Raphael

2013 · 88622 — New York: Pantheon Books 2013. First Edition Stated First Printing Stated. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Stephen Raphael Author image. xxvi 336 4 pages. Footnotes. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. The dust jacket has some wear and soiling. About the author: "Frederic Michael Raphael FRSL born 14 August 1931 is an American-born British novelist biographer journalist and Oscar-winning screenwriter known for writing the screenplays for Darling Far from the Madding Crowd Two for the Road and Stanley Kubrick's last film Eyes Wide Shut. Raphael rose to prominence in the early 1960s with the publication of several acclaimed novels but most notably with the release of the John Schlesinger film Darling starring Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde a romantic drama set in Swinging London for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1966. Two years later he was nominated again in the same category this time for his work on Stanley Donen's Two for the Road starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney. Since the death of screenwriter D. M. Marshman Jr. in 2015 he is the earliest surviving recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the sole surviving recipient of the now retired BAFTA category of Best British Screenplay. In addition to his work in film and television he has written over 20 novels and a number of nonfiction books including biographies of Lord Byron W. Somerset Maugham and Flavius Josephus as well as a memoir of his time working with Stanley Kubrick entitled Eyes Wide Open." From the acclaimed biographer screenwriter and novelist Frederic Raphael here is an audacious history of Josephus 37-c.100 the Jewish general turned Roman historian whose emblematic betrayal is a touchstone for the Jew alone in the Gentile world. Joseph ben Mattathias's transformation into Titus Flavius Josephus historian to the Roman emperor Vespasian is a gripping and dramatic story. His life in the hands of Frederic Raphael becomes a point of departure for an appraisal of Diasporan Jews seeking a place in the dominant cultures they inhabit. Raphael brings a scholar's rigor a historian's perspective and a novelist's imagination to this project. He goes beyond the fascinating details of Josephus's life and his singular literary achievements to examine how Josephus has been viewed by posterity finding in him the prototype for the un-Jewish Jew the assimilated intellectual and the abiding apostate: the recurrent figures in the long centuries of the Diaspora. Raphael's insightful portraits of Yehuda Halevi Baruch Spinoza Karl Kraus Benjamin Disraeli Ludwig Wittgenstein and Hannah Arendt extend and illuminate the Josephean worldview Raphael so eloquently lays out. From Wikipedia: Flavius Josephus or Yosef ben Mattityahu was a Roman-Jewish historian and military leader. Best known for writing The Jewish War he was born in Jerusalem—then part of the Roman province of Judea—to a father of priestly descent and a mother who claimed royal ancestry. He initially fought against the Roman Empire during the First Jewish-Roman War as general of the Jewish forces in Galilee until surrendering in AD 67 to the Roman army led by military commander Vespasian after the six-week siege of Yodfat. Josephus claimed the Jewish messianic prophecies that initiated the First Jewish-Roman War made reference to Vespasian becoming Roman emperor. In response Vespasian decided to keep him as a slave and presumably interpreter. After Vespasian became emperor in AD 69 he granted Josephus his freedom at which time Josephus assumed the Emperor's family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship. He became an advisor and friend of Vespasian's son Titus serving as his translator when Titus led the siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt the city's pillaging and the looting and destruction of Herod's Temple the Second Temple soon followed. Josephus recorded the Great Jewish Revolt AD 66-70 including the siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War c. 75 and Antiquities of the Jews c. 94. The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Greek and Roman audience. These works provide valuable insight into first-century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus's works are the chief source next to the Bible for the history and antiquity of ancient Israel and provide a significant and independent extra-biblical account of such figures as Pontius Pilate Herod the Great John the Baptist James brother of Jesus and Jesus of Nazareth. Pantheon Books hardcover