, has written books and articles about the Samaritans over several decades. Therefore, his latest work. The Samaritans in Flavius Josephus, comes from an author well versed in the scholarly debates and issues surrounding the Samaritans. Pummer argues that this particular volume "is an attempt to understand Josephus' texts about the Samaritans in the light of the new insights into the Jewish historian's methods and aims and the results of renewed research into ancient texts and archaeological remains" (pp. 1-2: cf. 65). His primary purpose is to reconstruct Josephus' literary portrait of the Samaritans through an analysis of the passages in Josephus which reference the Samaritans and "to understand them in the light of his objectives in writing War and Antiquities" (p. 281). Although historical reconstruction and source criticism are riot the primary focus of his work, both approaches are threaded throughout Pummer's volume.

Before embarking on an analysis of the pertinent passages in Josephus (chapters one through eight), Pummer discusses a potpourri of interrelated topics in his lengthy introductory chapter. These topics include issues directly connected to Josephan studies (e.g., Josephus' terminology for the Samaritans, Josephus as an author writing to a particular audience, previous Josephan studies on the Samaritans), as well as an overview of early non-Josephan sources about the Samaritans (e.g., 2 Maccabees, the New Testament) and archaeological evidence concerning the Samaritans. Concerning terminological designations, Pummer argues that Josephus can use the Greek words "[SIGMA] [alpha] [mu] [alpha] [rho] [epsilon] i [zeta]" and "[SIGMA] [alpha] [mu] [alpha] [rho] [epsilon] i [tau] [alpha] l" interchangeably to refer either to the Samaritans, who are "members of the Gerizim community," or the Samarians, who are "pagan inhabitants of Samaria" (p. 256). I found his introductory chapter to be both informative in subject matter and balanced in analysis.

In chapters one through eight Pummer organizes his analysis of the pertinent Josephan passages within a historically chronological framework. Thus, he begins with material from Antiquities rather than War. Since the majority...