Josephus on Gibeah: Versions of a Toponym

Author(s): Eyal Regev

Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review , Jan. - Apr., 1999, Vol. 89, No. 3/4 (Jan. - Apr.,
1999), pp. 351-359
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

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THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, LXXXIX, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 1999) 351-359

JOSEPHUS ON GIBEAH:
VERSIONS OF A TOPONYM*

EYAL REGEV, Bar-Ilan University

ABSTRACT

Gibeah occurs numerous times in Josephus' writings, especially in his

description of the story of the Concubine at Gibeah and the reign of Saul in
Antiquities, Books 5-6. But in many cases it is difficult to determine
whether he refers to Gibeah or Geba. In one case he even replaces it with
Gibeon. Hence, one may suspect that Josephus had only minor knowledge
concerning the geography of the land of Benjamin, north of Jerusalem.
However, War 5.51 indicates that he was able to identify Gibeah accu-
rately. How, then should we explain Josephus' inaccuracy in Antiquities?
The confusion lies with Josephus' use of a Greek version of a Hebrew
toponym. Since a number of geographical and philological problems in
Antiquities regarding the name of Gibeah are also characteristic of the
Septuagint, it is possible that Josephus borrowed the Greek version of the
name Gibeah from the Septuagint. However, in three cases he uses another
toponym that may be his own creation (or taken from another source), since
it is very rare in the Septuagint: Gabatha. In these cases it is possible that
Josephus used his own geographical knowledge of the Hebrew (or Aramaic)
toponym of Gibeah. Thus, the case of Gibeah is not only another example
of Josephus' notorious inconsistancy in his use of sources, but also an in-
teresting testimony of his geographical knowledge and proper translation
of a Hebrew toponym into Greek.

The geographical descriptions in the works of Josephus Flavius

have contributed to the reconstruction of the historical geography of
the Land of Israel in the Second Temple period, and may attest to his
familiarity with the regions and sites mentioned in the narrative. A
number of studies have examined the passages specifically devoted
to geography in Josephus' major works, the War and the Antiquities. I

*J would like to thank J. Schwarts and L. H. Feldman for their notes and sugges-
tions on an early draft of this article. The writing of this article was supported by a
scholarship from the Center for the Study of the Land of Israel of Yad Yitzhak Ben-
Zvi and Bar-Ilan University.
1 See Z. Safrai, "The Description of the Land of Israel in Josephus' Works," in
Josephus, the Bible and History, eds. L. H. Feldman and G. Hata (Leiden, 1989), pp. 295-
324; Y. Shahar, Josephus' Geography of Eretz Israel and its Relation to Talmudic, Hel-
lenistic and Roman Traditions (Ph.D. diss., Tel Aviv University, 1996) [in Hebrew].

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352 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

However, our understanding of Josephus' geographical knowledge is

also enriched from his casual references to place-names in his retell-
ing of the historical narratives of the Bible in Antiquities, Books 1-11.
Moreover, the examination of these place names in Josephus may
further our comprehension of how Josephus used his sources. An in-
teresting example is Gibeah, in the district of Benjamin, which Jose-
phus occasionally confuses with Geba and Gibeon.2
In Ant. 5.140ff., Josephus relates that the infamous rape of the con-
cubine, which inflamed the whole tribal land of Benjamin early in the
period of the Judges, transpired in Geba (?i5 I7,fkV),3 though the Ma-
soretic text reports that it took place in Gibeah (Judg 19:12ff.). In an-
other instance, Ant. 6.156, Josephus reports that Saul, after his final
parting with Samuel, went up to his palace at Geba (Fa1ii), though the
MT (1 Sam 15:34) relates that "Saul went up to his home at Gibeah
of Saul (5,ixv nv2)." Furthermore, in Ant. 6.105, Josephus notes that
Saul came to Gibeon (diq Fa4awbv) before the battle of Michmas,
though the MT relates that Saul, Jonathan and the troops that were
with them "stayed in Geba of Benjamin (In2 V3))" (1 Sam 13:16).4
Hence, in all three places Josephus deviates from the MT His narra-
tive indicates that he had a hard time distinguishing between Geba and
Gibeah, between Gibeon and Gibeah, and that he possibly even
thought that Saul's home was in Geba.
Elsewhere in Josephus, however, we find very precise information
on Gibeah, which seems to negate this evaluation. In War 5.51, he re-
ports that Titus camped with his army in the area of Gibeah of Saul
(Fca43O laoiYX), about 30 stadia from Jerusalem. This distance ac-

