The life and career of Josephus

Josephus was born Joseph ben Mattithiah (in the Greek form, Matthias), in the year that Gaius Caligula became emperor at Rome (ad 37–8). The main autobiographical details are given in the opening and closing chapters of the Life, which was written c. ad 95 to meet the attack of a rival historian, Justus of Tiberias (see below, pp. 90f). Josephus claims that his mother (or, on one reading of the text, his great-greatgrandmother) was from the Hasmonaean royal family, and that his father's ancestors were priests from the leading priestly family: his great-great-grandfather Matthias had married a high priest's daughter; his own father Matthias (born ad 6) was a man of noble birth and character in Jerusalem. Josephus goes on to describe how as a boy of fourteen he was consulted by the chief priests and city leaders, and how as a young man he systematically made trial of the teachings of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, and finally of the hermit Bannus, who lived in and off the desert and emphasised the value of ritual ablutions – a figure apparently not unlike John the Baptist. In thus stressing his royal and priestly connections and his educational attainments, Josephus, with typical vanity, presents himself as a model young man.

However, Josephus' ability cannot be denied. Aged twenty-six, he took part in an embassy to Rome (Josephus makes it sound an almost single-handed venture) on behalf of some Jewish priests sent by the procurator Felix to answer charges before Caesar.