SPECIAL TOPIC: FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS

The following quote is from Kenneth Gentry in Four Views On the Book of Revelation, pp. 53,54.

"Flavius Josephus is a non-Christian Jewish historian who lived from A.D. 37-101. He served as a general in the Jewish forces during the Jewish war against Rome in A.D. 67-70. During the war the Romans defeated him at Jotapata. Josephus surrendered to the Roman general Flavius Vespasian, whom he then befriended by interpreting a prophetic oracle to mean that Vespasian would one day be emperor of Rome. He then worked with Vespasian in attempting to persuade the Jews to surrender their hopeless cause. After the war Josephus moved to Rome and changed his name from the very Jewish Joseph Ben Matthias to a more Roman Flavius Josephus, thus taking on his benefactor's name. Vespasian became emperor of Rome in A.D. 69 and sponsored the writing of The Wars of the Jews, The Antiquities of the Jews, and other works by Josephus. Josephus completed Wars in A.D.75, just five years after the fall ofJerusalem. In this work Josephus wrote as an eyewitness historian who happened to be in the action on both sides of the conflict. His work is extremely helpful for providing historical insights into the events of that war, so many of which are foretold in John's prophecy in Revelation."