2 literature on Gibeah and its relation to Geba and Gibeon see Z. Kallai, His-
torical Geography of the Bible (Jerusalem, 1986) pp. 399-403; A. Demsky, "Geba,
Gibeah and Gibeon: An Historico-Geographic Riddle," BASOR 212 (1973) 26-31;
M. Arnold, Gibeah: The Search for a Biblical City (Sheffield, 1990); N. L. Lap, "Ful,
Tell El-," The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land,
ed. E. Stern (Jerusalem, 1993) 2:445-448.
3The same reading occurs in Ant. 5.157 (np& -f Fapd) and in the Septuagint
below); see also Ant. 5.141, 143 (crCv I7aPaqvCbv), 150, 152-155 and 164. Cf. Ch.
Moller and G. Schmitt, Siedlungen Palestinds nach Flavius Josephus (Wiesbaden,
1976), p. 55. For the purpose of this discussion, we shall overlook a few minor varia-
tions between the different manuscripts of Antiquities.
4In the opinion of B. Mazar, Encyclopaedia Biblica (Jerusalem, 1954) 2:411, s.v.
vzi, this was the town of Geba, but it is more probable that Saul and Jonathan were
staying in Gibeah. See Judg 20:10; Demsky, "Geba, Gibeah and Gibeon," p. 29 f.,
and cf. Arnold, Gibeah, pp. 26, 144 n. 34. See also n. 18 below.

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 JOSEPHUS ON GIBEAH-REGEV 353

Table 1: Forms selected by Josephus compared with those

in the Septuaginta and the Masoretic Text.

Masoretic Text LXX Josephus

Judg 19:12ff. I nvti Fca43, ?5 Fadfav

Ant. 5.140ff.

1 Sam 15:34 I/mv nvv Fc4awx Fc4p

Ant. 6.156
1 Sam 13:16 I zn )Fn ati Fc43? ?; Fca,aJv
Ant. 6.105 B?vtcqiv

1 Sam 10:5 I D)rfl'Wn mvm fl

Ant. 6.56 ToD OFo0i
1 Sam 10:26 I nnyim gi; Fca4aa gi; raFaoO,v
Ant. 6.67

Josh 24:33 I/3 vn) Fa4a3ap kDFItv? ?v Fcp4Oi

Ant. 5.119

aFor variant readings see The Old Testament in Greek, eds. A. E. Brooke and
N. McLean (Cambridge, 1906-1932).

cords with the accepted identification of Gibeah of Saul with modern

Tel el Ful, whereas Geba is identified with Kafr Jaba, a few kilome-
5
ters northeast of Gibeah.5 Josephus also estimates the distance form
Gibeon to Jerusalem correctly as being about 40 stadia. 6It seems that
he was quite familiar with the geography of the Land of Benjamin,
and might be expected not to have confused one place with another.
Thus, in his earlier work, the War, Josephus demonstrates that he
knew quite well that Gibeah was the home of Saul, and that he knew
where it was. We would therefore expect him to report accurately to
the reader of Antiquities, written only several years later, that the
rape of the concubine occurred in Gibeah, not Geba. What might
have brought him to make such an error in citing facts that he had
previously given correctly?

5See above, nn. 2 and 4.

6Ant. 7.283; War 2.516 (50 stadia from Jerusalem). See also War 2.544. Cf. Moller
and Schmitt, Siedlungen Palestinds, p. 58. Josephus' spelling of Gibeon is of some in-
terest. See A. Schalit, Namenworterbuch zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden, 1968), p. 30;
and see the notes in A. Schalit, Jewish Antiquities (Jerusalem, 1954) 2:110 n. 23, 319
n. 320, 124 n. 31, 160 n. 287 [in Hebrew].

