* This article was written with the generous support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Institut für antikes Judentum und hellenistische Religionsgeschichte of the Eberhard-Karls-Universität in Tübingen. I am especially indebted to Professors Otto Betz, Louis H. Feldman, and Ronald E. Heine for their insightful comments.

¹ Josephus Ant. 6.166, 222 and possibly 223; 8.408; 10.239. He added a reference in 8.114.

² The Septuagint adds, although without the addition of much meaning, a reference in Num 23:7. It is not possible to determine conclusively which of these passages is the basis for Josephus's paraphrase. Josephus probably did not use the Septuagint itself in his paraphrase of the Torah, but this does not exclude the possibility that he utilized a version with similarities to the Septuagint. On Josephus's sources, see Feldman, Louis H., “Use, Authority and Exegesis of Mikra in the Writings of Josephus,” in Mulder, Martin J., ed., Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Compendia Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2.1; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 455–66.Google Scholar

³ He also omitted Exod 28:3, in which the craftspersons are filled with a spirit of discernment.

⁴ That this omission is intentional is evident in Josephus's preservation of several other elements of Numbers 11 in Ant. 3.295–99: the reference to Esermoth (= Num 11:35); the revolt (= Num 11:4); quails (= Num 11:18–19); and “graves of lust” (= Num 11:34). H. St. J. Thackeray, in note c on Ant. 3.297, detected an allusion to prophesying: “there was yet one who admonished them not to be unmindful of Moses” (Josephus Ant. [trans. Thackeray, H. St. J.; LCL; 9 vols.; Cambridge, MA; Harvard University Press, 1958–1965] 4. 463).Google Scholar

⁵ Josephus also reinterpreted Gen 1:1 and 6:3 without reference to the divine spirit. He drastically abbreviated the context of Exod 15:8, 10, merely stating that “they passed the whole night in melody and mirth.” This abbreviation entails the omission of references to the blast from God's nostrils and the wind (πνεῦμα) that God blew over the sea.

⁶ Josephus Ant. 4.108 (ET 4. 329).

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Schlatter, Adolf, “Wie Sprach Josephus von Gott?” BFCTh 14 (1910) 32.Google Scholar

⁹ Best, Ernest, “The Use and Non-use of pneuma by Josephus,” NovT 3 (1959) 222.Google Scholar He writes tentatively, “this may imply identification of the two and the divine spirit is here to be thought of as ‘a spirit.’”

¹⁰ Smith, Morton, “The Occult in Josephus,” in Feldman, Louis H. and Hata, Gohei, eds., Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987) 240.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Sekki, Arthur Everett, The Meaning of Ruaḥ at Qumran (SBLDS 110; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 145–71.Google Scholar He contends that this identification occurs fifty-eight times. For a thorough bibliography of the identification of “angel” and “spirit” at Qumran, see p. 148 n. 11.

¹² I have changed Thackeray's translation, “put into his heart,” because it does not take into account the repetition of the verb σημαίνειν in Ant. 4.111 and 113. This verb indicates that God signified what should be said by means of the sacrifice rather than by direct inspiration, as Thackeray's translation implies.

¹³ Josephus Ant. 4.113–14 (ET 4. 531).

¹⁴ On Josephus's relationship to Pseudo-Philo, see Feldman, Louis H., “Prolegomenon,” in James, M. R., The Biblical Antiquities of Philo (New York: Ktav, 1971) lviii–lxvi.Google Scholar He notes thirty parallels that occur only in Josephus and Pseudo-Philo and fifteen where both share with other authors a common tradition. On the possibility of Josephus's dependence upon Philo's writings, see Feldman, “Use, Authority and Exegesis,” 474–75. For a bibliography, see idem, Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1938–1980) (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1984) 410–19.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Philo Vit. Mos. 1.277 (trans. Colson, F. H. and Whitaker, G. H.; LCL; 12 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929–1962) 6. 419.Google Scholar

