Eleazer ben Yair and Masada History

What's the Truth - Words of Flavius Josephus or Archaeological Find

Jan 25, 2009

The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 70 C.E. marked the formal end of the five-year war between the Jews and Romans.

Such was the scale and nature of this defeat that modern Jewish writers have called it one of the greatest calamities in Jewish history prior to the Holocaust.

Prospects for the Jewish residents of Jerusalem, on the eve of the Roman entry into the city were bleak; defeat meant slaughter, enslavement or exile. Not so for Eleazer ben Yair and a small group of fighters who managed to escape, ensuring the fighting although on a much reduced scale, would continue for a further three years.

Masada History

The small group, determined to continue their fight for freedom, headed towards Masada a vast flat-topped outcrop of rock, in the inhospitable Judean wilderness, which towers 1,300 feet above the western edge of the Dead Sea.

It’s worth pausing for a moment to consider where the historical information on this ancient period in Masada history, so important in the Jewish psyche, comes from and also to challenge where possible, its accuracy.

Today that on-going challenge ensures a lively debate between interested parties. The writer of this short article mentions it, not to take sides, simply to highlight its existence.

Flavius Josephus

During the 1960s Yigal Yadin, a noted Israeli archaeologist carried out a detailed examination of Masada’s unhappy past, since then others have continued his work. However the words of Flavius Josephus are the only surviving contemporary record of the tumultuous events of Masada history.

The Israeli Ministry of Defence commenting on Josephus said: “Moral judgement aside his accounts have proved largely accurate.”

There are those who dispute this, Shaye Cohen in his article “Masada: Literary Tradition, Archaeological Remains and the Credibility of Josephus” argues that Josephus’s account of the mass suicide is contradicted by archaeological evidence.

Who was Flavius Josephus?

Flavius Josephus, was born Joseph the son of Matthias in Jerusalem in 37 C.E.and became a young commander in Galilee during the Great Jewish Revolt (66- 70 C.E.) against the Romans.

Roman citizenship was granted to Josephus after his surrender, in controversial circumstances, to Emperor Vespasian. As his life as a Jewish soldier ended, he became a successful writer and historian but his conversion made him a traitor in the eyes of most Jews.

Josephus provides some background to Masada. Herod the Great, proclaimed King of Judea by his Roman masters, built (31-37 B.C.E.) the fortress that perched on top of the rock. Inside were all the facilities needed for survival in such a bleak place, including living quarters, storerooms and giant cisterns, which could be filled with rainwater. For his protection he surrounded it with a casemate wall and a series of towers.

Eleazer ben Yair and his followers made this seemingly unassailable place their base and home while they set about raiding and harrying the occupyingRoman army.

The story of the mass suicide of the 960 men, women and children at Masada is now a well-known one. By 72 C.E. Rome had had enough and their tenth legion arrived at Masada complete with siege weapons. The following year as the soldiers entered the fortress to complete their work, Josephus records: “They were met with a terrible solitude on every side.”

Josephus records that: “Miserable men indeed were they whose distress forced them to slay their own wives and children with their own hands.”

It was the start of a grisly process where all members of the community died except for one woman and five children who according to Josephus hid in underground caverns. The claim by Josephus that it was from this woman that he got his information remains one for debate.

Today Masada, after Jerusalem, remains one of the most revered Jewish symbols. It should come as no surprise that soldiers of the Israeli army take an oath there. “Masada shall never fall again.”

Josephus’s account of the mass suicide at Masada comes from his War of the Jews Book 7,chapter 9

The copyright of the article Eleazer ben Yair and Masada History in Jewish History is owned by Neil Gunn. Permission to republish Eleazer ben Yair and Masada History in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.