(63) The Jewish Scriptures and their Preservation
The Writers and Custodians of the Records
That our forefathers took no less, not to say even greater, care than the nations I have mentioned[[412]] in the keeping of their records—a task which they assigned to their chief priests and prophets—and that down to our own times these records have been, and if I may venture to say so, will continue to be, preserved with scrupulous accuracy, I will endeavour briefly to demonstrate.
Selection of the Custodians. Scrutiny of Priestly Marriages and Genealogies
Not only did our ancestors in the first instance set over this business men of the highest character, devoted to the service of God, but they took precautions to ensure that the priests’ lineage should be kept unadulterated and pure. A member of the priestly order must marry a woman of his own race, without regard to her wealth or other distinctions; but he must investigate her pedigree, obtaining the genealogy from the archives[[413]] and producing a number of witnesses. And this practice of ours is not confined to the home country of Judæa, but wherever there is a Jewish colony,[[414]] there too a strict account is kept by the priests of their marriages; I allude to the Jews in Egypt and Babylon and other parts of the world in which any of the priestly order are living in dispersion. A statement is drawn up by them and sent to Jerusalem, showing the names of the bride and her father and more remote ancestors together with the names of the witnesses. In the not infrequent event of war, for instance when our country was invaded by Antiochus Epiphanes |170-168 B.C.|, by Pompey the Great |63 B.C.|, by Quintilius Varus |4 B.C.|, and above all in our own times |A.D. 66-70.|, the surviving priests compile fresh records from the older documents;[[415]] they also pass scrutiny upon the remaining women and disallow marriage with any who have been taken captive, suspecting them of having had frequent intercourse with foreigners. But the most convincing proof of our accuracy in this matter is that our records contain the names of our high priests with the succession from father to son for the last two thousand years. And whoever violates any of the above rules is forbidden to minister at the altars or to take any other part in divine worship.
The Twenty-two Books of Scripture
The task of writing (our national history) is thus one which cannot be capriciously undertaken by all alike; and there is no discrepancy in the records. No; the prophets alone (had this privilege), obtaining their knowledge of the most remote and ancient history through the inspiration which they owed to God, and committing to writing a faithful account of the events of their own time just as they occurred. From this it naturally, or rather necessarily, follows that we[[416]] do not possess vast numbers[[417]] of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those to which we justly pin our faith,[[418]] are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time.[[419]]
Of these, five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws and the traditional history from the birth of man down to the death of the lawgiver. This period falls only a little short of three thousand years. From the death of Moses to the (death)[[420]] of Artaxerxes,[[421]] who succeeded Xerxes as King of Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for (the conduct of) human life.
From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets.