Table Of ContentÉ T U D E S B I B L I Q U E S
RETHINKING THE JEWISH WAR:
ARCHEOLOGY, SOCIETY,
TRADITIONS
edited by
Anthony GIAMBRONE
PEETERS
RETHINKING THE JEWISH WAR:
ARCHEOLOGY, SOCIETY, TRADITIONS
É T U D E S B I B L I Q U E S
(Nouvelle série. No 84)
RETHINKING THE JEWISH WAR:
ARCHEOLOGY, SOCIETY,
TRADITIONS
edited by
Anthony GIAMBRONE
PEETERS
LEUVEN – PARIS – BRISTOL, CT
2021
ISBN 978-90-429-4301-8
eISBN 978-90-429-4302-5
D/2021/0602/11
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
© 2021, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium
INTRODUCTION
RETHINKING THE JEWISH WAR:
AN ORIENTATION TO THE DEBATE
Anthony GIAMBRONE, O.P.
École biblique et archéologique de Jérusalem
The “Jewish War” or “First Revolt” against Rome (66–74 CE) remains
one of the most perennially captivating conflicts of all time. From the
momentous destruction of the Jerusalem Temple to the final showdown at
the desert outpost in Masada, Flavius Josephus’ famous history of the war
preserves an iconic image of the clash between Roman military might and
the reckless bravado of the Jewish rebels, fighting under the banner “No
master but God!”
Contemporary scholarship has increasingly questioned the accuracy of
certain cherished elements in Josephus’ account. The recent publication of
Steve Mason’s magnum opus, A History of the Jewish War, which brings
together the results of decades of research by one of the leading Josephus
scholars of our day, represents an excellent introduction to the present
shape of the discussion. The book accepts the responsibility of critically
examining the history of this mythic confrontation, openly challenging
many received truths. Unsurprisingly, it rather quickly elicited some heated
reviews. In October 2018 the book accordingly served as the occasion for
a large, three-day, international conference at the École biblique et archéo-
logique française de Jérusalem entitled “Rethinking the Jewish War:
Archeology, Society, Texts, and Traditions.” Eighteen scholars represent-
ing fourteen countries, four languages, and a wide range of diverse dis-
ciplines thus gathered in Jerusalem to address a series of targeted themes,
not with the aim of examining Mason’s work minutely, but simply
to use it as the occasion for a conversation, to help frame and analyze
key issues and pressure points in our understanding of the Revolt. From
numismatics, epigraphy, and field archeology, to the study of Roman
military and legal history, the examination of ancient texts, rabbinic, clas-
sical, and Christian, down to the modern reception of the events, selected
results from those three days of rich and focused discussion are presented
in this book.
2 ANTHONY GIAMBRONE
1. CONTROVERSY AND CONSENSUS
1.1. Breaking with Josephus
Although Mason’s study was only a conversation starter and does not
control all the discussions advanced in this volume, it forms the context
and a brief word about his approach will nevertheless help put the material
in these pages into better perspective. (Mason will speak for himself in the
final chapter and readers may wish to jump to the summary and methodo-
logical explanations he there offers.) As indicated, what is perhaps most
characteristic of his work is a critical readiness to depart from the classical
paradigm supplied by Josephus and to offer alternative reconstructions.
Mason acknowledges that prior to his research for the book he “was still
comfortable with, and assumed when teaching, the main contours of the
prevailing story: a province under increasing stress from Roman rule,
from some combination of political, religious, economic, and social oppres-
sion, and rife with seers and messiahs, finally exploded in revolt in 66 CE”
(chapter 14). The new vision that emerged from his concentrated study
discards major elements of this rendition, however. This revised vision is
plainly built up by numerous detailed arguments and considerations, but
two major leitmotifs broadly contour his counter-proposal.
(1) First, the scale of the “Jewish War” in reality does not correspond
to the inflated significance that it was subsequently given. This is a point
not only about conventional Greco-Roman historiographical exaggera-
tions, which are plainly employed by Josephus (although Mason would
naturally agree that, on account of its genre, the Jewish War is simply unsat-
isfactory for answering many modern questions). Other issues also
create a similar interpretative gap between the cause and its inflated
portrayal, and it is these he has especially in mind. The rampant oppor-
tunism of Flavian propaganda is particularly noteworthy for its dis-
torted representations (even if Josephus was not a “Flavian lackey”
in Mason’s view). In effect, for Mason, a poorly coordinated and easily
quashed internal disturbance in the southern part of the province of Syria
was fraudulently recast as a major empire-expanding victory over an exotic
eastern foe; a real, but rather beggarly revolt was made into a foreign war,
from which vast riches supposedly flowed into Rome. The creation of a
new Province of Judea was the fictional trophy crowning this fabricated
triumph: all part of a public relations coup calculated to legitimate the
fledgling Flavian regime.
RETHINKING THE JEWISH WAR 3
Alongside this highly dubious Roman amplification, Mason additionally
highlights the self-serving theological exaggerations of Christian tradition,
which like the imperial politicizing, managed to “package the war in ways
t hat stifled inquiry.”1 The war thus became the legitimation of a doctrinal
regime, invested with a meaning from the outside that had no part in the
original terms of the conflict. Unlike the imperial exaggerations, however,
which faded with the Flavian era, Christian anti-Judaism has fueled ongo-
ing overstatements of the Revolt’s importance. Hence the urgency to take
distance from so many received “truths” about this “Famous and Unknown
War.”
Faced thus with a problematic ancient historian and twined colossus of
interpretative spin, Mason necessarily privileges alternative perspectives
in his reconstruction of the events. In this regard, military strategy plays the
major role in driving his analysis. Here the tactics of Roman risk-aversion,
display violence, and a general policy of maximum intimidation with mini-
mal investment are the recurring and central themes, meant to expose the
slight scale and relative ease of the engagement.
Galilee effectively capitulated without a fight. The only real hostilities,
apart from some punitive burning of empty villages, was at Jotapata, where
the simple siege action was a retributive strike, prompted by a momentary
reversal and question of personal honor. With that, the northern theater
was pacified and fully under control. The retirement of Vespasian’s troops
to hot springs for the winter was only interrupted by Agrippa’s appeal for
aid in settling some disturbances in his own cities of Tiberias and Tari-
cheae. This was obligingly done and with little effort.
Mason’s almost leisurely depiction of this Galilean campaign is char-
acteristic. The whole affair was in effect a show: an attempt to draw out
Judean militants from Jerusalem – or still better an embassy ready to sub-
mit – with no evident Roman rush to head south. The plan was to take
their good time, isolating the Judean metropolis in a long and terrifying
strangling maneuver. Ultimately, of course, rather than surrendering, the city
became a refuge for an influx of external elements. The internal stasis that
resulted left Jerusalem its own worst enemy; and the Romans were content
to let the city steadily weaken itself, as they calmly squeezed the noose.
The ultimate seizure of the Temple mount and from there the entire city
came through the Romans’ shifting Auftragstaktik, i.e. Titus’ on-the-ground
response to developing circumstances. In this light, Mason compares the
burning of the Temple to the at once intentional and unwilled bombing
1 MASON 2016, 58.
