Anthony Rabin Wolfson College The Adiabene narrative in the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus Submission for the degree of D. Phil. in Oriental Studies i The Adiabene narrative in the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus Anthony Rabin, Wolfson College D. Phil. in Oriental Studies Trinity Term 2017 Abstract The story of the conversion to Judaism of the Royal House of Adiabene, a satellite kingdom of Parthia, is contained in Book 20, the final book of Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities. It is an ostensibly strange interlude in an otherwise chronological account of events in Judaea in the first century CE leading up to the Jewish Revolt against Rome. The narrative has often been thought of by scholars as a makeweight, copied from other sources, without much authorial intervention by Josephus. The thesis shows that the Adiabene narrative is no makeweight, but is crafted by Josephus to link closely to the themes of the Jewish Antiquities as a whole and indeed forms a coda to the work. The primary links are in the messages that Judaism is attractive to distinguished non-Jews, that Jews are a respectable people who can display Greco-Roman virtues and that the Jewish God is all-powerful and protects from harm those who worship him in piety. The links to the rest of the Jewish Antiquities are reinforced by the similarity of the characterisation of the hero Izates, King of Adiabene, with Josephus’s characterisation of biblical heroes, and by a continuity of style of historiography, showing a definite authorial imprint. The thesis also concludes, contrary to most scholarly opinion, that Josephus viewed the hero, Izates, as a Jew before he became circumcised. The thesis concludes that much of the narrative’s historiographical style would have resonated with a non-Jewish Greco-Roman readership, Josephus’s probable audience, albeit his treatment of Parthian incest and extensive focus on circumcision would have probably seemed strange. In addition, Josephus’s use of a royal Parthian as hero would have been credible, notwithstanding Greco-Roman cultural prejudices. ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Martin Goodman for his support, guidance and encouragement over the five years I have been first a Masters and then a Doctoral student at Oxford. It has been a tremendous privilege to have been able to return to higher education after so many years’ absence and I am truly grateful to Professor Goodman for taking the risk, in accepting me as a mature student, that my desire to find out more about Jews in the Greco-Roman world might have been just a passing fancy. I would in addition like to thank others who have also given me valuable advice on various aspects of this thesis throughout my Doctoral studies. Firstly, Professor Rhiannon Ash, who provided many helpful comments and observations on early drafts of the sections of Chapter 4 on Rome and Parthia and literature in Domitianic Rome, as well as an early draft of Chapter 2 submitted as part of my Transfer of Status. Thanks are also due to Professor Alison Salvesen, who provided helpful comments, both together with Professor Ash on Chapter 2, with Dr. Katherine Clarke on an early draft of Chapter 3 submitted for my Confirmation of Status and with Professor Tessa Rajak following my Viva. Many thanks also to colleagues taking part in the Tuesday afternoon Oxford seminars on Jewish History and Literature in the Graeco-Roman Period, who gave valuable comments on a presentation to them of Chapter 6 of the thesis. My sincere thanks are also due to Dr. Maria Kanellou of UCL, who managed to resuscitate in me a knowledge of Ancient Greek that had lain dormant for 40 years. Lastly, but by no means least, thank you to my wife Sheila, who has been particularly forbearing in allowing Josephus to lodge with us during my studies. He has proved to be a very intrusive guest! iii Contents page Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. Outline of the Adiabene narrative 2.1. Introduction 8 2.2. Structure of the narrative 