( Köstenberger pages 104-105 ) Köstenberger states that the statement by Josephus that some people recognized Jesus as the Messiah is consistent with the grammar of Josephus elsewhere but does not imply that Josephus himself considered Jesus the Messiah.

According to Josephus, a 1st-century Jewish Roman historian, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BC as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt.

This event was recorded by Sennacherib himself, by Herodotus, Josephus, and by several Biblical writers.

From the perspective of the theocratic government, " God himself is recognized as the head " of the state, hence the term theocracy, from the Greek " rule of God ", a term used by Josephus for the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

) Josephus, at first sight, seems to contradict himself, in so far that in one passage ( Ant.

:" He betook himself to slay the women and the children, and thought he did not act therein either barbarously or inhumanly ; first, because they were enemies whom he thus treated, and, in the next place, because it was done by the command of God, whom it was dangerous not to obey " ( Flavius Josephus, Antiquites Judicae, Book VI, Chapter 7 ).

Josephus himself, however, dates this event in the days of Alexander the Great, and though there is a notorious confusion in Josephus at this point, he may be right about the Gerizim temple dating from 332, and that may have been the date of the copying of their Pentateuch.

Josephus ( 37 – c. 100 CE ), himself a Pharisee, claimed that the Pharisees received the backing and goodwill of the common people, apparently in contrast to the more elite Sadducees.

Josephus himself emphasized laws rather than beliefs when he described the characteristics of an apostate ( a Jew who does not follow traditional customs ) and the requirements for conversion to Judaism ( circumcision, and adherence to traditional customs ).

It is difficult to distinguish between what Manetho himself recounted, and how Josephus or Apion interpret him.

Flavius Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, writes that " he sacrificed his daughter as a burnt offering: offering such an oblation as was neither conformable to the law, nor acceptable to God ; not weighing with himself what opinion the hearers would have of such a practice.

Josephus writes: " Phut also was the founder of Libya, and called the inhabitants Phutites ( Phoutes ), from himself: there is also a river in the country of Moors which bears that name ; whence it is that we may see the greatest part of the Grecian historiographers mention that river and the adjoining country by the appellation of Phut ( Phoute ): but the name it has now has been by change given it from one of the sons of Mezraim, who was called Lybyos.

Josephus presents two opposing reasons, one which would help secure Hyrcanus against the rising threat of Herod, and the other being his desire to quickly dispose of Hyrcanus and take power himself.

According to Josephus, a 1st-century AD Jewish Roman historian, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BC as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt.

Historians point out the parallels between the incidents at Jotapata and Masada, including Eleazar's second speech corresponding to the speech which Josephus himself delivered at Jotapata under similar circumstances and the transference of the lottery motif from the former to the latter.

This part is in the form of a dialog, between a master ( Aloysius, Latin for Luigi, who is meant to represent Palestrina's ideas ) and a student, Josephus, who represents Fux himself, a self-admitted admirer of Palestrina.

It was later translated into Greek, probably under the supervision of Josephus himself.

According to the Roman Jewish historian Josephus, he " built a town on that spot in commemoration of his victory, and enhanced it with wonderful palaces ... and he called it Herodion after himself " ( The Wars of the Jews I, Chapter 13 ).

Chapter 3. 6 quotes Tacitus, Varro, Valerius Maximus, Orosius, Frontinus, Strabo, Caesar, Columella, Plutarch, Josephus, Diodorus Siculus, Photius, Xiphilinus, Zonaras, Seneca, Petronius, Juvenal, Philo, Celsus, the authors of the Acts of the Apostles and of the pseudo-gospels of Nicodemus and St. James, and Claudius himself in his surviving letters and speeches.

The reference comes from Book 3, Chapter 8, par 7 of Josephus ' The Jewish War ( writing of himself in the third person ):

Josephus then draws the conclusion that Manetho's Hyksos were the Jews of the Exodus, although Manetho himself makes no such connection.

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 ).

Bar-Hebraeus identified Ahasuerus explicitly as Artaxerxes II ; however, the names are not necessarily equivalent: Hebrew has a form of the name Artaxerxes distinct from Ahasuerus, and a direct Greek rendering of Ahasuerus is used by both Josephus and the Septuagint for occurrences of the name outside the Book of Esther.

According to the Bauer-Danker Lexicon, the noun ίδιωτής in ancient Greek meant " civilian " ( ref Josephus Bell 2 178 ), " private citizen " ( ref sb 3924 9 25 ), " private soldier as opposed to officer ," ( Polybius 1. 69 ), " relatively unskilled, not clever ," ( Herodotus 2, 81 and 7 199 ).

The translations of Josephus ' writing into other languages have at times included passages that are not found in the Greek texts, raising the possibility of interpolation, but this passage on James is found in all manuscripts, including the Greek texts.

As is common with ancient texts, however, there are no surviving extant manuscripts of Josephus ' works that can be dated before the 11th century, and the oldest of these are all Greek minuscules, copied by Christian monks.

There are about 120 extant Greek manuscripts of Josephus, of which 33 predate the 14th century, with two thirds from the Comnenoi period.

There are about 170 extant Latin translations of Josephus, some of which go back to the sixth century, and according to Louis Feldman have proven very useful in reconstructing the Josephus texts through comparisons with the Greek manuscripts, reconfirming proper names and filling in gaps.

Both Origen and Eusebius had access to the Greek versions of Josephus ' texts.

These additional manuscript sources of the Testimonium have furnished additional ways to evaluate Josephus ' mention of Jesus in the Antiquities, principally through a close textual comparison between the Arabic, Syriac and Greek versions to the Testimonium.

Origen explicitly mentions the name of Josephus 11 times, both in Greek and Latin.

Another example of the textual arguments against the Testimonium is that it uses the Greek term poietes to mean " doer " ( as part of the phrase " doer of wonderful works ") but elsewhere in his works, Josephus only uses the term poietes to mean " poet ," whereas this use of " poietes " seems consistent with the Greek of Eusebius.

Paul Maier states that the first case is generally seen as hopeless, given that a Jew, Josephus would not have claimed Jesus as the Messiah, and that the second option is hardly tenable given the presence of the reference in all Greek manuscripts ; thus a large majority of modern scholars accept the third alternative, i. e. partial authenticity.

For many years, printed editions of the works of Josephus appeared only in an imperfect Latin translation from the original Greek.

Some anti-Judean allegations ascribed by Josephus to the Greek writer Apion, and myths accredited to Manetho are also addressed.

The etymology of the word into English is from Old French Philistin, from Classical Latin Philistinus found in the writings of Josephus, from Late Greek Philistinoi ( Phylistiim in the Septuagint ) found in the writings by Philo, from Hebrew Plištim, ( e. g. 1 Samuel 17: 36 ; 2 Samuel 1: 20 ; Judges 14: 3 ; Amos 1: 8 ), " people of Plešt " (" Philistia "); cf.

Josephus refers to Pilate with the generic Greek term, hēgemōn, or governor.

During this time he became the patron of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish resistance leader captured at the Siege of Yodfat, who would later write his people's history in Greek.

The Greek version ( Septuagint ) of the Book of Esther refers to him as Artaxerxes, and the historian Josephus relates that this was the name by which he was known to the Greeks.

Josephus records the false etymology that the Greek phrase Hyksos stood for the Egyptian phrase Hekw Shasu meaning the Shepherd Kings, which scholars have only recently shown means " rulers of foreign lands.

Josephus records the earliest account of the false but understandable etymology that the Greek phrase Hyksos stood for the Egyptian phrase Hekw Shasu meaning the Bedouin-like Shepherd Kings, which scholars have only recently shown means " rulers of foreign lands.