¹⁶ “…ont eu pour objet la couleur, le grésillement, les changements de forme, les exsudations des chairs posées sur le brasier, et, accessoirement, l'éclat de la flamme ou la nuance et la direction de la fumée” (Bouché-Leclercq, Auguste, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité [1879; 4 vols.; reprinted Aalen: Scientia, 1978] 1. 179).Google Scholar For an example of the political role of pyromantism, see Euripides (Phoen. 1255–58 [trans. Way, Arthur S.; LCL; 4 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978–1980] 3. 449)Google Scholar: “And the priests slew the sheep: flame-tongue they marked, / And flame-cleft, steamy reek that bodeth ill, / The pointed flame, which hath decisions twain, / Betokening victory or overthrow.” In the same play, the pyromantic Teiresias's words to Creon reflect a predicament not dissimilar to Balaam's: “Who useth the diviner's art / Is foolish. If he heraldeth ill things, / He is loathed of those to whom he prophesies. / If, pitying them that seek to him, he lie, / He wrongs the Gods” (lines 954–58 [ET 3. 427]). See also Euripides Iph. Taur. 16; Josephus Ant. 8.108; 17.121.

¹⁷ For further analysis, see Feldman, Louis H., “Prophets and Prophecy in Josephus,” JTS 41 (1990) 416–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ δοκεῖς ἐϕ᾽ ἡμῖν εἶναί τι περὶ τῶν τοιούτων σιγᾶν ἢ λέγειν, ὅταν ἡμᾶς τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ λάβῃ πνεῦμα; ϕωνὰς γὰρ ἃς βούλεταιτοῦτο καὶ λόγους οὐδὲν ἡμῶν εἰδότωνἀϕίησιν; Josephus Ant. 4.119 (ET 4. 533–35); see also 4.121.

¹⁹ The reading λαβοῦσα is supported by Codex Regius Parisinus and Codex Oxoniensis (Bodleianus), and the reading ἀϕεῖσα by all other manuscripts quoted by Benedict Niese, whose Greek text (Flavii Iosephi opera [Berlin: Weidmann, 1887])Google Scholar is the basis of Thackeray's translation. For this variant, see Josephus Ant. 4.109 (ET 4. 529).

²⁰ See Lindblom, Johannes, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962) 65–82, 122–37, 173–82.Google Scholar

²¹ For detailed analysis, see John R. Levison, “Prophetic Inspiration in Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,” JQR (forthcoming).

²² Philo Vit. Mos. 1.274 (ET 6. 417).

²³ Flacelière, Robert noted (Plutarque: Sur la Disparition des Oracles [Paris: Belles Lettres, 1947] 50–52)Google Scholar that Plutarch claimed adherence to the New Academy which, based upon the ideas of Socrates and Plato—namely, that every opinion has two faces—suspended judgment on issues that could not be solved with certainty (see, for example, Plutarch Def. orac. 431 A). The question of the obsolescence of the Delphic oracles is just such a question, as is apparent in Lamprias's closing speech, which does not opt for one interpretation or the other but instead attempts a synthesis (Plutarch Def. orac. 436D–438E). Unlike his later work, De Pythiae oraculis, then, the De defectu oraculorum represents a stage in Plutarch's thought when Plutarch was satisfied to present a variety of viewpoints.

²⁴ Flacelière, Plutarque, 48.

²⁵ Faye, Eugène de, Origène: sa vie, son oeuvre, sa pensée, vol. 2: L'ambiance philosophique (Paris: Leroux, 1927) 110.Google Scholar

²⁶ Plutarch Def. orac. 418C–D, in idem, Moralia (trans. Frank Cole Babbitt; 15 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927) 5. 397.Google Scholar See also 431B.

²⁷ Ibid. 418D (ET 5. 397).

²⁸ Josephus referred (Ant. 4.157–58) to Balaam's words as “his oracles” (αὐτοῦ τὰςμαντείας).

