Josephus as a Pharisee

Christian Alexander

I am trying to find autobiographical information on Josephus. I know he was of a priestly family. is it true Josephus was a Pharisee? I recently read an article by A.I. Baumgarten called The Pharisaic Paradosis. It said he was a Pharisee. I cannot find any evidence that he was. None of the encyclopedia entries on the topic have helped. I went to Lexham Bible Dictionary, Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary and Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible. Can Logos help me with this inquiry? 

Justin Gatlin

In this case, we can go right to the horse's pen:

[quote](10) and when I was about sixteen years old, I had a mind to make trial of the several sects that were among us. These sects are three:—The first is that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes, as we have frequently told you; for I thought that by this means I might, choose the best, if I were once acquainted with them all; (11) so I contented myself with hard fare, and underwent great difficulties and went through them all. Nor did I content myself with these trials only; but when I was informed that one, whose name was Banus, lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both by night and by day, in order to preserve his chastity, I imitated him in those things, (12) and continued with him three years.c So when I had accomplished my desires, I returned back to the city, being now nineteen years old, and began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees, which is of kin to the sect of the Stoics, as the Greeks call them.

c When Josephus here says, that from sixteen to nineteen, or for three years, he made trial of the three Jewish sects, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, and yet says presently, in all our copies, that he stayed besides with one particular ascetic, called Banus, par˒ autō (with him), and this still before he was nineteen, there is little room left for his trial of the three other sects. I suppose, therefore, that for par˒ autō (with him), the old reading might be zērophagia, (with them); which is a very small emendation, and takes away the difficulty before us. Nor is Dr. Hudson’s conjecture hinted at by Mr. Hall in his preface to the Doctor’s edition of Josephus at all improbable, that this Banus, by this his description, might well be a follower of John the Baptist, and that from him Josephus might easily imbibe such notions, as afterwards prepared him to have a favorable opinion of Jesus Christ himself, who was attested to by John the Baptist.

Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987), 1.