Robert Kraft         Spring 1991
                               GH 035 (Religious Studies 404) 
Flavius Josephus: Early Jewish Patriot, Historian and Apologist 
  
Flavius Josephus was a later contemporary of Philo and Paul 
whose voluminous writings provide us with a vast amounts of 
information about Judaism and its history to about the year 
100 of the common era. Josephus was himself of priestly 
Palestinian origins and served as a Jewish military leader  
in the "first revolt" against Rome. He survived the war,
however, and spent the latter part of his life under the  
patronage of the Roman Emperors in Rome writing about Jewish
history and about the revolt to Greco-Roman readers.
As classical Judaism developed in the period of late antiquity, 
it left Josephus and other Greek sources behind; emerging classical 
Christianity, on the other hand, viewed Josephus as an ally, and  
preserved his writings. The course will attempt to address the
question of Josephus' relationship to his Jewish world, his 
Greco-Roman context, and his later Christian benefactors. 
  
Robert Kraft earned his BA (Philosophy) and MA (Biblical
Literature: New Testament) from Wheaton College in Illinois,
and his PhD (Christian Origins) from Harvard (1961). He taught
briefly at the University of Manchester (England) before coming 
to Penn in 1963. The primary focus of his scholarly career has
been on the interfaces between early Christianity and its 
Jewish ancestry, in the framework of the study of religion
more generally. He is also deeply involved in the use of
computers for scholarly research in the humanities. 
  
Course Readings:
  
Background (see also Nickelsburg-Stone, Kraft-Nickelsburg)
  R. Kraft, "Judaism on the World Scene" (revised)
  R. Kraft, "Multiform Jewish Heritage..." (revised)
Josephus as Object of Study (see Feldman's Bibliog) 
  T. Rajak, Josephus: The Historian and His Society (1983)
  P. Bilde, Fl. Josephus Between Jerusalem and Rome (1989?) 
  L. H. Feldman and G. Hata, Josephus, Judaism & Christianity 
    (collection of essays)
Josephus as Author/Thinker  
  Loeb editions for complete works
  Autobiography 
  Against Apion (in 2 scrolls)
  The Jewish War [selections] 
  Antiquities of the Jews [selections]
  (see also the old translation by Whiston, often reprinted)