The historian Josephus claims that the conspirators wished to restore the Republic while the historian Suetonius claims their motivations were mostly personal.

It was against this background that Josephus wrote his War, and although this work has often been dismissed as pro-Roman propaganda ( hardly a surprising view, given the source of his patronage ), he claims to be writing to counter anti-Judean accounts.

Josephus claims that 1, 100, 000 people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish.

It too follows the original biblical account and includes additional traditions matching those found in the Greek version and Josephus ( whom the author claims as a source ) with the exception of the details of the letters found in the latter works.

:* Senator Quirinius appointed Legate of the Roman province of Syria ( to which Judea had been " added " according to Josephus though Ben-Sasson claims it was a " satellite of Syria " and not " legally part of Syria ") carries out a tax census of both Syria and Judea known as the Census of Quirinius.

Josephus claims that 1, 100, 000 people were killed during the siege, a sizeable portion of these were at Jewish hands and due to illnesses brought about by hunger.

But the material has been questioned because of claims that cannot be verified by secondary sources and because of Josephus ' potential bias as a client of the Romans and defender of the Roman cause.

Josephus claims that 1, 100, 000 people were killed during the siege, of which a majority were Jewish, and that 97, 000 were captured and enslaved, including Simon bar Giora and John of Giscala.

Of the phrase " who was called the Christ " he says: "( n ) early all the authorities that I have quoted reject it " and claims "( t ) o identify the James of Josephus with James the Just, the brother of Jesus, is to reject the accepted history of the primitive church which declares that James the Just died in 69 A. D., seven years after the James of Josephus was condemned to death by the Sanhedrin.

His younger contemporary Josephus speaks of the Sabbatical River ( Σαββατικον ) that he claims was called after " the sacred seventh day of the Jews " and that he locates between Arka ( in the northern Lebanon range ) and Raphanaea ( in Upper Syria ) ( War 7. 96-99 ), although according to his account it is dry for six days and flows only on Shabbat.

Josephus also claims that, soon after, these 120, 000 captives were freed of their bondage by Philadelphus.

Some feel that the text of Acts shows evidence of having used the Jewish historian Josephus as a source ( in which case it would have to have been written sometime after 94 AD ).

The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khshayārsha, thus Ahasuerus is usually identified as Xerxes I ( 486-465 BCE ), though Ahasuerus is identified as Artaxerxes in the later Greek version of Esther ( as well as by Josephus, the Jewish commentary Esther Rabbah, the Ethiopic translation and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus who identified him more precisely as Artaxerxes II ).

The ancient Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus narrates in his book Jewish Antiquities XII, how the victorious Judas Maccabeus ordered lavish yearly eight-day festivities after rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem that had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

The Jewish historian Josephus speaks of there being 22 books in the canon of the Hebrew Bible, a Jewish tradition reported also by the Christian bishop Athanasius.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus described Jericho as " the most fertile spot in Judea ".

The most famous was Masada, where, in 70-73 CE, a small group of Jewish zealots held out against the might of the Roman legion, and Machaerus where, according to Josephus, John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod Antipas and died.

From Suetonius, we know that she at least accompanied the Emperor to the amphitheatre, while the Jewish writer Josephus speaks of benefits he received from her.

Josephus, Jewish War 6. 10. 1 / 423 (" They sacrifice from the ninth to the eleventh hour ").

The first century Jewish historian, Josephus, deals with Ezra in his Antiquities of the Jews.

The events were described by the Jewish leader / historian Josephus, including the desperate defence of Jotapata, the siege of Jerusalem ( 69 – 70 CE ) and heroic last stand at Masada under Eleazar ben Yair ( 72 – 73 CE ).

Along these lines, the ancient historian Josephus emphasized practices and observances rather than religious beliefs, associating apostasy with a failure to observe Jewish law and maintaining that the requirements for conversion to Judaism included circumcision and adherence to traditional customs.

The references found in Antiquities have no parallel texts in the other work by Josephus such as the Jewish War, written 20 years earlier, but some scholars have provided explanations for their absence.

While the gospels present this as a consequence of the marriage of Herod Antipas and Herodias in defiance of Jewish law ( as in Matthew 14: 4, Mark 6: 18 ) Josephus refers to it as a pre-emptive measure by Herod to quell a possible uprising.

The works of Josephus were translated into Latin during the fourth century ( possibly by Rufinus ), and, in the same century, the Jewish War was " partially rewritten as an anti-Jewish treatise, known today as Pseudo-Hegesippus, but < nowiki ></ nowiki > was considered for over a millenium and a half by many Christians as the ipsissima verba of Josephus to his own people.

Book 20 of the Antiquities do not appear in any other versions of Josephus ' The Jewish War except for a Slavonic version of the Testimonium Flavomium ( at times called Testimonium Slavonium ) which surfaced in the west at the beginning of the 20th century, after its discovery in Russia at the end of the 19th century.

