Dr David Friedman

Flavius Josephus, ancient historiography, ancient ethnography.

My DPhil thesis, 'Josephus on the Servile Origins of the Jews in Egypt', examines Josephus's portrayals of the Jews' national origins in Jewish War, Jewish Antiquities, and Against Apion in the context of accounts of Jewish origins in Greek and Latin ethnographies, which reported that the Jews were originally Egyptians, and Roman prejudices against slaves, freedmen, and Egyptians. It demonstrates that, when Josephus’s goal is recounting Jewish origins as in Antiquities and Apion, he avoids portraying the Jews's ancestors as slaves and denies that they were originally Egyptian.

My post-doctoral work focusses on argument and rhetoric in Josephus, and on a comparative study of Josephus's Jewish Antiquities and the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus.