The Regimes of Historicity in the Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus and the dialogue between Eschatology, Prophecy and History

Abstract

We are going to highlight the Josephus’ regime of historicity was centered on prophecies that described an immediate future of kings, emperors and empires, as he emphasized, more, the political lessons of power that one can take from these prophecies, than its teleological aspects thar were related with the idea of the “end of history” (eschaton) that described transcendental realities and pointed out to the salvation of the people of Israel, and a condemnation of the gentile kings. Therefore, we are going to explain in this article that Josephus developed a regime of historicity that are theological but presented a certain similarity with the Greek historical thinking, as both Josephus and the Greek historian used the literary and historical tópos of the rise and fall of states and kings to develop political and rhetorical lessons. This is the reason why Josephus was ambiguous about the theological meaning of the Daniel´s prophecies that described the “end of history” and were critical of the gentile kings and empires such as the four ages myth. Josephus’ interpretation of the Biblical prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel is centered on those that had an immediate political relevance, in opposition, to those which had a symbolic and esoteric nature.