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354 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

The solution may lie in the sources that Josephus used for retelling
the biblical narrative in Antiquities, Books 1-11, notably the Septu-
agint. 7 The Greek versions of Gibeah suggest that the main source for
Josephus' incorrect substitution of Geba for Gibeah is the Septuagint,
which has Fc4aif in both places, Judg 19:12ff. and 1 Sam 15:34. Since
it is not clear whether Fcp43w refers to Gibeah, or Geba (see below),
Josephus, or his source, may have confused the two places and under-
stood Fac4ku as referring to Geba (which is perhaps the more common
name). As for Gibeon instead of Geba/Gibeah in Josephus' account of
1 Sam 13:16, where the Septuagint has Fc43,8i8 BFvtapciv, this also
may be attributed to the Septuagint's use of Fac4adv in several places,
synonymously with both Geba and Gibeah.9 If Josephus' carelessness
is derived from his source, it may be reasonable to suppose that here,
too, his use of the Septuagint misled him (indirectly this time) into
substituting Gibeon for "Geba of Benjamin."
The possibility that Josephus transcribed these names from a ver-
sion of the Bible that has not come down to us is perhaps reasonable

7 See, for example, Schalit, Jewish Antiquities, 1 :xxviff.; H. St. J. Thackeray, Jose-
phus: The Man and the Historian (New York, 1929), pp. 77ff.; Feldman, Josephus,
the Bible and History, pp. 22-23, 28; cf. idem, Studies in Josephus' Rewritten Bible
(Leiden, 1998), p. 562; N. G. Cohen, "Josephus and Scripture: Is Josephus' Treatment
of the Scriptural Narrative Similar throughout the Antiquities I-XI?" JQR 54 (1963-
1964) 311-332. For the methodological difficulties in identifying where and how Jo-
sephus used the Septuagint, see L. H. Feldman, "Use, Authority and Exegesis of
Mikra in the Writings of Josephus," in Mikra, ed. M. J. Mulder (Assen, 1988), pp.
455-458, 460ff.; J2. Nodet, Le Pentateuque de Flavius Josephe (Paris, 1996), and see
below. For several test cases which demonstrate the complicated relationship between
Josephus' use of the Hebrew Masoretic text and versions of the Septuagint (B and L),
as well as his Hebrew and Greek sources in general, see C. Begg, Josephus' Account of
the Early Divided Monarchy (AJ 8,212-420) (Leuven, 1993), esp. pp. 271ff. In any
event, "it is clear that Josephus' positive affinities are more with 'LXX' than with
'MT"' (p. 275). Cf. the bibliographies on p. 2, n. 6 and 3f. Notwithstanding these
methodological difficulties, it seems that regarding toponyms, it may be easier to dem-
onstrate whether Josephus used Semitic or Greek sources.
8 Luc. Fac4a3 (for the relation between Antiquities and the Lucianic tradition see
nn. 15 and 17 below); further variations occur in other MSS. References to the Septu-
agint follow E. Hatch and H. A. Redpath, A Concordance to the Septuagint and Other
Greek Versions of the Old Testament (Graz, 1954) 2:41-42. For the interchangability
of the names of Gibeah, see Brooke and McLean, The Old Testament in Greek. For
manuscripts of Hosea and 2 Ezra, see Septuaginta, Vetus Testamentum Graecum, Auc-
toritate Academiae Litterarum Gottingensis editum, XII (Gottingen, 1967), VIII.2
(Gottingen, 1993), respectively.
9For example, in 2 Sam 5:25 (MT v_i); 2 Sam 21:6, 2 Chr 13:2 (MT nvi)).

