Iconoclastic Jerusalem: A Rhetorical Reading of Josephus’ Writings

The aim of this chapter is to analyze the rhetoric of iconoclasm in Josephus, using his portrayal of an iconoclastic Jerusalem in Antiquities to demonstrate how attention to the rhetorical dimensions of his writings might open new and interesting worlds to the historian. Josephus’ tale of iconoclasm in Jerusalem is not just a story of Jewish protagonists upholding Jewish values in some remote Eastern frontier town; it’s also a story of Roman values written by a Jewish author trying to assert his legitimacy within elite literary circles in the heart of the Empire. Attention to Josephus’ iconology—to the varied and creative ways he speaks about Jewish engagements with figurative images—thus highlights how our author has sculpted, as it were, an iconoclastic Jerusalem into a form that would have been intelligible to his Roman audience.