Introduction
In his CDAMM article on ‘Early Jewish Sign Prophets,’ Nathan C. Johnson looks at first-century Jewish millenarian figures as described by Josephus, the Jewish historian writing towards the end of the first century. Here is an excerpt on one figure: The Anonymous Prophet of Temple Salvation (70 CE; Jewish War 6.283–87)
Anonymous Prophet of Temple Salvation
The next figure was less certainly the leader of a sustained ‘movement,’ yet bears mentioning as a charismatic leader who appealed to eschatological hopes in circumstances of crisis.
Before the final destruction of the Jerusalem temple by Roman forces, an anonymous ‘false prophet’ encouraged people to go to the top of the temple’s outer portico to ‘receive there the signs of their deliverance’ and to ‘await help from God’ (Jewish War 6.283). A throng including women and children—estimated by Josephus at six thousand—gathered at the time and place indicated by the prophet. Tragically, but predictably, deliverance did not arrive. After Roman soldiers set fire to the structure, some plunged to their deaths below, while others died in the flames; apparently, all perished.
While the prophet predicted ‘this-worldly’, imminent, and collective salvation (cf. Talmon’s millenarian criteria), there is nothing in Josephus’s account to indicate that the expectation was ultimate and total. One could, of course, imagine the kind of scripturalized and eschatological rhetoric employed by the prophet to encourage his desperate audience that God would, despite appearances to the contrary, intervene to save them. God had done likewise for the Israelites when pressed against the Red Sea by a foreign army. Why would he not again ‘fight for’ them if only they ‘kept still’ (Exodus 14:14)? But Josephus’s account leaves us without firm conclusions and with only guesswork as to what ideological hopes animated this desperate group.
References
Primary Sources
Josephus, Flavius. 1984. The Jewish War: Revised Edition. Edited and translated by E. Mary Smallwood and G. A. Williamson. New York: Penguin.
Secondary Sources
Talmon, Yonina. 1968. ‘Millenarianism.’ In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 10, edited by David Sills, 349–62. New York: Macmillan / Free Press.