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 JOSEPHUS ON GIBEAH-REGEV 355

but cannot be substantiated. 10 Since we cannot tell what other sources

Josephus may have used in describing the contents of the books of
Joshua, Judges and 1 Samuel, we have no alternative but to compare
his narrative in Antiquities, Books 5 and 6 with the known versions
of the Bible.
The name Gibeah in the Septuagint is a complex subject,11 and it
is evident that Josephus had some difficulties with it. In most of the
Septuagint it appears as Fa43aa',12 but the same name is sometimes
also used for MT Geba, 13 or is translated literally as -coi Pouvoi, "the
Hill (of Benjamin)." 14 Thus, without the MT, it is hard to distinguish
between Geba and Gibeah as rendered in the Septuagint. This ambi-
guity in the Greek forms of n) and -mnV is the key for understanding
Josephus' "errors" in Ant. 5.140ff. and 6.156 mentioned above.
Actually, without consulting the Hebrew biblical text, it is not clear
whether Josephus there refers to Gibeah or Geba.

10See H. W. Attridge, The Interpretation of Biblical History in the Antiquitates

Judaicae of Flavius Josephus (Missoula, 1976), pp. 31-32; S. J. D. Cohen, Josephus in
the Galilee and Rome (Leiden, 1979), pp. 35-36 n. 45; cf. n. 17 below. For the possi-
bility that Josephus used non-scriptural (especially Greek) sources, see H. W. Attridge,
"Josephus and His Works," in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, ed. M. E.
Stone (Assen, 1984), p. 21 If. See also L. H. Feldman, "Josephus' Jewish Antiquities
and Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities," in Studies in Hellenistic Judaism (Leiden,
1996) pp. 57-82.
11 See, for example, D. Barthelemy, Critique textuelle de l'Ancien Testament,
Josue, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Rois, Chroniques, Esdras, Nehemie, Esther (Fribourg,
1982), pp. 122-124, 300; S. P. Brock, The Recensions of the Septuagint Versions of
I Samuel (Turin, 1996), pp. 326-327. For the linguistic problem see notes below.
12For example, in Josh 15:57, Judg 19:16 (but in codex S-ra,46), Judg 20:4ff.,
1 Sam 11:4 and 13:15, and some MSS of 2 Ezra 17 (Neh 7):48. For the a suffix (also
concerning raF4aO6, see below) and its relation to Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek names
cf. Y. Elitsur, Ancient Toponyms in Eretz-Israel as Preserved among Arabs: The Lin-
guistic Aspect (Ph.D. diss., The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1992), pp. 45-47,
281-282 [in Hebrew].
13 For example, Josh 18:24, 2 Kgs 23:8 in some of the manuscripts, and 2 Ezra 21
(Neh 11:31). In some of the manuscripts both Geba and Gibeah are called raF4e., as
in Josh 21:17 (MT v-i), 1 Sam 13:2 and 14:16 (MT n*2); raF4av also occurs for
both places (see above, n. 9). For the possibility that this form is a transliteration of
the original Hebrew or Aramaic name which may have had only a slight difference
in pronunciation, if at all, between n) and r1V3), cf. A. Sperber, "Hebrew Based
upon the Greek and Latin Transliterations," HUCA 12-13 (1937-1938) 103ff. esp.
183, 215.
14 1 Sam 14:2 and 22:6, 2 Sam 6:3, Hos 9:9 and 10:9.

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356 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

The difficulty in distinguishing between the two led Josephus to

adopt the more unusual Greek form of the name Gibeah, namely,
Gabatha, which only appears in very few Septuagint MSS15 and
does not seem to have penetrated the Greek and Latin literature of
Josephus' time. This same form appears later in the writings of Eu-
sebius, who uses it to render Gibeah of Benjamin. 16
Josephus used this unusual form of the name Gibeah in three places
in Antiquities apart from his mention of the location of "Gibath Saul"
in War 5.51. These interchanges of Gabaa with Gabatha may demon-
strate how Josephus overcame the linguistic difficulty inherent in the
biblical text. Moreover, in one of these instances he used the Septu-
agint while at the same time refraining from copying the geographical
error that might have emerged from it. Thus, we may learn how
Josephus translated Hebrew toponyms into Greek and corrected the
defects inherent in the sources he used.

