On whether Against Apion 1:37-41 teaches a cessation of prophecy:
The fundamental reason why this text cannot be included
as evidence of a dogma of the ceasing of prophecy is that Josephus “speaks not
of the cessation of prophecy but rather of the failure of the exact succession
of the prophets.”
The motivation for this statement arises from the
differences in the quality of literary sources before and after the reign of
Artaxerxes. For the prior period from the death of Moses until the advent of
Artaxerxes there exists, in Josephus’s opinion, reliable history. The reason he
offers is that prophets were present to record “a clear account of the events
of their own Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen
books” (1.40). In contrast, history for the subsequent period, from Artaxerxes’s
to Josephus’s day, “has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier
records” (1.41). He attributes the inferiority of histories of this period to “the
failure of the exact succession of the prophets” (1.41), that is, the absence
in some generations of prophets who could give “a clear account of the events
of their own time just as they occurred,” as they had done prior to Artaxerxes.
The reference to an “inaccurate succession of the
prophets,” therefore, is motivated by the need to explain why sources for the
final period of Jewish history are inferior. Josephus neither implies that
prophecy ceased nor gives the slightest hint that this is due to the withdrawal
of the Spirit. On the contrary, inspired prophets continued to record history
in the period after Artaxerxes but with less regularity than formerly. (John R.
Levison, In Search of the Spirit, 2 vols. [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books,
2024], 2:9)
Several other elements support the view that Josephus
believed prophecy to have continued. First, the fact that Josephus refers to
Cleodemus the Prophet (Ant. 1.240-241) and to John Hyrcanus as a prophet
(J. W. 1.68-69); Ant. 13.299-300) would seem to indicate that
prophecy had not ceased, although one cannot be certain because the reference
to Cleodemus is taken by Josephus from Alexander Polyhistor, who may have used
the term loosely, and the reference to John Hyrcanus may have been influenced
by the fact that Josephus was descended from the Hasmoneans. See Feldman, “Prophets
and Prophecy,” 400-407; Gray, Prophetic Figures, 8-23. Second, Gray
discusses dreams and predictions after the time of John Hyrcanus as evidence
that prophecy continued (26-34). Third, Gray devotes successive significant
chapters to Josephus’s view of himself, the Essenes, the “sign prophets” (e.g.,
Theudas, Ant. 20.97-99), and other prophetic figures in part to
demonstrate the thesis that “the belief that prophecy had ceased should not be
understood as a hard-and-fast dogma, but rather as one expression of a wider
nostalgia for the distant past” (167). (John R. Levison, In Search of the Spirit,
2 vols. [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2024], 2:9 n. 33)
Though with less intensity than Philo, Josephus claims to
be an inspired interpreter of Scripture. In a fascinating instance of self-exoneration,
he explains why he surrendered to Rome: “and Josephus . . . was an interpreter
of dreams and skilled in divining the meaning of ambiguous utterances of the
Deity . . . not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books. At that hour he
was inspired to read their meaning . . .” (J.W. 3.351-353). (John R. Levison,
In Search of the Spirit, 2 vols. [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2023],
1:66)
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