An Analysis of Josephus’ The Jewish War and the Implicit Goals in His Writing
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Abstract
In the preface to The Jewish War, Josephus explains that his goal is to provide an accurate account of the fighting between the Jews and the Romans since those who have written before him have, in his view, not succeeded in doing so.1 He explains that other writers belittled the Jews in their accounts and that in writing this way they did not allow for the full appreciation of the Roman triumph. Josephus writes to correct the false idea that the Jews were weak and that the Roman victory was unimpressive. Rather, he argues that the Jews were a strong and worthy opponent, but the Romans were too powerful. Josephus indicates that his recording of events was mainly to be a source of Roman pride and to highlight their strength as the victors in the war that he called “the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of.”2 (from Introduction)