Do you want to stay informed about this journal? Click the buttons to subscribe to our alerts.
Josephus’s Lamentations in the Judean War: Body, Emotional Resistance, and Gender
In: Journal for the Study of JudaismAbstract
In the Judean War’s proem, Josephus professes his need to lament, an atypical statement in Hellenistic and Roman historiography. This article explores his lamentations, in the proem and the work, as they engage body, emotion, gender, and power. It examines the constructions that laments receive in Josephus’s diverse literary and cultural backgrounds—biblical and early Jewish literature as well as ancient Greek and Roman traditions. It also considers how the War reflects these constructions. Josephus’s laments, staging his wailing voice and suffering body, suggest self-abasement. However, his protagonists’ laments often convey resistance and rebellion, a traditional function of laments; they thus shed a more political light on the proem. Josephus masculinizes the typically feminine lamenter-qua-protester figure, perhaps to avoid feminizing his own role. This article interprets Josephus’s laments as an embodiment of his carefully subversive account and as emotional resistance against the Roman power.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Alexiou, Margaret. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, 2nd ed. (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).
-
Bautch, Richard J. Developments in Genre between Post-Exilic Penitential Prayers and the Psalms of Communal Lament (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
-
Bilde, Per. “The Causes of the Jewish War According to Josephus.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 10 (1979), 179–202.
-
Bilde, Per. Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, His Works, and Their Importance (Sheffield: JSOT, 1988).
-
Bloch, René. “Part of the Scene: Jewish Theater in Antiquity.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8 (2017), 150–169.
-
Chapman, Honora H. Spectacle and Theater in Josephus’sBellum Judaicum, Dissertation (Department of Classics, Stanford University, 1998).
-
Chapman, Honora H. “‘By the Waters of Babylon’: Josephus and Greek Poetry.” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 121–146.
-
Chapman, Honora H. “Spectacle in Josephus’s Jewish War.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 289–314.
-
Cohen, Shaye J.D. “Josephus, Jeremiah, and Polybius.” History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History 21 (1982), 366–381.
-
Cottrill, Amy C. “The Articulate Body: The Language of Suffering in the Laments of the Individual.” In Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts, ed. Nancy C. Lee and Carleen Mandolfo (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 103–112.
-
Den Hollander, William. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
-
Derderian, Katharine. Leaving Words to Remember: Greek Mourning and the Advent of Literacy (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
-
Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W. Weep, O Daughter of Zion: A Study of the City-Lament Genre in the Hebrew Bible (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1993).
-
Dué, Casey. The Captive Woman’s Lament in Greek Tragedy (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006).
-
Dutsch, Dorota. “Nenia: Gender, Genre, and Lament in Ancient Rome.” In Lament, ed. Ann Suter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 258–279.
-
Eckstein, Arthur M. “Josephus and Polybius: A Reconsideration.” Classical Antiquity 9 (1990), 175–208.
-
Ehrenkrook, Jason von. “Effeminacy in the Shadow of Empire: The Politics of Transgressive Gender in Josephus’s Bellum Judaicum.” Jewish Quarterly Review 101 (2011), 145–163.
-
Erskine, Andrew. “Cicero and the Expression of Grief.” In The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, ed. Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 36–47.
-
Erskine, Andrew. “Polybius and the Anger of the Romans.” In Emotions between Greece and Rome, ed. Douglas Cairns and Laurel Fulkerson (London: Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, 2015), 105–127.
-
Feldman, Louis. “The Influence of the Greek Tragedians on Josephus.” In Hellenic and Jewish Arts: Interaction, Tradition and Renewal, ed. Asher Ovadiah (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1998), 51–80.
-
Ferris, Paul Wayne Jr. The Genre of Communal Lament in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992).
-
Fields, Dana. Frankness, Greek Culture, and the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 2021).
-
Foley, Helene P. Female Acts in Greek Tragedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
-
Gleason, Maud. “Mutilated Messengers: Body Language in Josephus.” In Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic, and the Development of Empire, ed. Simon Goldhill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 50–85.
-
Graver, Margaret. Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
-
Greenstein, Edward L. “Lamentation and Lament in the Hebrew Bible.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, ed. Karen Weisman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 67–84.
-
Gruen, Erich S. “Polybius and Josephus on Rome.” In Flavius Josephus: Interpretation and History, ed. Jack Pastor, Pnina Stern, and Menahem Mor (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 149–162.
-
Hadas-Lebel, Mireille. “Flavius Josèphe entre Polybe et Jérémie.” Ktema 24 (1999), 159–165.
-
Harkins, Angela Kim. “The Pro-Social Role of Grief in Ezra’s Penitential Prayer.” Biblical Interpretation 24 (2016), 466–491.
