Lineage and Virtue in Josephus: The Respective Roles of Priestly Worldview and Roman Culture
This article assesses the importance of lineage and virtue in Josephus’ notions of Jewish nobility and the Jewish people. Furthermore, it investigates the respective roles of Josephus’ priestly education and his exposition to Roman culture in his use of such concepts. I argue that while Josephus ado...
| Published in: | Journal of ancient Judaism |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
[2020]
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| In: |
Journal of ancient Judaism
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Philo, Alexandrinus 25 BC-40
/ Josephus, Flavius 37-100
/ Roman Empire
/ Judaism
/ Upper class
/ Priest
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BE Greco-Roman religions HD Early Judaism |
| Further subjects: | B
conversion to Judaism
B Rome B Genealogy B Jewish laws B Josephus B Lineage B Virtue B Ancestry B Proselytes B Philo B Nobility B citizenship grants |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article assesses the importance of lineage and virtue in Josephus’ notions of Jewish nobility and the Jewish people. Furthermore, it investigates the respective roles of Josephus’ priestly education and his exposition to Roman culture in his use of such concepts. I argue that while Josephus adopted some aspects of Roman or Greco-Roman discourses on nobility, such as the notion that true nobility goes along with virtue, he resisted the Roman sociopolitical view of nobility, because he tended to identify Jewish aristocracy with the priesthood and thus stuck to a genealogical model. By contrast, Josephus’ definition of the kinship (oikeiotēs) that unites the members of the Jewish people as based either on birth/common ancestors or on choice (the choice to live under Jewish laws, implicitly characterized as virtuous) in Against Apion reflects the impact on the Judean historian of Roman citizenship grants and the pro-Roman discourses that praised this policy. |
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| ISSN: | 2196-7954 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of ancient Judaism
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.30965/21967954-12340003 |