8 2.3. Sectional precis 9 2.4. Josephus’s narrative markers 14 2.5. Genre 16 2.6. Dramatic tension 19 2.7. Sources 22 2.8. The order of the narrative and further source issues 25 2.9. Other apparent illogicalities and inconsistencies in the text 29 2.10 The dating of the Adiabene narrative 31 2.11 Summary and conclusions 32 Chapter 3. The literary context of the Adiabene narrative. The nature, purpose and messages of the Jewish Antiquities 3.1. Introduction 35 3.2. Subject Matter 35 3.3. Structure 36 3.4. Ostensible purpose 38 3.5. The causes of hatred 40 3.6. Josephus’s efforts to rebut the charges – misanthropy, troublemaking and 42 disloyalty and insignificance 3.7. Josephus’s efforts to rebut the charges – impiety and atheism and the 47 Jewish code 3.8. Non-particularity 53 3.9. Power, reward and punishment 55 3.10. Josephus and conversion to Judaism 60 3.11. Josephus and circumcision 62 3.12. Summary and conclusions 64 Appendix 1. Similarities between the story of Petronius and the Adiabene 68 narrative Chapter 4. The historiographical and historical context of the Adiabene narrative 4.1. Introduction 70 4.2. Josephus, historiographical tradition and audience 71 4.3 Who might have read the Adiabene narrative? 82 4.4. Jews and the Flavian Emperors 90 4.5. Freedom of literary expression under Domitian 103 4.6. Parthia in the eyes of Rome 110 Chapter 5. The Adiabene narrative within the context of the Jewish Antiquities 5.1. Introduction 122 5.2. Reinforcing the messages of the Antiquities. 123 5.2.1. Izates as hero 123 5.2.2. Izates’s rewards from God for his piety 129 5.3. Josephus’s selective use of history in the narrative 133 5.4. Other connections between the Adiabene narrative and the Jewish 134 Antiquities 5.4.1. Josephus and fraternal jealousy 135 iv 5.4.2. Moralising in the Adiabene narrative 135 5.4.3. Reversals of Fortune 136 5.4.4. Royal munificence 138 5.4.5. Loyalty and disloyalty 139 5.5. Dissimilarities with the Jewish Antiquities 140 5.5.1. Josephus and sex. 140 5.5.2. Josephus and dreams 142 5.5.3 The story of Asinaeus and Anilaeus 143 5.6. The role of God in the narrative 144 5.6.1. Detheologising 144 5.6.2. Prayer to God 145 5.6.3. Particularity v. universalism in the narrative 147 5.7. Summary and conclusions 148 Appendix 1. Heroic qualities of the Patriarchs in Josephus’s Jewish 152 Antiquities Appendix 2. Josephus’s use of ‘conversion’ language 153 Chapter 6. Conversion in the Adiabene narrative 6.1. Introduction 158 6.2. Helena and Izates εἰς τὰ Ἰουδαίων ἔθη τὸν βίον μετέβαλον 161 6.3. Izates in Charax Spasini and the meaning of τὸν θεὸν σέβειν 162 6.4. Helena’s conversion and the significance of ὁμοίως 170 6.5. Izates in Adiabene – The decision to be circumcised and the significance 171 of μεταθέσθαι 6.6. Helena’s and Ananias’s reaction to Izates’s decision 174 6.7. Ananias’s advice 177 6.8. Eleazar’s contribution 183 6.9. Monobazus’s experience 186 6.10. Summary and conclusions 187 Chapter 7. The Adiabene narrative in Domitianic Rome 7.1. Introduction 191 7.2. Location 191 7.3. The heroes as royal easterners and Jews 193 7.4. Izates’s Cardinal Virtues 200 7.5. Romans, Jews and Parthia 203 7.6. Euergetism 205 7.7. Dreams 207 7.8. The role of God and Fate 210 7.9. Reversals of Fortune 213 7.10. Conversion 216 7.11. Circumcision 218 7.12. Incest 222 7.13. Summary and conclusions 225 Chapter 8. Summary and conclusions. The purpose of the Adiabene narrative 229 Bibliography 236 v Abbreviations All abbreviations of classical authors and their works are as in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th Edition, 2012, Oxford University Press, Oxford, except for the works of Josephus, which are abbreviated as follows: Jewish War - BJ, Jewish Antiquities - AJ, Life - Vita, Against Apion - C. Ap. References to Josephus’s text without reference to a specific work are to the relevant book and paragraph in the Jewish Antiquities. All abbreviations of books in the Old Testament, New Testament, Deuterocanonical Works and Septuagint and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are as in The