Josephus: The Jewish War

by Gaalya Cornfeld (Editor)

Newly translated with extensive commentary and archaeological background illustrations. 526 pages with very many illustrations. Cloth with dust jacket.

526 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1982

Reviews

[Maurice Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book as soon as it appeared in Zondervan Book Stores. It is a beautifully bound book containing many photographs and commentaries about recent excavations. The book became very hard to find until Amazon got into gear, but now I see that many used copies are available. I use this book as a resource for anything I want to verify about the Jewish Wars. I found Josephus to be an excellent source of history because he was both an eyewitness and a participant. Though undoubtedly slanted toward his own personal opinion, I think the events Joseph described really did happen. He, at first, was part of the rebellion against Rome, but it seems he all along had reservations about the wisdom of the rebellion. He did fight, however, but was defeated and captured.

After his capture, he became certain of the hopelessness of war against Rome. And he was saddened as he watched, with dismay, the internal civil wars, murders, and political infighting of the Judeans within Jerusalem. He tried many times to shame them out of their infighting, and he encouraged them to surrender undoubtedly because, due to their disunity, they faced certain defeat. He is sometimes referred to as a traitor because he did not support the rebellion to the end. I don't think this is fair to Josephus. Not every political movement in a country is righteous and justified. I wonder how I would act were I were a German citizen during the Nazi era or an Iraqi during Saddam Hussein's defiance of international law.

I found Josephus to be a very rich source of information for my books. I am grateful that Josephus took the time to write such a detailed account of what he saw. He writes his history almost like a novel. This easy to understand translation and the illustrations and comments makes for very interesting reading. I still treasure this book.

[Phillip G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book. While you will have to use discernment in accepting his conclusions (since the author is not a conservative), the background material that he gives on Josephus is super helpful. There are lots of illustrations, archaeological photos, explanatory footnotes, and other helps scattered throughout the text of Josephus. His own translation is sometimes a loose translation of the Greek of Josephus, but for the most part is pretty good. Overall I was super impressed.

[Fred Christopherson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This edition translates the work in to modern English, making it easy to read. It has lots and lots of notes explaining and commenting the text. I ignored most of these notes, but may revisit them. The book also has lots of maps a pictures.

[Frans Vermeiren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A marvellous edition of one of the greatest books ever written by a historian. This edition contains a lot of photographs and other illustrations and - even more important - extensive first-class commentary.