15 raFaOd in MS A in two places: 1 Sam 10:26 (MT -nnn)) and 11:4 (MT ixmin
ixwv nvi) ot)Dnn). In 2 Sam 23:29, we find SK rapaIO ui6q BEvta%t6v (MT nnv)o
vn)z 'z). There is no way of knowing whether the version of the Septuagint that Jo-
sephus had before him was the same as the manuscript versions in which the first of
these forms appears. It is interesting that neither of them occurs in the Lucan manu-
script, which contains the version that several scholars have posited as the one used
by Josephus; but see A. Schalit, Jewish Antiquities, pp. xxvii, xxxv. The form ra,BaO
appears in Aq., Sm., and Th., in 1 Sam 23:19 (MT nnn)n 5m2W 9'N ovn 15mt). Simi-
lar forms for MT mnV, not referring to Gibeah or Benjamin, occur in some of the
MS versions of Josh 24:33 and in the versions of Aq. and Sm. at Jer 38 (31):39.
16In Eusebius' Onomasticon (Das Onomastikon der biblischen Ortsnamen, ed.
E. Klorterman; Leipzig, 1904, p. 70, line 11), we find raca4fO KX1lpOU Bctau[iv (men-
tioned in his discussion on Gibethon). Moreover, Eusebius (ibid. 11. 24-25) uses the
same name for a village in which the tomb of Habakkuk the prophet is to be found,
situated, according to him, 12 miles from Beth Govrin, and also for a place called
rapa30 in Galilee. On the other hand, Eusebius uses the name raF4adv in his discus-
sion on Gibeah of Benjamin, which Jerome calls Gabaam (ed. Klostermann, p. 70,
11. 26-27); there, however, it seems to be confused with Geba of Josh 21:17; see the
edition of E. Z. Melamed (Jerusalem, 1966), p. 34, ?340 [in Hebrew]. It is interesting
to note the variant readings of the name of Gibath Phinehas (Josh 24:33, on which
see below, n. 20). According to the version of Jerome, it is called Gabaath. However,
MS V of the Onomasticon calls it rapa6q, while MS B has raF4adp (ed. Melamed, 34,
?339; ed. Klostermann, p. 70, 1. 22). Thus, it would seem that Eusebius had two
different versions for Gibeah of Benjamin, rapaf O and raF4adv. Eusebius seem to
have been influenced in one way or another by the Septuagint; cf. E. Z. Melmad,
"The Onomastikon of Eusebius," Tarbiz 3 (1932) 400-409 [in Hebrew].

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 JOSEPHUS ON GIBEAH-REGEV 357

In Ant. 6.56, Josephus relates how Samuel prophesied to Saul that

the latter, after finding his asses safe and sound, would come to Gib-
eah (ciq F3paO), though the Septuagint in 1 Sam 10:5 has "the hill
of God" (1t -cTOv Pouvov -coi OcO). Interestingly, Josephus here uses
a geographical toponym instead of the Septuagint's literal translation
of oni5wn nv:. Hence, one may conclude that the historian either
used anther source instead of, or in addition to, the Septuagint.17
Josephus' emendation is valuable for the study of the historical ge-
ography of the land of Benjamin since it seems that he correctly
identified olnxfl nva) as 'xvW nvYa, as did B. Mazar and other mod-
ern scholars. 18
In Ant. 6.67, Josephus relates that Saul, having been crowned by
Samuel at Mizpah, returned to Gibeah (diq Fapa Ov), though the Sep-
tuagint in 1 Sam 10:26 reads 1t Fa4paa. Nevertheless, despite this
difference, it is quite possible that Josephus used the Septuagint, since
in the next verse he too retains the reading gnvlv 6' iDG-CTpOV "a month
later" (LXX: Kat ?7yv Oi d? T' iva), whereas the MT reads quite
differently: "But he pretended not to mind" (vwirnDo 'nn). 19 Thus Jo-
sephus correctly identified Saul's home town as Gibeah (Fa,pa0a) in
War and in Antiquities.
Another instance in which Josephus uses the name Gibeah, how-
ever, may reveal a case of hypercorrection. In Ant. 5.119, he records
that Elazar the Priest was buried in a town by that name (?V

