Niese (Hist. Zeitschrift, Bd. lxxvi. 207) remarks on the language of the Jewish War that it is ‘precious’ (yewdhit), and rich in poetical and rare words. ‘It is not the simple speech of the Atticists, but approximates to the overladen ful- ness of the Asiatic oratory.’ He finds the style of the Antiquities simpler and the poetical colour- ing almost wanting. ‘The same care, according to Niese, is not spent in the Antiquities on the avoid- ance of hiatus; in both works, however, the crasis
of article and noun (c.g. rTddedpod, rdcdpadois, Gowdriov, BJ ii. 148) appears to be the rule.
vii. EDITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS.—AII pre- vious editions of Josephus have been supplanted by the great critical edition of B. Niese in 7 volumes, containing a full critical apparatus and introductions on the relations of the MSS (Berlin, 1887-1895). Niese’s only fault seems to have been a too great reliance on a single class of MSS, with the result that the true text is often to be looked for in the apparatus rather than in the text. In the manual edition of Niese, without critical ap- paratus (1888-1895), some corrections of the errors of the MSS have been introduced. On the basis of Niese’s work, Naber has constructed a recension of his own (6 vols., Teubner, 1888-1896). Niese’s edition is indispensable to the student, but that of Naber will also be found useful as supplementing and, to some extent, improving on the work of Niese.
Each of the works of Josephus has its own separate MS tradition: the MSS of the two halves of the Antiquities (I.-X., XI.-XxX.) also have their own separate histories. For this history, and for the early versions of Josephus, it will be sufficient to refer the reader to the introductions to Niese’s volumes and to Schiirer, GJV? i. 95-99. With regard to the old Latin versions it need only be stated here that we have: (1) a version of the Antiquities and the contra Apionem undertaken at the instance of Cassiodorus (de Institutione Div. Init. 17) in the 6th cent.; (2) a version of the Jewish War commonly attributed to Rufinus ; (3) a very free Latin version of the Jewish War, which goes by the name of Hegesippus, a corruption of the name Josephus. The seven books are here compressed into five. The original is abbreviated, freely altered, and sometimes expanded: it has the appearance of being rather a new work than a translation. It goes back to the time of Ambrose of Milan, to whose pen it has sometimes, although probably incorrectly, been attributed. — Of the Life alone no Latin version exists.—There is a Syriac version of Book vi. of the War.
Of English translations the most serviceable, as containing the complete works, is that of Whiston, revised by Shilleto (London, 1889-1890), but the revision has been somewhat carelessly executed, and the translation is not always to be relied on. An English version of the War and the Life by Traill (London, 1862) is reported to be more reliable.
LITERATURE.—The literature on Josephus is immense. For a conspectus of the more recent works, the reader must be referred to the very full bibliography given by Schiirer, op. cit. i. 100-106, to whose work the present writer is very greatly indebted. References will there be found to treatises on many interesting points, such as the chronology and geography of Josephus, which have not been touched on in the present article.
H. St. J. THACKERAY.
NUMBERS, HOURS, YEARS, AND DATES.*—
i, Numbers and Counting. Difficulty of fixing precise mean- ing of expressions. . The ‘three days’ between our Lord’s death and resurrection. . The ‘three years’ and ‘fourteen years’ of Gal 118 and 21, . The ‘fourteen years’ of 2 Co 122, . The ‘seven days’ of Ac 208, . The ‘twelve days’ of Ac 2441, ii. Hours of the Day. 1. Varying senses of the terms ‘ hour’ and ‘day.’ 2, ‘Hours’ inthe NT. The discrepancy between Mk 1525 and Jn 1944, iii. Years and Dates. 1. Dating by the years of kings and emperors. ‘fifteenth year of Tiberius’ in Lk 31,
oe co ne
The
* Cf. artt. CuronoLocy or THE OT and CuronoLoey or THE NT in vol. i. Most of the points dealt with in the present article concern the NT alone, although some of the principles laid down, particularly in the first part of § iii., will be found to apply equally to the OT.
474 NUMBERS, HOURS, AND YEARS
NUMBERS, HOURS, AND YEARS
. Dating by periodically elected magistrates. . Dating by priests or other officials. . Devices of historians for indicating important dates. . Character of the dating in the NT. . Dating by counting from a fixed era (Seleucid, Actian, etc.). . The Beginning of the Year in current use. (a) According to Roman custom, year began 1 January. (0) In Asia Minor and N. Syria, year began about autumn equinox. (c) In Southern Syria, year began about spring equinox. : Literature.
JT Aor wb
i. NUMBERS AND CoUNTING.—Important results sometimes turn on the precise meaning of such ex- pressions as ‘six days afterwards,’ or ‘on the sixth day afterwards,’ and ‘he was ten years old,’ or ‘when he was in his tenth year.’ There is a tendency in English to differentiate between ex- pressions containing the cardinal and the ordinal numbers, so that ‘the tenth year of his age’ refers to the interval between nine and ten, while ‘ ten years old’ means that the person in question has lived ten years and something more. Sometimes, again, we find that, when the expression ‘six days later’ is used, the intention is not to reckon the day from which the period is counted as one of the six, whereas, when the expression ‘on the sixth day after’ is employed, the intention is to reckon the starting-point as one of the six (as, ¢.g., ‘the sixth year after’ 1901 is 1906, but the phrase ‘six years after’ 1901 means 1907). Generally speaking, in Greek, Roman, and Greeco-Roman usage there was no such difference between the expressions with car- dinal and with ordinal numbers; but both classes of expression were used and understood as we in English tend to interpret the ordinal form. The older and popular expression in English also did not, as a rule, recognize such a difference: e.g. the idiomatic expression ‘this day eight days’ means the same day in the following week (the interval, e.g., from Tuesday to the following Tuesday), and ‘fifteen days’ is still sometimes used to denote an interval of a clear fortnight. The following ex- amples of ancient usage may be cited :—