Throughout history, Titus Flavius Josephus has been known by many titles—scholar, historian, soldier, statesman, Pharisee, and traitor. After being captured by Roman forces led by Vespasian, Josephus claimed that the Jewish Messianic prophecies pointed to Vespasian as the future Emperor of Rome. Two years later, Vespasian did become Emperor, and he granted Josephus his freedom. Josephus took on Vespasian’s family name—Flavius—and became a Roman citizen.
As a historian, Josephus provided invaluable records of the Jewish War, contained here in three volumes. It is believed that the text was originally written in Aramaic and addressed to the Jews living in Mesopotamia, though Josephus later translated it into Greek. Also included in the Select Works of Josephus are his autobiography and Against Apion, which defends Judaism as classical religion and philosophy.
This collection contains the complete texts in their Loeb Classical Library editions. Each volume is included in its original Greek with an English translation for easy side-by-side comparison. Logos’ language tools help you to go deeper into the Greek texts and explore Josephus’ elegant language. Use the dictionary lookup tool to examine difficult Greek words and find every occurrence in your library. There’s never been a better way for students of history, philosophy, world religions, culture, and Greek literature to absorb these intriguing works.
