RT Article
T1 Implicit Criticism of Scriptures and Josephus' Rewritten Bible
JF Hebrew bible and ancient Israel
VO 11
IS 1
SP 19
OP 30
A1 Lim, Timothy 1960-
LA English
PB Mohr Siebeck
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1806125293
AB This article discusses scriptural authority among ancient Jews. Josephus' metho-dological statement about rearranging the order of the biblical laws (Ant. 4.197) is examined within the context of scholarly discussions about the »rewritten Bible.« It is shown that Josephus intended that the laws and narratives of scripture to be reordered to accommodate a better sense of the content of the laws and the flow of the events. He perceived that the writings (scriptures) were left in a scattered con-dition, so he innovated to rearrange the order of the topics of the laws and narratives. Josephus held that the twenty--two books of the Jewish canon was authoritative and accurate for historiographical purposes, but he also believed that scripture could be changed and added to, especially for the period extending from the reign of Artaxerxes to his own day at the end of the first century CE.
DO 10.1628/hebai-2022-0004