Moses among the Greek Lawgivers

Reading Josephus’ Antiquities through Plutarch’s Lives

Series: 

Author:
Ursula Westwood
Josephus’ Antiquities introduces Moses as the Jewish lawgiver, adapting the biblical account for a new audience. But who was that audience, and what did they understand by the term lawgiver (νομοθέτης)? This book uses Plutarch’s Lives as a proxy for an imagined audience, providing a historically grounded but flexible model of a lawgiver, against which some of the otherwise invisible forces shaping Josephus’ choices are thrown into sharp relief. This method reveals patterns of appeal and challenge in Josephus’ intriguing and lively account of Moses’ legislative activities.
Copyright Year:
2023
E-Book (PDF)
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Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68193-4
Publication:
04 Sep 2023
Hardback
Availability:
Published
ISBN:
978-90-04-68134-7
Publication:
07 Nov 2023
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Ursula Westwood, DPhil (Oxford, 2020), is a lecturer in Greek at Stellenbosch University in South Africa.
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

1 Introduction
 1 Studies of Josephus’ Moses
 2 Josephus’ Audience for the Antiquities
 3 Josephus’ Purposes in the Antiquities
 4 Josephus and the Greeks
 5 Greek Literature in the Flavian Period
 6 Plutarch
 7 Methodology and Outline

2 Legends of Lawgivers
 1 Lawgivers and Laws
 2 Divine Law through Human Dialogue: Plato’s Laws
 3 Degeneration and Exemplarity
 4 Roman Legislators: Cicero’s Theories
 5 Dionysius on the Roman νομοθέται
 6 Conclusions

3 Introducing Moses the Lawgiver
 1 The Jewish Lawgiver in the Prologue to the Antiquities
 2 Preparing the Lawgiver in Antiquities II

4 Giving the Law
 1 Divine Law
 2 Temple and Priest
 3 Written Law

5 Leaving the Law
 1 Resistance and Conflict
 2 The Constitution
 3 Death and Departure

6 Conclusion
 1 Appealing to His Audience
 2 Challenging His Audience
 3 Implications of This Study

Bibliography
 Primary Texts and Translations
 Secondary Literature

Index of Ancient Sources
Index of Names and Subjects
The primary readership will be academics and postgraduate students working on Jewish literature in Greek under the Roman empire, including those in departments of Jewish studies, and Classics/ Ancient History, and libraries affiliated with such departments. Subject areas: Hellenistic Judaism, reception of the Pentateuch, Greek imperial literature.
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