A comparative argument made against the authenticity of the James passage by scholars such as Tessa Rajak is that the passage has a negative tone regarding the High Priest Ananus, presenting him as impulsive while in the Jewish Wars Josephus presents a positive view of Ananus and portrays him as prudent.

A final argument from silence relates to Josephus ' own writings and questions the authenticity of Testimonium based on the fact that it has no parallel in the Jewish War, which includes a discussion of Pontius Pilate at about the same level of detail.

Setzer states that the passage indicates that Josephus, a Jewish historian writing towards the end of the first century, could use a neutral tone towards Christians, with some tones of sympathy, implying that they may be worthy of Roman protection.

Philip Carrington states that there is no reason to question the authenticity of the Josephus passage on James, and elaborates the background by stating that Ananus continued to remain a power within the Jewish circles at the time even after being deposed, and that it is likely that the charges brought against James by Ananus were not only because of his Christian association but because he objected to the oppressive policies against the poor ; hence explaining the later indignation of the more moderate Jewish leaders.

Van Voorst also states that calling Christians a " tribe " would have been very out of character for a Christian scribe, while Josephus has used it to refer both to Jewish and Christian groups.

Vermes states that if the Testimonium had been the work of a Christian forger, it would have placed blame on the Jewish leaders, but as is it is " perfectly in line " with the atitude of Josephus towards Pilate.

The Romanized Jewish historian Josephus, in The Jewish War ( 3. 399ff ) applied the prophecy — perhaps in retrospect, like most successful prophecies — to Vespasian, who was campaigning against the Jewish Zealots in Palestine, and who was to come out of Palestine and rule the world, his flatterer asserted.

The works of Josephus provide crucial information about the First Jewish-Roman War and also represent important literary source material for understanding the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls and late Temple Judaism.

The Romans fared very poorly during the initial revolt facing a completely unified Jewish force ( unlike during the First Jewish-Roman War, where Flavius Josephus records three separate Jewish armies fighting each other for control of the Temple Mount during the three weeks time after the Romans had breached Jerusalem's walls and were fighting their way to the center ).

First of all, Josephus reports elsewhere that the Pharisees did not grow to power until the reign of Queen Salome Alexandra ( JW. 1. 110 ) The coins minted under Hyrcanus suggest that Hyrcanus did not have complete secular authority.

During the First Jewish – Roman War Josephus Flavius took control of the city and destroyed Herod's palace, but was able to stop the city from being pillaged by his Jewish army.

No sources have been found for the belief that Capernaum was involved in the bloody Jewish revolts against the Romans, the First Jewish-Roman War ( AD 66 – 73 ) or Bar Kokhba's revolt ( 132 – 135 ), although there is reason to believe that Josephus, one of the Jewish generals during the earlier revolt, was taken to Capernaum ( which he called " Kapharnakos ") after a fall from his horse in nearby Bethsaida ( Josephus, Vita, 72 ).

The first was the Conversion of Paul in the early 30's ( and the possible conversion of his teacher Gamaliel ), the second was the Council of Jerusalem c. 50, and the third was the Destruction of the Second Temple in 70, which according to Josephus was one of the most significant events of the First Jewish – Roman War.

Centuries later, the Hasmonean kings surrounded the area with an impressive wall and large watchtowers, which historian Josephus Flavius ( 1st century BC ) refers to as the First Wall.

The Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus states that three of the seven lamps were allowed to burn during the day also ; however, according to the Talmud ( Rashi, Tractate Shabbat 22b ), only the center lamp was left burning all day, into which as much oil was put as into the others.

The history of the war was covered in dramatic detail by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus in his work The Wars of the Jews.

Important details of his biography are gleaned from the works of the 1st century CE Roman-Jewish historian Josephus Flavius.

One of the earliest recordings of a play inspired by the myth of Myrrha is in the Antiquities of the Jews, written in 93 A. D. by the Roman-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.

In The Antiquities of the Jews, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus states that a village with hot springs named Emmaus was located near Tiberias.

Notably, Josephus, a Roman citizen and former general in the Galilee, who survived the Roman-Jewish wars of the 1st century CE, was a Jew who was captured and cooperated with the Romans ; writing his books in Rome ; leaving some to question his impartiality and credibility as a historian.

The Roman-Jewish Treaty was an agreement made between Judah Maccabee and the Roman Republic in 161 BCE according to 1 Maccabees and Josephus.

Safed has been identified with Sepph, a fortified Jewish town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus ( Wars 2: 573 ).

The Sibylline Oracles were quoted by the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus ( late 1st century ) as well as by numerous Christian writers of the second century, including Athenagoras of Athens who, in a letter addressed to Marcus Aurelius in ca.