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Re: Josephus & DSS
of course josephus is a "bad" historian if one misreads him as attempting to
do modernist historiography. but he is doing hellenistic historia instead &
is a pretty representative example of it too. both labels "historian" and
"novelist" have modern canons of "doing history" & "writing fiction" in view
which are completely foreign to josephus' worldview. this does violence to
josephus, it does not do him justice. he is no more a novelist than he is a
historian. to call him a bad historian or a novelist simply perpetuates &
does not correct the misreading one is arguing against.
gordon lyn watley
grad student
the university of virginia