17Cf. Ulrich, The Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus (Missoula, 1978), pp.
184, 217-256; idem. "Josephus' Biblical Text for the Book of Samuel," in Josephus,
81-96. Similarly, in Ant. 8.306, Josephus has rapa&, perhaps influenced by the Sep-
tuagint version of 2 Chr 16:6 (tIpv r3pac), though in the parallel passage in 1 Kgs
15:22 the Septuagint renders MT lnz) n) literally as niiv I3ouv6v ,Pevtacqiv. See the
commentary of A. Schalit to Antiquities ad loc.
18 See Mazar, Encyclopaedia Biblica, 2:419, s.v. onzn5xn nvt. Mazar's opinion is
accepted by other scholars (e.g., in the commentaries of M. Z. Segal and S. Bar-Efrat
to 1 Samuel). For alternative identifications of the place, see H. W. Hertzberg,
"Mizpa," ZAW 47 (1929) 179ff.; Demski, "Geba, Gibeah, and Gibeon"; J. Miller,
"Geba-Gibeah of Benjamin," VT 25 (1975) 145-166; and cf. R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel,
Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, Texas, 1983), p. 91.
19 See H. St. J. Thackeray and R. Marcus, Josephus, The Loeb Classical Library
(London, 1966) 5:200-201, n. a., and see the comment of Schalit, Jewish Antiquities,
to this passage. Interestingly, the reading of 4QSama is also vrtn v n m. For the rela-
tionship between the Jewish Antiquities and this scroll see Ulrich, "Josephus' Biblical
Text for the Book of Samuel," p. 82ff.; idem. The Qumran Text of Samuel, pp. 168f. For
the biblical text, see Barthelemy, Critique textuelle de l'ancien Testament, pp. 166-169.

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358 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

raIYa3O). The MT in Josh 24:33 reads "Gibath Phinehas" (nv2)

vrnn), and the Septuagint, too, has Fa,a'fp Dtv1cq. There is no way
of knowing which source lay before Josephus, but it does seem that
he introduced his own reading here. We might well infer that he
identified Gibath Phinehas with Gibath Saul (Gibath Benjamin),
though it is widely accepted that Gibath Phinehas was in the hills of
Ephraim. 20
To sum up, the various readings of the name Gibeah in Josephus
are symptomatic of two opposing traits of his work as a geographer
and as a reteller or reviser of the biblical story. On the one hand, he
distinguishes aptly between Geba and Gibeah (Fa,pa0a or FaPaOWv),
thus overcoming the difficulty in the Septuagint's frequent use of the
same name (FaPa'/FaIPaa) for both, and enabling the reader to dis-

20 The identification of the site is problematic. See the Onomasticon of Eusebius,

ed. Klostermann, p. 70,1. 23, where it is called raF4a6c, on which cf. above, n. 16; and
see also ibid. p. 74, 1. 1, where we find ril3civ; the latter, however, seems to be related
to Geb/Geba in the district of Ephraim, on which see Y. Elitzur, "Response: After
All- i and Not n)," Tarbiz 63 (1994) 267-272 [in Hebrew], and the sources cited
there. On Gibath Phinehas see M. Noth, Das Buch Joshua, HAT (Tiibingen, 197 13)
p. 141. A medieval Samaritan tradition identifies the place with "the hill opposite
Mt. Gerizim, Bethel in Timath-serah" (mentioned in Josh 24:30). In the same tradi-
tion this hill is named as being "in Qiryat Imrata opposite Mt. Gerizim at Bethel";
see N. Edler, "Une nouvelle chronique samaritaine," REJ 44 (1902) 201-203. This
tradition finds, an echo in the Jewish tradition of "seventy elders in a single cave in
E[b]rata, and outside Eleazar the priest and his son Phinehas." See Y. Ben-Zvi,
"Simane Kitve ha-Qevarot le-R. Ya'aqov mi-Erishi," Mizrah u-Ma'arav 3 (1929)
11-12. Also noteworthy is Samaria Ostracon 8, bearing the inscription [viirn. Cf.
Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible (London, 1979), pp. 358-368, 434. In light of the
difficulties concerning GeviGeva' in Ephraim one should consider the possibility
that Josephus identifies Gibath Phinehas with another Gibeah, in the district of
Ephraim. In any event, it should be noted that in all of these references to Gibeah
(and also Geba and Gibeon), Josephus transcribed this toponym with ya and not
with y7 as the Hebrew tmnv. This phenomenon, which is also common in the Septu-
agint, is typical of Greek versions of Hebrew toponyms. I owe this observation to L. H.
Feldman, who noted (in a letter dated 10 August 1997) that " . . . generally Josephus
renders Hebrew Gi by Greek Ga (note, e.g. FaPaOo'vr for Hebrew Gibethon in Ant.
8.288, 308 310 [bis]).... Apparently, there was some difference of opinion as to
how the iota should be pronounced.... As to Josephus' spelling of these names, in-
asmuch as our manuscripts of Josephus are late (the earliest being tenth century) and
strongly influenced by the spelling found in Eusebius, the spelling in our extant
manuscripts may reflect not what Josephus wrote but what copyists corrected." See
also, Feldman, "Use, Authority and Exegesis," p. 456. In any event, it should be
mentioned that according to the manuscripts in the Niese edition there is no inter-
changability between the two basic forms of Gibeah-with or without the 0, and the
variations of the toponyms mentioned above are less than minor.

