Flavius Josephus was born Joseph ben Matityahu in Jerusalem around 36 AD to a father from the first of the 24 priestly orders and a mother claiming Hasmonean royal descent. At 26 he went to Rome and, through a Jewish actor and the empress Poppaea, won the release of priests imprisoned under Nero. When the First Jewish Roman War broke out, he was made military governor of Galilee and tasked with training 65,000 troops, while Sepphoris and Tiberias resisted the revolt and John of Gischala undermined him. In 67 AD Vespasian and Titus besieged Jotapata for more than a month. Josephus hid in a cave with 40 men who chose death by lot, and he ended up one of the last two alive, then talked the other into surrendering.
Brought before Vespasian, he prophesied that the general would become emperor. After Nero’s suicide and the Year of the Four Emperors, Vespasian took the throne in 69 AD and freed him, and he took the name Flavius. In 70 AD he served as interpreter for Titus outside Jerusalem while his parents were held inside, and he watched the Second Temple burn. Settled in Rome from 71 AD with citizenship and a pension, he wrote The Jewish War around 75 AD and Antiquities of the Jews around 93 or 94 AD.
- The method of elimination in the cave gave its name to the Josephus Problem in mathematics and computer science.
- He blamed the war on radical factions such as Simon bar Giora’s and on corrupt Roman governors.
- He married three times, the third time to a Jewish woman from a distinguished Cretan family.
- Rabbis rarely named him for centuries, while Christians copied his works for their mentions of John the Baptist, James and Jesus.
- Archaeologists searched 35 years for Herod the Great’s tomb and found it by following his descriptions.
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