Antiquities of the Jews

Antiquities of the Jews (Antiquitates Judaicae in Latin) is a twenty volume historiographical work composed by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in the thirteenth year of the reign of Roman emperor Flavius Domitian which was around 93 or 94 AD. Antiquities of the Jews contains an account of history of the Jewish people, written in Greek for Josephus' gentile patrons. In the first ten volumes, Josephus follows the events of the historical books of the Hebrew Bible beginning with the creation of Adam and Eve. The second ten volumes continue the history of the Jewish people beyond the biblical text and up to the Jewish War.

This work, along with Josephus's other major work, The Jewish Wars (Bellum Judaicum), provides valuable background material to historians wishing to understand 1st-century AD Judaism and the early Christian period.Stephen L. Harris, Understanding the Bible, (Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1985).

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In the preface of Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus provides his motivation for composing such a large work. He writes:<blockquote>Now I have undertaken the present work, as thinking it will appear to all the Greeks worthy of their study; for it will contain all our antiquities, and the constitution of our government, as interpreted out of the Hebrew Scriptures.Ant. 1.5. Trans. by William...
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