Coming soon - Get a detailed view of why an account is flagged as spam!
view details

This post has been de-listed

It is no longer included in search results and normal feeds (front page, hot posts, subreddit posts, etc). It remains visible only via the author's post history.

21
Who did Josephus think was the last prophet (around the time of Artaxerxes) in the "exact succession of prophets."
Post Flair (click to view more posts with a particular flair)
Post Body

"As to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time;"

-Against Apion 1.38-41

Comments
[not loaded or deleted]

Artaxerxes here very likely refer to Ahaseurus of the book of Esther

Just worth noting to clarification for anyone who might end up confused, while modern historians generally agree that Ahasureus ( אֲחַשְׁוֵרוֹשׁ‎ ) is Xerxes, which is exactly how the name is used in Ezra 4:6 where "Artaxerxes" is Artachsaste (אַרְתַּחְשַׁשְׂתְּא ) Josephus places the story of Esther in the reign of Artaxerxes I in 11.6 of his Antiquities. Oddly, he also transplants the stories of Ezra and Nehemiah to the reign of Xerxes in 11.3.

While the latter seems unique to Josephus, the discrepancy in how Ahasureus is probably due to an ancient mistranslation in the Septuagint, where at least some versions used Artaxerxes in place of Ahasureus.

https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ahasureus

Author
Account Strength
100%
Account Age
9 years
Verified Email
Yes
Verified Flair
No
Total Karma
11,758
Link Karma
7,494
Comment Karma
3,930
Profile updated: 1 week ago

Subreddit

Post Details

We try to extract some basic information from the post title. This is not always successful or accurate, please use your best judgement and compare these values to the post title and body for confirmation.
Posted
1 year ago