Summaries of Israel's History, Part 4

Josephus and the NT

(avg. read time: 4–7 mins.)

Josephus’s works do not have much to add to what we have already seen. He quotes Moses as making reference to what God has done through others before him, lest anyone think he himself performed the great deeds (Josephus, Ant. 3.86–88). He also recites what God had done throughout his leadership over Israel in Ant. 4.43–50, which is similar in scope to what we saw at multiple points in Deuteronomy, but here it is an appeal to God, rather than the people. The one case that is particularly interesting from Josephus is a speech he makes in War 5.376–419. He appeals to his fellow Jews in Jerusalem to give up the war against the Romans. He states from the outset that their warfare is out of keeping with how God delivered the Israelites over the course of their history, but was rather in line with those God stood in judgment against. His review of this history begins with Sarah’s deliverance from Pharaoh when he tried to claim her as part of his own harem. Abraham did not get her back by war, but by God’s miraculous deliverance. When God brought Israel out of Egypt, he also did not do so by war, but by signs and wonders. When the Philistines (though he calls them “the Assyrians”) took the ark of the covenant, it was not by war that it came back to Israel. When Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem, it was not by war that the siege was broken. When the Jews were carried off to Babylon, it was not by Jewish rebellion that God liberated them, but by Cyrus, whom he made his instrument. In fact, Josephus claims that there is no example of the ancestors finding success by war or failed when committing themselves to God without war. As further examples, he cites the Babylonians’ siege of Jerusalem against Zedekiah and the initial resistance to Antiochus Epiphanes (though not the Maccabean War, as that would undermine his point). He even reviews the roots of Jewish subjugation to Rome, saying that it was because of the Jews’ impiety, particularly in the late Hasmonean era, that brought Pompey upon them. Whereas Hezekiah was a righteous man when he petitioned God for deliverance and God delivered Judah, the Jewish rebels in charge of Jerusalem have no such recourse. If God had not thought it proper for the Romans to subjugate them, he could have delivered them from the beginning, as he did Judah from the forces of Sennacherib. As such, Josephus uses this whole summary of history to undermine the rebellion against Rome and to call the Jews to what he would describe as repentance.

There are also a few texts in the NT that fit the patterns of what we have seen in summaries of Israel’s history. There are two of them in Acts. The first is Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:2–53. It begins with God’s first command and promise to Abraham in Gen 12. The summary then proceeds through the patriarchal narrative while giving extra focus to the story of Joseph, since he was mistreated by his brothers, and how Israel came into Egypt. He then describes how God raised up Moses and how he became the leader of Israel despite resistance. Indeed, most of the summary is taken up with the story of Moses and the exodus. Even after they were led out of Egypt, they turned to idolatry. God gave them the tabernacle according to the model he showed Moses, the ancestors brought it into the promised land in the time of Joshua, and it was eventually replaced in Solomon’s time with the temple. After noting this event, and saying that God does not dwell there—for heaven is his throne and earth is his footstool—Stephen quickly jumps forward to the present day, saying only that the people and their ancestors persecuted and killed the prophets who foretold the Messiah’s coming, and now they themselves participated in killing the Messiah. The references to the tabernacle and temple are driven by the charges against Stephen in the previous chapter (where he was accused of saying that Jesus would destroy the temple and change the customs of Moses), and they substantiate Stephen’s implied critique that they have given exaggerated importance to this temple. And while Stephen is trying to give a historical overview of the people’s story that begins with Abraham and runs up to the present day, and he makes sure to address the origins of the temple, he gives the most focus in his speech to Joseph, Moses, and their times. Joseph foreshadows Jesus in terms of how he was mistreated by his people, and in terms of how God vindicated him. Moses, too, was initially rejected by his people as having authority over them, until he was exalted, but he is also discussed because of the charge, as Stephen will say that nothing has changed since Moses’s generation, as the people still disobey the Torah that was “ordained by the angels” (v. 53). He invokes these events in history to answer the charges against himself and to countercharge his accusers.

Second, Paul’s speech in Pisidian Antioch uses a summary of Israel’s history in Acts 13:16–25 to set up what he will say about the gospel of Jesus in vv. 27–41. The setup particularly concerns Jesus’s royal, Davidic ancestry, since Paul will talk about how Jesus fulfills the promises to and about David. The summary begins with reference to God choosing Israel, but the first distinct event concerns him building them up in and leading them out of Egypt. Then he mentions the wilderness wandering, the conquest of the promised land, the time of the judges, and finally of the first king, Saul. To replace him, God raised up David, from whose line Jesus came. His summary then skips ahead to talking about John the Baptist, how he prepared the way for Jesus, and how he talked about himself in relation to Jesus. This is less crucial to his argument than the history leading up to David, since it is to David that Paul connects Jesus, but John is the one who brings this history up to the time of Jesus, which leads Paul to lay out the gospel of Jesus in the subsequent text.

The final summary of Israel’s history in the NT is the famous “Hall of Faith” text in Heb 11:1–12:3. This is a text I will explore much more fully next year, but for now what is worth noting are the scope and purpose of this summary. The listed people, individuals and groups, in various ways exemplify faith described here in terms of hope and acting in hope of that which is not yet seen (cf. Heb 2:8–9; 3:6; 4:14; 6:11–12, 18–19; 7:19; 10:22–23; 11:1, 13, 39). After all, God’s promises are regularly referenced throughout this history, and the author draws attention to the people for how they trusted God’s promises and how they acted in allegiance to God. The first event linked to this theme of faith is how God prepared the ages by his word, but there is not a particular individual noted here. The first individual exemplifying faith is Abel, and so we see here the author following the trajectory among Second Temple literature to broaden the scope of history by moving back into the primeval history. The last example described most directly and specifically in ch. 11 is Rahab, who is also an exemplar of faith in Jas 2:25, and since she acted on faith despite not being a natural heir to the promises herself prior to her action, she is all the more exemplary for it. After referring to her, the author quickly lists other examples that take us into the time of the prophets. Then after this quick list, he mentions other points that we will address in more detail another time that draw on traditions of how the prophets died and on the stories of the martyrs in 2 Maccabees who were waiting for a better (i.e., eschatological) resurrection. These indirect references help bridge the gap in the historical recap until he gets to his climactic figure in the Hall of Faith. This is a case where the chapter divisions fail us, because the reference to Jesus as the pioneer and completer of faith in ch. 12 actually fits with ch. 11. The summary thus properly ends with the one who defines the new epoch, who brought God’s promises to fruition through his own action of faith, and the one who is the defining figure of faith for those in union with him. It is only by him that the promises of God are attained because it is by him that they are realized, and thus he is fittingly portrayed as the climax of the history of faith.

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