Josephus and the books of Samuel

In the Jewish Antiquities , the paraphrase by Josephus of 1–2 Samuel covers the end of book 5 and the whole of books 6 and 7, the latter including the beginning of 1 Kings until the death of David; some portions of 1 Chronicles are used, too. This chapter deals with Josephus’ Biblical sources, as a by-product of a French translation and extensive commentary of his narrative. Moreover, interesting fragments of 1–2 Samuel have been discovered in some Qumran caves, which have noteworthy contact points with 1 Chronicles, with the Greek and with Josephus. The progression will be in five stages: (1) it shows first that here Josephus follows closely his sources; (2) the significance of his relationship to the so-called ‘Lucianic recension’ of the LXX; (3) specific contacts with Qumran fragments; (4) the incidence of the additions and parallels of 1 Chronicles; (5) Josephus and the Greek Bible. Keywords: biblical sources; book of Samuel; Chronicles; Jewish Antiquities ; Josephus; Lucianic recension; LXX; Qumran caves