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Abstract For nearly three decades scholars of the first-century Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, have debated this author's methodologies and goals in writing his Jewish Antiquities. While source-critics view Josephus as a compiler, new historians have chosen to read Antiquities as primarily a literary work which reveals social, political, and intellectual history. A series of recent publications place these methodologies side by side but rarely coordinate them, which leaves out important insights of each group. At stake is how we moderns read Jewish history of the first century CE. I explore how parallel accounts of Herod's trial while he was Tetrarch of the Galilee in Jewish War and in Antiquities can be justified by employing source-critical analysis as a first step to explain the changes made to the text of Antiquities before turning to new historians' methodologies. We can better understand the function of Herod's trial in Antiquities through this process.

At the time of the Hasmoneans and Herod the Great, the Jews were divided into various \"groups\" that defined themselves not only by doctrinal positions but also by political choices. These \"groups\" chose to support or not support the political power. Sometimes they radically changed their position, supporters suddenly becoming opponents, and vice versa. The problem is that the reasons we find in our sources, like Josephus, are often only pretexts.

This paper offers a reconstruction and analysis of the Herodian family as a presence in the city of Rome over more than three generations. The scholarly tendency to view the Herods as an aspect of a broader governmental system overlooks the workings of the particular relationships that elevated the Herods in their own land as well as at the centre of Roman power. Beginning with the foundation of a lasting connection between the Herods and the Julio-Claudians laid by Herod the Great and Augustus, this paper traces the legacy of that connection and its impact on affairs in both Judaea and Rome. The peculiar challenges of retaining status in both Roman and Jewish contexts are assessed and their importance as a vital aspect of our understanding of first-century Judaean politics is established. Examination, finally, of the development of their aspirations and their negotiation of dynastic change shows vividly the processes of 'Romanisation' in the context of an elite family.

Contrary to what one might have expected, the Judaean monarch, Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.E.), famous as a prolific builder, did not mint any silver coins, but instead limited his production to very modest low value bronze denominations. In the 1980s, the Israeli numismatics scholar, Y. Meshorer endeavoured to demonstrate that Herod appropriated the mint of the coastal city of Tyre and moved it to Jerusalem where shekels and half-shekels in fine silver of the Tyrian type were issued. Since then, Meshorer's proposal has been discredited by contrary evidence. In this article, it is shown that, although the Tyrian mint stayed put throughout, from the late 2nd cent, B.C.E. to the outbreak of the Jewish War in 66 C.E., Judaean coinage was tied to the Tyrian shekel (reduced tetradrachm) and was produced in fractional denominations to this standard, which was established during Seleucid rule.

The interpretation of the temple warning (CIJ 2.1400) has focused on the question of authorship rather than of readership. The present paper seeks to redress this oversight. The question is approached in terms of Hellenistic practice, Herod's architectural innovations and the inscription's language. It is argued that the inscription shows no trace of \"translation\" Greek, but rather that in terms of pragmatics, grammar and lexicography, the reader would naturally assume that its concepts are those of Hellenistic law. The reader's assumption would be further confirmed by the architecture of the outer court. In other words, the Greek visitor would assume that the inscription was issued on the authority of the king, and not that of the priest.

Philo's descriptions of the outburst of violence in Alexandria in 38 suggest that he was trying to distract attention away from some crime against Rome committed by the local Judeans. Careful analysis of the chronology suggests that this crime was a dramatic violation of the Alexandrian funerary celebrations for Drusilla, the sister of the Roman emperor Gaius. The edict of Flaccus and subsequent violence against the Judeans was a punitive response to this crime. The entire sequence of events was fully in harmony with normal Roman legal and administrative policies.

This paper pays close attention to architectural decoration in King Herod's construction projects and offers a renewed perspective on Herod's use of monumental display to situate his own kingdom within the empire. His increased reliance on the Corinthian rather than the Doric order, for example, appears to reflect Augustus's choice of the Corinthian order as representing the new Roman taste. His introduction into local architecture of particularly Roman architectural elements, such as the stucco ceilings of the “coffer-style” and the console cornice, moreover, transformed the adornment of buildings throughout Judaea. The recently discovered mausoleum in Herodium identified by its excavators as Herod's tomb exemplifies how these new Roman trends were incorporated into the local Hellenistic architectural tradition. I suggest that Herod's decorative program influenced the tastes of many of his subjects; the architectural decoration in cities such as Jerusalem demonstrates how the innovations introduced by Herod to the local architecture were embraced by the upper-class citizens of those cities. In peripheral cities and smaller sites such as En-Gedi and Gamla, however, the architectural decoration maintains the local Hellenistic tradition. In these sites, the Doric order continues to be popular, and entablature elements are rare.