Josephus Cross-Reference to Biblical Texts
I had been looking for an electronic/digital version of William Whiston's cross-reference index in the back of the paperback editions of Josephus that shows Old Testament references parallel to Josephus' histories. I had yet to find one, so I did it myself. This is based off of that table, but I found so many references that I believed need corrected that it ended up being significantly different. I think it is very accurate now, but of course I welcome corrections. And since this is an editable Word document, you can make corrections yourself. One file is sorted by biblical reference, the other is sorted by Antiquities reference (with milestones included in each).
5824.Josephus Parallels Bible.docx
8117.Josephus Parallels Josephus.docx
Comments
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Jeffrey:
Thank you for sharing your work!
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Jeffery this is excellent! Thank you! I'm surprised nothing like this exists in Logos! Now we just need someone to create one of these for the works of Philo, Psuedopigrapha, midrash, Talmud, and Apostolic Fathers! I don't know why a resource like the one you created doesn't exist for these either!
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Amazing! Thanks.
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Thank you Jeffrey. Appreciated.
I built these as a type "Cross Reference Index."
Fascinating to scan for Josephus' biases/angle.
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Yes, I built it as a cross-reference too. Here's the information I included for myself:
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Yeah, I've been trying to do some curriculum planning for inter-testamental history, and want to use Josephus as a textbook. So I go to my handy Logos e-version, and... NOTHING that shows where the OT stops and Josephus picks up, or what overlaps and what doesn't. I searched quite a while and contacted josephus.org. He didn't know of anything either, other than what was in the back of the book, which I had to dig out of a box somewhere (I mean, the whole point of Logos is that you don't need those tree-killing paper books, right???). But then as I was cross-checking references, I realized that there were all these mistakes. Some were just typos (like printing "12" instead of "1-2), but most were a few verses off, or the "parallel" was a single reference to an event in one text or the other, not really a parallel. Anyway, after several weeks of work, this is what I've got. I'm SURE it was worth it.
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Yeah, I like how he keeps pointing out how the Hebrews were so much better off under the aristocracy than those pesky kings. I also find it fascinating how he uses terms that make sense to his Roman audience, like "senate," or refers to other historical accounts that supposedly back him up. The Romans seem so helpful, especially against the Seleucids and Ptolemies. What nice people.
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Yeah, I like how he keeps pointing out how the Hebrews were so much better off under the aristocracy than those pesky kings.
My favorite is Ant 4.223, where he has Moses saying:
Aristocracy, and the way of living under it, is the best constitution; and may you never have any inclination to any other form of government; and may you always love that form, and have the laws for your governors, and govern all your actions according to them; for you need no supreme governor but God. But if you shall desire a king, ...
His motivation is clearly to oppose any Messianic notion of gaining freedom from Rome: in telling the David story, he carefully avoids the notion in 2 Sam 7:14 of the Davidic dynasty being "forever."What has most fascinated me, Jeffrey, has been the way Josephus tells the OT story. What he selects, what he expands, what he omits, and the perspective all combine to form fascinating insight into how a Jew was thinking at the end of the Second Temple Period. His usefulness as a bridge between the first century Jewish world and our contemporary Western world is that he wrote intending to be such a bridge--between the Jewish and Roman worlds.
Of course, he intended to be a two-way bridge: he wants the Jews to "cross over" to the Romans.
The Romans seem so helpful, especially against the Seleucids and Ptolemies.
In which behavior anyone may discern the equity and generosity of the Romans, especially of Vespasian and Titus ...
His pro-imperial bias has also made him a useful text for pro-imperial readings of Scripture throughout the centuries. He regularly misses the subversive nature of the Hebrew discourses.
All the best for your course.
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Thank you Jeffrey for sharing this!
Sadly Logos does not support Cross-References that are Personal Books in the Passage Guide. But it does work nicely scrolling with Antiquities.
One question I have - It appears this cross reference only goes thru Antiquities 13, while Antiquities goes up to chapter 20. Is that just as far as the author went, or did I do something wrong or miss something?
Thanks!
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Thanks!
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You are correct! Book 13 is the last book, as far as I can tell, that parallels the Old Testament. Everything after that is inter-testamental or later (up to the Jewish War, I believe). My document shows the parallels to OT texts, so there is no need to include the later books. They would not be parallel to anything. Also, this is based off of William Whiston's cross-references, and that's as far as he goes (for the same reasons, I'm sure).
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That makes sense, thanks Jeffrey!
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GREAT WORK! Thanks!!
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Several weeks ago I posted a suggestion that Logos create a Lexham Cross Reference. This would be a "super cross reference" that would include everything. This needs to be done. For one thing we are currently using several resources at once instead of one. Additionally, many of the cross reference works are from the late 19th or early 20th centuries and need updating.
This would be a great addition to Logos 6 or 7!
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NOTHING that shows where the OT stops and Josephus picks up, or what overlaps and what doesn't
Hi Jeffrey.
Nice work!
I know it isn't Whiston's English edition, but note that the Niese edition of Josephus (in Greek) has an apparatus of cross references (Biblical and otherwise).
In the Logos version (here: https://www.logos.com/product/5776/josephus-in-greek-niese-critical-edition-with-apparatus) it is implemented as a cross-reference resource that will scroll with editions of Josephus (English and Greek).
This one is interesting because the parallels between Antiquities and Wars are also included. Fun stuff.
Hope it helps,
Rick Brannan
Data Wrangler, Faithlife
My books in print0 -
I know it isn't Whiston's English edition, but note that the Niese edition of Josephus (in Greek) has an apparatus of cross references (Biblical and otherwise).
In the Logos version (here: https://www.logos.com/product/5776/josephus-in-greek-niese-critical-edition-with-apparatus) it is implemented as a cross-reference resource that will scroll with editions of Josephus (English and Greek).
CURSES!!! Why couldn't I find that earlier!?!? That one is probably better and more accurate than mine!!! Unless it's like Whiston's, in which case it's not very accurate after all. I spent WEEKS on this. Well, I'm still not going to spend $180 for it, so I guess I would have ended up doing the work anyway. Also, I suppose mine can scroll with Antiquities AND the biblical text, so I suppose it's a little more flexible in that regard. One of the problems mine has is that it only uses the chapter/section numbering system, rather than the other one (which has paragraph/sentence numbers from 1 to xxx at the end of the book). Also, from your screenshot, it looks like each reference cross-refers to specific verses instead of whole passages.
Honestly, if I had had this, I probably would have made do and not spent any time making my own. But I think mine works on some of these other levels, so I don't feel like it was a huge waste of my time. But still... Grr.
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Thank you!
Grace & Peace,
Bill
MSI GF63 8RD, I-7 8850H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 2TB HDD, NVIDIA GTX 1050Max
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Much appreciated Jeffrey. Thank you.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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Very good job !!! I was looking for that for a while...
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You're very welcome.
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I know this is years old, but just had to say thanks. These files were very helpful!
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Great!
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Jeffrey, thank you so much for your labor on this, it will be very useful as I finish my book: "Whitehead's 44 Historical Reasons to Believe the Bible." You may download my first book in the series for free, my way of saying thanks for all your hard work! It is "Whitehead's 44 Archaeological Reasons to Believe the Bible." Here is the link to the download: https://www.precinctpowersolutions.com/uploads/4/2/7/0/42704385/44archaeologicalreasonsfinal.pdf
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Thanks. Looking forward to looking through it.
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You're very welcome. I'm still a little surprised that no one else had done it already.
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