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Document Details : Title: Josephus' Zedekiah Author(s): BEGG, C. Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 65 Issue: 1 Date: April 1989 Pages: 96-104 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.65.1.556442 Abstract : At Judah's last and singularly ill-starred king, Zedekiah would naturally have incited the interest of both contemporary and later generations. Thus, more or less extensive mentions of/allusions to Zedekiah occur in four distinct Biblical books, i.e. 2 Kings; 2 Chronicles; Ezekiel; and Jeremiah, cf. Lam 4,20 which is often seen as referring to Zedekiah's fate. There is e.g. a disagreement as to how Zedekiah was related to his predecessor Jehoiachin. Similarly, while Kings, Chronicles and Ezekiel depict Zedekiah in unqualifiedly negative terms, the book of Jeremiah gives a more nuanced and sympathetic picture of him. Post-Biblical tradition too has a good deal to say concerning Zedekiah -much of it going beyond the explicit Biblical evidence. In this paper I shall examine one strand of this post-Biblical documentation, i.e. the treatment of Zedekiah in Josephus' Antiquities 10, 102-154 in terms of its similarities and differences with the various Biblical data. |
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