SBL Handbook of Style, SBL Press, 2014. Other abbreviations: ANRW - Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt JJS - Journal of Jewish Studies JQR - Jewish Quarterly Review JRS - Journal of Roman Studies JSJ - Journal for the Study of Judaism JTS - Journal of Theological Studies LCL - Loeb Classical Library vi 1 Chapter 1 Introduction The story of the conversion of the Royal House of Adiabene is an ostensibly strange interlude in Jewish Antiquities Book 20, the final book of Josephus’s history of the Jewish people, which otherwise deals broadly chronologically with events in Judaea leading up to the revolt in 66 CE.1 It tells the tale of how King Monobazus of Adiabene, a small dependent kingdom in the Parthian empire situated in what is now Iraqi Kurdistan, and his sister-wife Queen Helena, produced a son, Izates. Young Izates was persuaded by two Jewish travelling merchants to adopt Jewish customs and to obey the commandments of the Jewish God (as was his mother Helena by another Jew) even to the point, after succeeding his father as King, of circumcision, but in so doing he alienated the nobles of Adiabene. The narrative continues by telling of Izates’s relations with the Parthian ruler Artabanus, by whom he is honoured for supporting him in his conflict with would-be usurpers. Subsequently, Artabanus’s son Vardanes threatens him for not joining with him in an attack on Rome but, luckily for Izates, Vardanes is eliminated by his own brother in the nick of time. Izates is then threatened by his rebellious nobles who cannot accept a Jew as a king, and they firstly ally with the local Arab king and then with a Parthian successor king, Vologeses. The Arab king and dissenting nobles are dispatched forthwith and Vologeses is diverted from attacking Izates by news of invading tribes from the northeast of Parthia. Izates then dies aged fifty five, is remembered for his exceptional piety, and the story is 1 The narrative is contained in AJ 20.17-96. Chapter 1: Introduction 2 complete. Throughout the narrative, it is clear that Izates’s new found God has saved him from his foes, because of his pious embrace of Judaism. The narrative has attracted some scholarly examination, but only in respect of a limited range of issues. Nearly all modern scholarship has centred upon Izates’s transition from non-Jew to Jew and the evidence the narrative provides in respect of Second Temple so- called conversion practices, in particular the role of circumcision for a male.2 The narrative is also notable for providing evidence of three of only four known instances of Second Temple Jewish attempts at proselytism of a specific individual, and has therefore been of interest to those scholars investigating whether such activity was widespread in the period.3 There have been two doctoral theses on the Adiabene narrative presented since the mid- twentieth century. The first, submitted by David Barish in 1983, is specifically focussed on an examination of the historical sources for the conversion of the Adiabene royal family, attempting to reconcile the passages in Josephus (and an examination of his possible sources) with both rabbinic anecdotes in the Talmud and archaeology, in Barish’s own words ‘to distil fact from fiction, history from literary tradition’.4 The second, by Michał Marciak, published in 2014, is constructed to combine an analysis of the themes of the Adiabene narrative as biographical literature with an analysis of other sources on Adiabene to present a cultural environment into which the narrative fits.5 However, there has been little or no detailed attempt to relate the narrative to any perceived wider purpose of Josephus, let alone an assessment of how it might have been received by 2 For a bibliography of scholarship on the conversion episodes, see Chapter 6, p. 159. 3 See e.g. McKnight (1991) pp. 56, 59-60, Feldman (1993) pp. 328-330, Goodman (1994) pp. 84-5, Bird (2012) pp. 97-99. The other example is Fulvia, the Roman matron taught Jewish practices by an unknown Jew (AJ 18.81-4). 4 Barish (1983) p. 2. 5 Marciak (2014).