Background
Titus Flavius Josephus was born in Jerusalem, Israel —then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. His father belonged to one of the noblest priestly families, and through his mother he claimed descent from the Asmonaean high priest Jonathan. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos (Ιώσηπος), son of Matthias, an ethnic Jewish Priest. He was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias. Their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephus's paternal grandparents were Josephus. Josephus's family was wealthy. He descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon.
Education
Born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. A precocious student of the Law, he made trial of the three sects of Judaism-Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes-before he reached the age of nineteen.
Career
During his first sojourn in Rome, where he had gone to persuade Nero to release certain imprisoned Jewish nobles (a. d. 63-65), Josephus was much impressed with the power of the Romans and with what he considered the excellence of their culture.
Upon his return to Jerusalem, however, he found the Jews preparing to revolt against Roman rule.
Josephus, without much enthusiasm, was forced to join the revolt.
Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war.
After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands; the survivors committed suicide. According to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans (commanded by Flavius Vespasian and his son Titus, both subsequently Roman emperors) asked the group to surrender, but they refused. Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide; they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left (this method as a mathematical problem is referred to as the Josephus problem, or Roman roulette), who surrendered to the Roman forces and became prisoners. In 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died.
In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen and client of the ruling Flavian dynasty. In addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension.
Josephus's life story remains ambiguous. He was described by Harris in 1985 as a law-observant Jew who believed in the compatibility of Judaism and Graeco-Roman thought, commonly referred to as Hellenistic Judaism. His critics were never satisfied as to why he failed to commit suicide in Galilee, and after his capture, accepted the patronage of Romans.
Connections
Josephus's paternal grandparents were Josephus and his first wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and direct descendants of Simon Psellus. She died during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
Vespasian arranged for the widower Josephus to marry a captured Jewish woman, who ultimately left him. About 71 CE, Josephus married an Alexandrian Jewish woman as his third wife. They had three sons, of whom only Flavius Hyrcanus survived childhood. Josephus later divorced his third wife. Around 75 CE, he married his fourth wife, a Greek Jewish woman from Crete, who was a member of a distinguished family. They had a happy married life and two sons, Flavius Justus and Flavius Simonides Agrippa.
