Josephus

Josephus, son of Matthias, was born in the first year of the emperor Gaius into a priestly family of Jerusalem, and says that as a young man he tried the Jewish schools in turn and chose to follow the Pharisees (Josephus, Life 1–12). When the revolt broke out he was put in charge of Galilee (Josephus, Jewish War 2.568). He was captured when Jotapata fell in the thirteenth year of Nero, AD 67 (Josephus, Jewish War 3.339), and, by his own account, told Vespasian that he would become emperor (Josephus, Jewish War 3.392–408).

He was later freed, was with Titus at the siege of Jerusalem, and afterwards lived at Rome with citizenship, a pension and lodging in a house that had been Vespasian’s (Josephus, Life 414–429). There he wrote the Jewish War, which he says he presented to Vespasian and Titus (Josephus, Life 361–363), and the Jewish Antiquities, finished in the thirteenth year of Domitian, AD 93–94, in the fifty-sixth year of his life (Josephus, Antiquities 20.267). The works cited here do not give the year of his death.

He writes as a participant with a case to make, about himself and about who was to blame for the war. His books are also a detailed account of Judaea in the first century, and he mentions James the Just as the brother of “Jesus, who was called Christ” (Josephus, Antiquities 20.200).