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ABSTRACTS
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
CHAPTER TWO - MIRACLE IN JOSEPHUS
The extent and nature of Josephus' writings make him the natural starting-point for an investigation into first-century Jewish ideas on miracle. For Josephus, miracles are strikingly unexpected events that are taken by believers to be acts of God, as can be demonstrated from several passages in his writings. Josephus recognizes an epistemological ambiguity in miracle in that characters in his narrative sometimes assign miracles to magical or natural causes. There is also a tendency in Josephus for the miraculous to shade off into the merely providential. Josephus nevertheless employs a characteristic vocabulary of miracle, notably the words paradoxos and semeion and to a lesser extent, epiphaneia and teras. In the first nine and a half books of the Antiquities semeion nearly always means a sign authenticating a prophet, whereas in the War it tends to mean 'omen' or 'portent', but elsewhere it can simply mean 'miracle'. Josephus hardly ever uses thauma and its compounds in connexion with miracle. The bulk of the miracles in Josephus occur in the first ten books of the Antiquities, and they tend to be associated with great prophetic figures, especially Moses. Josephus does, however, relate a number of post-biblical miracles as well. The main purposes miracles serve in Josephus' narratives are those of punishment, deliverance, provision and authentication; Josephus shows very little interest in miracles of healing. The overall function of miracle in Josephus is as the most striking form of God's providence, understood as God's retributive justice acting in history. Although Josephus occasionally provides rational explanations for miracles, he makes it quite clear that he believes in them.