-
Hasan-Rokem, Galit. “Bodies Performing in Ruins: The Lamenting Mother in Ancient Hebrew Texts.” In Lament in Jewish Thought: Philosophical, Theological, and Literary Perspectives, ed. Ilit Ferber and Paula Schwebel (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 33–63.
-
Holst-Warhaft, Gail. Dangerous Voices: Women’s Laments and Greek Literature (London: Routledge, 1992).
-
Huitink, Luuk, and Jan Willem van Henten. “The Publication of Flavius Josephus’ Works and Their Audiences.” Zutot 6 (2009), 49–60.
-
Keith, Alison. “Lament in Lucan’s Bellum Civile.” In Lament, ed. Ann Suter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 233–257.
-
Konstan, David. “Friendship, Frankness and Flattery.” In Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World, ed. John T. Fitzgerald (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 7–19.
-
Lambert, David A. How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
-
Lee, Nancy C. The Singers of Lamentations: Cities under Siege, from Ur to Jerusalem to Sarajevo (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
-
Lieber, Laura S. “Stages of Grief: Enacting Lamentation in Late Ancient Hymnography.” Association for Jewish Studies Review 40 (2016), 101–124.
-
Lindner, Helgo. Die Geschichtsauffassung des Flavius Josephus im Bellum Judaicum: Gleichzeitig ein Beitrag zur Quellenfrage (Leiden: Brill, 1972).
-
Mader, Gottfried. Josephus and the Politics of Historiography: Apologetic and Impression Management in the Bellum Judaicum (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
-
Marincola, John. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
-
Mason, Steve. “Of Audience and Meaning: Reading Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum in the Context of a Flavian Audience.” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 71–100.
-
Mason, Steve. “Figured Speech and Irony in T. Flavius Josephus.” In Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 243–288.
-
Mason, Steve. “Encountering the Past through the Works of Flavius Josephus.” In Historical Knowledge in Biblical Antiquity, ed. Jacob Neusner, Bruce D. Chilton, and William S. Green (Blandford Forum: Deo, 2007), 105–138.
-
Mason, Steve. “Essenes and Lurking Spartans in Josephus’ Judean War: From Story to History.” In Making History: Josephus and Historical Method, ed. Zuleika Rodgers (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 219–261.
-
Mason, Steve, ed. Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, vol. 1B Judean War 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
-
Mason, Steve. “Josephus, Publication, and Audiences: A Response.” Zutot 8 (2011), 81–94.
-
Mason, Steve. A History of the Jewish War: A.D. 66–74 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
-
Mason, Steve. “Pathos and Passions in Josephus’s Judaean War: A Tragic Vision of History and Politics.” In Passion, Persecution, and Epiphany in Early Jewish Literature, ed. Nicholas P.L. Allen, Pierre J. Jordaan, and József Zsengellér (London: Routledge, 2020), 150–173.
-
Mermelstein, Ari. Power and Emotion in Ancient Judaism: Community and Identity in Formation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
-
Mirguet, Françoise. An Early History of Compassion: Emotion and Imagination in Hellenistic Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
-
Momigliano, Arnaldo. “Greek Historiography.” History and Theory 17 (1978), 1–28.
-
Monsacré, Hélène. Les Larmes d’Achille: Héros, femme et souffrance chez Homère (Paris: Éditions du Félin, 2010).
-
Morrow, William S. Protest against God: The Eclipse of a Biblical Tradition (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2006).
-
Pelletier, André. Flavius Josèphe: Guerre des Juifs. 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2008–2010).
-
Perkell, Christine. “Reading the Laments of Iliad 24.” In Lament, ed. Ann Suter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 93–117.
-
Price, Jonathan J. “The Provincial Historian in Rome.” In Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond, ed. Joseph Sievers and Gaia Lembi (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 101–118.
-
Price, Jonathan J. “Josephus’ First Sentence and the Preface to Bellum Judaicum.” In For Uriel: Studies in the History of Israel in Antiquity, Presented to Professor Uriel Rappaport, ed. Menahem Mor et al. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2005), 131–144.
-
Rajak, Tessa. Josephus: The Historian and His Society (London: Duckworth, 2002).
-
Reeder, Caryn A. “Gender, War, and Josephus.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 46 (2015), 65–85.
-
Richlin, Amy. “Emotional Work: Lamenting the Roman Dead.” In Essays in Honor of Gordon Williams: Twenty-Five Years at Yale, ed. Elizabeth Tylawsky and Charles Weiss (New Haven: Schwab, 2001), 229–248.
