Endnote 27 – Will the Real Josephus Please Stand Up?

Josephus, Antiquities 10.206–210; cf. 4.114–117. Today we realize that Daniel and Second/Third Isaiah (Isaiah 40–66) were probably written after the events they claim to predict. But scholars who see Josephus as an opportunist may forget that Josephus lived long before such critical insights. (Daniel’s Hasmonean date was first proposed by the third-century C.E. philosopher Porphyry.) Josephus believed that Daniel and Second Isaiah were written centuries before the events they predicted (Josephus, Antiquities 10.276–281; 12.319–322). He had also read or heard that great world leaders such as Cyrus and Alexander had happily acknowledged the merit of Judean Scripture.