Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
JSIJ - Jewish Studies; an Internet Journal
Angaben zur Quelle:
22 (2022) 41 pp.
Keywords:
Josephus, Flavius Criticism and interpretation
;
Philo, Criticism and interpretation
;
Natural law in post-biblical literature
;
Jewish philosophy To 500
Abstract:
Josephus may have held a notion akin to what we today call ‘natural law.’ However, unlike some other Hellenistic Jewish authors (like Philo), Josephus uses the specific Greek phrase [the] “law(s) of nature” sparingly, only five times in total. A survey of νόμος and φύσις in Josephus and other ancient Greek literature and an examination of the five passages where Josephus uses the Greek phrase “law of nature”—1) BJ 3.370; 2) BJ 3.374; 3) BJ 4.382; 4) AJ 4.323; 5) AJ 17.95—shows that Josephus did not employ the phrase to refer to what we call ‘natural law.’ Rather, by the phrase “law(s) of nature” Josephus always refers to passage between the realms of the living and the dead, i.e. the ‘domain’ in which law(s) apply. This does not mean that Josephus did not recognize a broader category of what we call ‘laws of nature’—fixed, universal laws that seem to govern human reality—but only that he did not refer to all these as “law(s) of nature.” Josephus’ “law of nature” does apply to everyone, but only in the context of right, wrong, and inevitable aspects of death and dying.
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