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Rating: 
Summary: 3rd Grade Reading Level and Biased
Review: After reading 100 pages in about ten minutes, I wondered if Josephus really wrote as if he were a child. ie: Jack was a man. He lived in a house. He had a wife. He did something. Then, Jack died. Now replace Jack with Adam, Noah, Moses, Isaac, etc. The translator/editor takes far too much liberty with his abridgement and translation. I bought the unabridge version afterward. The writing in the full version is still easy to read and follow, but it gives a much more detailed and fuller story telling. I realize that the original is very long, and editing was necessary for this book. But, the sentence and paragraph structure was dumbed down too much. Also, the current editor adds too much correlation to Jesus. He may be unaware of this, but not all readers are Christian. I bought the book for Josephus' telling of Jewish history (as the title of Josephus' major works would indicate). Not Paul Maier's idea of what is important in Josephus' landmark undertaking.
I would recommend this book to a Christian parent who may want to supplment a child's reading of Biblical stories. I would not recommend this to an adult who is interested in expanding their knowledge of Biblical history.
Rating: 
Summary: Best translation ever of Josephus for normal people
Review: The works of Josephus are the most important writings we have to understand the background and history of the Bible. Yet, trying to read Josephus' wordy prose is one of the most excruciating experiences I ever encountered.Dr. Maier's translation and commentary on Josephus is one of 3 modern translations I own, but is the only one I have used for the last 5 years. It brought Josephus to life for me and allowed me to read and understand this valuable primary source. Dr. Maier's work is generously accented with maps and illustrations and features a translation of Josephus that is abridged and therefore readable. Dr. Maier can be trusted to weed out the useless verbosity of the original text, as he is a leading scholar on early Roman Imperial history. Sell your other versions of Josephus and buy this one and then you may actually start to use Josephus to accent your study of the Bible.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Translation
Review: This is a good introduction to the works of Josephus that are really quite crucial to understanding Second Temple Judaism, the Qumran sect, and the fate of the Jews in the War with Rome. Scholars of both history and religion alike will benefit from this book.
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