-
Rutherford, Richard. “Tragedy and History.” In A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, ed. John Marincola (Hoboken: Wiley, 2007), 1034–1054.
-
Schorn, Stefan. “Tears of the Bereaved: Plutarch’s Consolatio ad uxorem in Context.” In Tears in the Graeco-Roman World, ed. Thorsten Fögen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 335–365.
-
Schwartz, Daniel R. “On Drama and Authenticity in Philo and Josephus.” Scripta Classica Israelica 10 (1989/90), 113–129.
-
Scott, James C. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
-
Seaford, Richard. Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City State (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994).
-
Shaw, Brent D. “Body/Power/Identity: Passions of the Martyrs.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996), 269–312.
-
Sherman, Nancy. Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
-
Spilsbury, Paul. “Josephus and the Bible.” In A Companion to Josephus, ed. Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 123–134.
-
Stears, Karen. “Death Becomes Her: Gender and Athenian Death Ritual.” In Lament, ed. Ann Suter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 139–155.
-
Sterling, Gregory E. “Explaining Defeat: Polybius and Josephus on the Wars with Rome.” In Internationales Josephus-Kolloquium: Aarhus 1999, ed. Jürgen U. Kalms (Münster: Lit, 2000), 135–151.
-
Suter, Ann. “Male Lament in Greek Tragedy.” In Lament, ed. Ann Suter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 156–180.
-
Swoboda, Sören. “Mitleid wecken im flavischen Rom: Zur Plausibilisierung einer Intention des Josephus im ‘Bellum Judaicum’.” Early Christianity 7 (2016), 155–185.
-
Swoboda, Sören. “Josephus’s Political Vision.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 48 (2017), 46–68.
-
Swoboda, Sören. “Tragic Elements in Josephus: Pity as a Goal of the Jewish War and Greek Tragedy.” Journal of Ancient Judaism 8 (2017), 257–270.
-
Teets, Sarah C. “The Trauma of Autopsy and the Transgression of History in Josephus’ Jewish War.” Journal for the Study of Judaism 51 (2020), 261–284.
-
Tsagalis, Christos. Epic Grief: Personal Laments in Homer’s Iliad (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004).
-
Tucker, W. Dennis Jr. “The Human Body and the Characterization of Power in the Individual Laments.” In Gegner im Gebet: Studien zu Feindschaft und Entfeindung im Buch der Psalmen, ed. Kathrin Liess and Johannes Schnocks (Freiburg: Herder, 2018), 107–128.
-
Ullmann, Lisa, and Jonathan J. Price. “Drama and History in Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum.” Scripta Classica Israelica 21 (2002), 97–111.
-
Van Henten, Jan Willem. “Josephus as Narrator.” In Autoren in religiösen literarischen Texten der späthellenistischen und der frühkaiserzeitlichen Welt: Zwölf Fallstudien, ed. Eve-Marie Becker and Jörg Rüpke (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 121–150.
-
Walbank, Frank W. A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979).
-
Walbank, Frank W. “‘Treason’ and Roman Domination: Two Case-Studies, Polybius and Josephus.” In Polybius, Rome and the Hellenistic World: Essays and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 258–276.
-
Williamson, Robert Jr. “Lament and the Arts of Resistance: Public and Hidden Transcripts in Lamentations 5.” In Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts, ed. Nancy C. Lee and Carleen Mandolfo, (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008) 67–80.
-
Wiseman, Laura R. “Lament in Hebrew Poetry: In Search of an Equitable Calculus of Voice.” Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 28 (2014), 152–189.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 176 | 176 | 4 |
| Full Text Views | 29 | 29 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 73 | 73 | 8 |
Josephus’s Lamentations in the Judean War: Body, Emotional Resistance, and Gender
In: Journal for the Study of JudaismAbstract
In the Judean War’s proem, Josephus professes his need to lament, an atypical statement in Hellenistic and Roman historiography. This article explores his lamentations, in the proem and the work, as they engage body, emotion, gender, and power. It examines the constructions that laments receive in Josephus’s diverse literary and cultural backgrounds—biblical and early Jewish literature as well as ancient Greek and Roman traditions. It also considers how the War reflects these constructions. Josephus’s laments, staging his wailing voice and suffering body, suggest self-abasement. However, his protagonists’ laments often convey resistance and rebellion, a traditional function of laments; they thus shed a more political light on the proem. Josephus masculinizes the typically feminine lamenter-qua-protester figure, perhaps to avoid feminizing his own role. This article interprets Josephus’s laments as an embodiment of his carefully subversive account and as emotional resistance against the Roman power.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 176 | 176 | 4 |
| Full Text Views | 29 | 29 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 73 | 73 | 8 |