Abstract
Josephus's passage on John the Baptist (Ant. 18.116-119) contains a much-discussed crux interpretum: who are the "others" that are inspired by John's words and ready to do everything he said (§118), and who are distinguished from those who gave heed to his message and were baptized (§117)? After a brief discussion of the textual witnesses, text, and translation of the passage in question, various interpretations of "the others" are discussed, none of which is entirely satisfactory. In this article a case will be made for accepting the conjecture originally proposed by Benedikt Niese, who assumed that Josephus originally wrote νθρπων "people" instead of λλων "others."
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 68-83 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Journal for the Study of Judaism |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | Feb 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Nov 2018 |
Keywords
- Conjectural criticism
- Flavius Josephus
- John the Baptist
- Josephus manuscripts
- Textual criticism
