. . . [Josephus] appears to
have regarded himself as a prophet and, in this role, to have compared himself
not only with Jeremiah but with Daniel as well. Josephus claimed to have
foreseen the Jewish- Roman war and the Jewish defeat in general and the fall of
Jotapata in particular (Bell. 3.351, 406). Exactly like Daniel, Josephus claims
to have had nightly visions about the future in which he foresaw the Jewish
defeat as well as the destiny of the foreign ruler (Bell. 3.351). (Per Bilde,
"Contra Apionem 1.28-56: An Essay on Josephus' View of His Own Work in the
Context of the Jewish Canon," in Josephus' Contra Apionem: Studies in
its Character and Context with a Latin Concordance to the Portion Missing in
Greek, ed. L. H. Feldman and J. R. Levison [Arbeiten zur Geschichte des
antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 34; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996], 95-96)
Apparently, Josephus did not
share the view, so popular in earlier scholarship, that the Jewish prophetic
spirit had died out and had disappeared at some time between the Babylonian
exile and the Hasmonean period. This emerges not only from his presentation of
himself as a prophet but also from the several instances where he describes
other recent or contemporary figures as belonging to the prophetic category.
(Ibid., 96)
14 Josephus refers to John
Hyrkanos as having the gift of prophecy (Bell. 1.68-69) (= Ant. 13.399-300 (cf.
13.322-323)), cf. Gray 1993, 16-23; to the Essene "prophets" Judas
(Bell. 1.78-80 (= Ant. 13.311-313)), Simon (Bell. 2.213), and Menahem (Ant.
15.373-379), cf. Gray 1993, 80-111; to the strange figure Jesus Son of Ananias
(Bell. 6.300-309), cf. Gray 1993, 29-30, 158-163; to Pharisaic prophecy (Ant.
14.172- 176; 15.3-4, 370; 17.41-45), cf. Gray 1993, 148-158; finally, to a
number of "sign" or "false" prophets (Bell. 2.261-263;
6.285; Ant. 20.169-172; 20.97, 169), cf. Gray 1993, 112-144. The stories about
the Essene "prophets" correspond with Josephus' general remark on the
group in Bell. 2.159: "There are some among them who profess to foretell
(προγινώσκειν) the future, being versed from their early years in holy books,
various forms of purification and apothegms of prophets (προφητων); and seldom,
if ever, do they err in their predictions (προαγορεύσεσιν)" (translation
from the Loeb-edition). It has been noticed by, e.g., Reiling 1971, 156;
Blenkinsopp 1974, 240; Feldman 1990 on p. 405 Feldman specifically notes the
exception of Cleodemus-Melchior & John Hyrcanus, that Josephus seems to use
the very term "prophet" (προφήτης) only on the biblical prophets
while, in the cases of John Hyrcanus, the Essenes, the Pharisees, the
"false" prophets and himself, he uses a number of other expressions,
e.g., μάντις, άγγελος, διάκονος. However, this is not accurate, cf., e.g.,
Bell. 1.68-69; 4.386; 6.286; Ant. 1.240; 8.339; 13.299; CA 1.312, as noticed
by, e.g., Aune 1982; Greenspahn 1989, 41; Leiman 1989, 55-56; Gray 1993, 9-34.
Gray 1993, 26-34, 165, emphasizes correctly that Josephus' notion of
"prophecy" is much broader than that of mainstream modern scholarship,
cf. similarly Feldman 1990, 394. (Ibid., 96 n. 14)