²⁹ Josephus Ant. 4.118 (ET 4. 533).

³⁰ In Josephus Ant. 19.141, people in the theater “appeal to soldiers” to spare them. In Ant. 2.338 and 8.109, ἐπιθειάζειν refers to the prayers of Moses and Solomon to God. In Josephus Bell. 1.656 ([trans. Thackeray, H. St. J.; LCL; 9 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927] 2. 313)Google Scholar, which depicts Herod's illnesses, the word presumably refers to diviners of some sort who “pronounce his maladies a judgement on him for his treatment of the professors.”

³¹ Unfortunately, Philo's writings are not altogether useful in this endeavor. His penchant for Greek terminology led him to employ this verb and its cognate noun ἐπιθειασμός to nearly every form of inspiration included in his writings. He employed it in association with Abraham's perception of truth (Virt. 214; see also Deus imm. 4) and his transformation by the divine spirit (Virt. 217); the inspiration of Moses that takes place “in his own person” (Vit. Mos. 2.188, 259, 263, 272) and prior to death (Vit. Mos. 2.291); Joshua's reception of oracles (Virt. 55); prophetic ecstasy that is akin to corybantic or bacchic ecstasy (Rer. div. her. 69); ancient prophets in general (Deus imm. 139); biblical prophetic inspiration (Som. 2.172); the soul that passes to death (Poster. C. 10); his own soul when it was lifted into the upper spheres by philosophical reflection (Spec. leg. 3.1); the mind that loves virtue (Mut. nom. 113) and the inspired mind (Migr. Abr. 84); and the rapt communal enthusiasm of the Therapeutae (Vit. com. 84).

³² See Arnim, Hans von, Plutarch über Dämonen und Mantik (Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen 22; Amsterdam: Müller, 1921) 3–17.Google Scholar

³³ Plutarch Gen. Socr. 580C–580D, in idem, Moralia (trans. Delacy, Phillip H. and Einarson, Benedict; LCL; 15 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968) 7. 405.Google Scholar

³⁴ Ibid. 591D–592C (ET 7. 463–75); Josephus adopts this point of view in Ap. 2.263–64.

³⁵ Inspiration should not here be limited to sleep, which represents loss of consciousness in general. Cicero, for instance, associated frenzy with sleep (Divin. 1.34–35). He later discussed in close succession the soul that foresees because it is withdrawn by sleep from sensual ties (Divin. 1.63), the soul that foresees because it is separated from the body by the nearness of death (Divin. 1.64–65), and the soul that presages because it is frenzied or inspired (abstractus divino instinctu concitatur; Divin. 1.66–67).

³⁶ See Plutarch Def. orac. 418D above.

³⁷ Most recently, see Feldman, Louis H., “Josephus' Portrait of Moses: Part Three,” JQR 83 (1993) 301–2, esp. n. 161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ Josephus Ant. 4.157–58 (ET 4. 551–53). See also Ant. 1.108; 2.347–48; 3.81; 10.281; 17.354.

³⁹ See Betz, Otto, “Die Bileamtradition und die biblische Lehre von der Inspiration,” in Görg, Manfred, ed., Religion im Erbe Ägyptens: Beiträge zur spätantiken Religionsgeschichte zu EhrenAlexander Böhlig (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988) 18–53Google Scholar; Feldman, Louis H., “Josephus' Portrait of Balaam,” Studia Philonica Annual 5 (1993) 48–83Google Scholar; Baskin, Judith Reesa, “Reflections of Attitudes Towards the Gentiles in Jewish and Christian Exegesis of Jethro, Balaam and Job” (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1976) 113–71, 198–210.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Plutarch Def. orac. 413E (ET 5. 371).

⁴¹ Ibid. 414E (ET 5. 377).

⁴² Josephus Ap. 2.190 (ET 1. 369).

