Add to ORKGJosephus researchers have occasionally wondered, surprisingly perhaps, whether the famous priest from Jerusalem actually knew the Bible at first hand: during his early years in Judaea or while he composed his Judaean War in the 70s, following his move to Rome. No one doubts that he knew scripture well indeed when he wrote the later Antiquities (completed 93/94 CE). Reasons for doubt about the earlier period are not only War’s negligible use of biblical episodes and laws but, when these do appear, their peculiar content. One explanation of these peculiarities might be that he had no experience with the Bible itself, but in writing War either recycled oral traditions vaguely known or borrowed written sources. The question is important because...