Flavius Josephus

"And when the book of Daniel was showed him [Alexander the Great] wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that he himself was the person intended."

"Its literary merits must be left to the judgment of its readers; as to its truth, I should not hesitate to make the confident assertion that from the first word to the last I have aimed at nothing else."

"Antipater, now undisputed heir, had called down on his head the utter loathing of the nation, for everyone knew that all the slanders directed against his brothers had originated with him."

"Now Antiochus was not satisfied either with his unexpected taking the city (Jerusalem), or with its pillage, or with the great slaughter he had made there; but being overcome with his violent passions, and remembering what he had suffered during the siege, he compelled the Jews to dissolve the laws of their country, and to keep their infants uncircumcised, and to sacrifice swines flesh upon the altar; against which they all opposed themselves, and the most approved among them were put to death."

"Their exercises are unbloody battles, and their battles bloody exercises."

"I protest openly that I do not go over to the Romans as a deserter of the Jews, but as a minister from thee."

"Josephus failed to organize a strong stand against the Romans. The Jewish forces suffered setback after setback. Finally, Josephus and his men were forced to retreat to the fortress of Jotapata. After a siege of two months, Jotapata fell. The forty men who were left in the fortress killed themselves before the Romans entered it. Of all the brave fighters of Jotapata, only Josephus and his armor-bearer survived, and they were taken prisoners by the Romans. They had not joined the others who preferred death to dishonor."

"Titus had a strange companion in those days: Josephus, the descendant of the Maccabees. From the enemy camp, Josephus now called Josephus Flavius, after the family of Vespasian and Titus, watched the defeat of his people."

"[Josephus] was a Jew who was commissioned by Rome in the late first century after the Jewish-Roman War to write a history of the Jewish people. Consequently, Josephus found himself in his various works trying to (1) appeal to gentiles who were interested in the Judean system—law, history, and culture, and (2) defend surviving Jews against widespread postwar animosity. And he had to accomplish all this under the auspices of Rome. These at least are the general conclusions of prominent Josephus scholars Steve Mason and Tessa Rajak."