⁴³ On the theory of the vapors, see Fontenrose, Joseph, The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and Operations (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Parke, H. W. and Wormell, D. E. W., The Delphic Oracle, vol. 1: The History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956) 19–26Google Scholar; Flacelière, Plutarque, 42–46.

⁴⁴ Lucan, De bello Civili (Pharasalia) 5.163–67 (trans. Duff, J. D.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957) 251.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Origen Cels. 3.25; Chrysostom Hom, in 1 Cor. 29.1 (PG 61, 242). Verbeke, Gérard (L'evolution de la doctrine de pneuma, du stoicismo à S. Augustin [Pans: Desclée de Brouwer, 1945] 269–71)Google Scholar discussed the prevalence of this view, which he considered characteristic also of Pseudo-Longinus (see De sublimitate 13.2).

⁴⁶ Two other pieces of evidence suggest that Josephus did not accept the vapor theory espoused by Lamprias. First, according to Cicero and Plutarch, the vapor provides the initial impetus of inspiration but not the words themselves which the priestess utters. In contrast, Josephus attributed the “languages and words” themselves (Ant. 4.119) to the divine spirit. Second, despite Lamprias's reference to the vapor as τὸ δὲ μαντικὸν ῥεῦμα καὶ πνεῦμα θειότατον (Plutarch Def. orac. 432D [ET 5. 469]; “but the prophetic current and breath is most divine”), Strabo's reference to it as πνεῦμα ἐνθουσιαστικόν (Geog. 9.3.5 [trans. Jones, Horace Leonard; LCL; 8 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960–1970] 4. 353)Google Scholar; “breath that inspires a divine frenzy”), and Dio Chrysostom's observation that it fills the priestess (72.12; ἐμπιμπλαμέμη τοῦ πνεύματος), the vapor remains a natural phenomenon which putatively ascended from the earth through the chasm over which the Delphic priestess sat upon her tripod. Josephus gave no indication that such a natural vapor approaches the ass and conquers Balaam. On the contrary, he identified the divine spirit with an angel.

⁴⁷ Josephus Ant. 1.23 (ET 4. 13).

⁴⁸ The worst distortion of this view occurs in Lamprias's summary, in which he merely reduces these demigods to “overseers, watchmen, and guardians of this tempered constitution, as if it were a kind of harmony, slackening here and tightening there on occasion, taking from it its too distracting and disturbing elements and incorporating those that are painless and harmless to the users” (Plutarch Def. orac. 436F–437A [ET 5. 493]).

⁴⁹ Ibid., 414E (ET 5. 377).

⁵⁰ Ibid., 415A (ET 5. 377, 379).

⁵¹ On myths associated with the discovery of Delphi, see Parke and Wormell, Delphic Oracle, 3–16. For a detailed analysis of the Apollo myth, see Fontenrose, Joseph, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959).Google Scholar

⁵² Josephus Ap. 2.162 (ET 1. 357).

⁵³ Josephus Ant. 3.139 (ET 4. 381). It is difficult to verify Josephus's comparison because it is not possible to ascertain exactly the furnishings of the Delphic site. See Parke and Wormell, Delphic Oracle, 28–30.

⁵⁴ Plutarch Is. et Os. 361C, in idem, Moralia (trans. Babbitt, Frank Cole; LCL; 15 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927) 5. 65.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Plato Symp. 202E–203A (trans. Lamb, W. R. M.; LCL; 12 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 3. 179.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ On the popularity of Plato in the Hellenistic period, see Hadas, Moses, “Plato in Hellenistic Fusion,” JHI 19 (1958) 3–13Google Scholar; idem, Hellenistic Culture: Fusion and Diffusion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959) 72–82.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ “Josephus ist Historiker… Denker ist Josephus nicht. Eigentümliche Anschauungen hat man bei Josephus nicht zu erwarten” (Büchsel, Friedrich, Der Geist Gottes im Neuen Testament [Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1926] 94).Google Scholar