Jessie Kichigin Discussion Questions Week 6 1 Article 22 provides a nice look at how history is an interpretation rather with a purpose rather than unbiased truth Who was Josephus and how did he describe the Jewish Revolt Josephus was a Jewish priest and aristocrat He was also governor of Galilee and ended up being one of the leader of the revolt He was captured by Roman general Flavius Vespasian but was freed later However he had to be and interpreter for their country his enemies After war Vespasian now ruler was proud of hip and granted him citizenship property and the continuing patronage of the Flavian family now Flavius Joseph He wrote a few books which told of the madness of society at the time Since he grew up as an aristocrat he was biased because he couldn t fully connect with the people s commoners 2 Why would Josephus highlight certain fact over others He was an aristocrat so he was not used to the same life as the commoners of society were Josephus was blinded by class prejudice By the time it came for him to share his stories he was providing a biased point of view because he himself was a traitor and went from one side to the other 3 What alternative narratives exist You should name and describe the alternative sources One main alternative source are the Dead Sea Scrolls These are about 400 documents which survived as leather scrolls They reveal the Essenes to have been a radical Jewish sect which strived to overthrow the Romans and all of their Jewish allies The Pursuit of the Millenium talked of a millenarian group as one which viewed salvation as something collective not personal earth bound not heavenly imminent not distant in time all embracing not limited in scope and involving super natural intervention not just human action 4 Finally what does the existence of alternative sources with different interpretations of the same event tell us about history Are we left to conclude that historical sources are meaningless because of author self interest Describe your viewpoint in a few sentences There will always be bias in the records of history The saying that the winners are the ones who tell the story is no lie Records will states that something was more glorious than it actually was or more treacherous You can never truly get a straight forward account unless there are pictures or videos But that s not to say that they are meaningless just that the truth is not what one claims it is