The Antiquities of the Jews

The Antiquities of the Jews is Flavius Josephus's twenty-book account of Jewish history written for a Greco-Roman audience. It begins with creation and retells biblical history before continuing through the Hasmonean dynasty, Herod's reign and the Roman administration of Judea. The narrative approaches the period immediately preceding the revolt that Josephus treats in The Jewish War.

Josephus combines inherited texts, historical traditions and political explanation. He frequently translates institutions and customs for readers outside Jewish life, presenting antiquity, law and national history in terms legible to the Roman world. The work is therefore both a large historical narrative and an act of cultural interpretation shaped by the author's position after war and displacement.

Read with attention to changes of source, scale and audience. Earlier books often recast scriptural material; later sections move closer to Hellenistic and Roman political history. Josephus remains indispensable evidence for the period, but his chronology, speeches and judgments require comparison with other ancient sources rather than automatic acceptance. This guide defines the work's span and method without summarizing every ruler, conflict or contested episode.