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 JOSEPHUS ON GIBEAH-REGEV 359

tinguish between them in places where the Septuagint fails to do so.

It is interesting to compare the Josephan form of Gabatha to xmNnv
of the Aramaic translations, reminding us that Aramaic was Jose-
phus' mother-tongue; perhaps this may even hint that Josephus also
used an Aramaic source.21 Notwithstanding this, when Josephus
uses Gabatha instead of the misleading common form of the Septu-
agint, he provides the reader of Antiquities with a clearer Greek
form of the Hebrew name nVy1.22 Moreover, he identifies nma)
ofl)nil in 1 Sam 10:5 with Gibeah, an identification accepted today,
and in so doing makes a contribution to the historical geography of
the Bible. His location of Gibeah in War is probably identical with
the location accepted today, at Tel el-Ful. Consequently, it seems
that in these cases Josephus acts as a geographer of his homeland,
easily overcoming the difficulty of translating the Hebrew toponym
nmv, or Aramaic Nnn)V into Greek.
On the other hand, despite this precise information on Gibeah in
three places, Josephus is not consistent in his use of the name
rl74ok, and in two places he keeps the Septuagint's somewhat erro-
neous reading of raFa3f. Elsewhere, he erroneously uses the name
Foc43cv. We may also criticize his hypercorrection of Gibath Phine-
has to Gibeah in Joseph 24:33, though the former surely was in the
district of Ephraim, and not Benjamin.23 Thus, although Josephus
often uses his considerable geographical knowledge to avoid the
Septuagint's inaccurate version of the toponym Gibeah, he is not
consistent. Here and there in his geographical-historical descriptions,
he pays insufficient attention to detail.24 Hence, we may draw the in-
teresting conclusion that Josephus does not always bother to make
use of his geographical knowledge (or of the more accurate sources)
so as to give the most exact Greek version of Hebrew toponyms.

21 On the possible relationship between Josephus and the Aramaic Targums, see
Feldman, "Use, Authority and Exegesis," pp. 458-460, 462, n. 30; Begg, Josephus'
Account of the Early Divided Monarchy, pp. 3, n. 7, 275 f., and cf. n. 10, above.
22For the phenomenon of the Hellenization of Hebrew names cf. R. J. H. Shutt,
"Biblical Names and Their Meanings in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities, Books I and II,
1-200," JSJ 2 (1971) 167-182. On the Aramaic suffix Oac cf. Elitsur, Ancient Toponyms
in Eretz-Israel; Sperber, "Hebrew Based upon Greek," pp. 200-201, 215.
23 It is perhaps also possible to claim that this is a unique identification of Gibeah
in Ephraim and that this, therefore, should be considered, together with the exam-
ples listed above, as a positive Josephan rendering of the name of Gibeah, in refer-
ence to Gibath Phinehas (cf. n. 20 above).
24 On Josephus' carelessness as a writer and historian see Cohen, Josephus in the Gal
ilee and Rome, pp. 47,233-234; Feldman, "Use, Authority and Exegesis," pp. 466-470.

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