[B &I] "The Irony of Masada"

Many authors like Yael Zerubavel (Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition) and Nachman Ben-Yehuda (The Masada myth: collective memory and mythmaking in Israel) have both discussed the deviant role that Masada myth plays in Zionist society.

In his recent essay entitled "The Irony of Masada," Mark Andrew Brighton explains how Roman readers would have understood Josephus' account of the siege of Masada. Here is Brighton's conclusion:

... there is ample evidence to support the employment of figured speech and irony in ancient literary works, particularly in first century Rome, to engage in criticism when it was otherwise unsafe to do so. When irony was effectively employed in this manner, Quintilian indicates that an author avoided danger because his text could be interpreted otherwise (Inst. 9.2.66-7). Irony of this nature was designed to be subtle and therefore is harder to detect. One sign of its presence is the use of ambiguous or contradictory words which stand out like spikes in the narrative. Several such places exist in the Masada narrative. Josephus in the same context describes Eleazar’s followers as brave (andrōdestatous) and soft (malakōterous), or those who act as if possessed (daimonōntes) but still follow the best course of action after careful deliberation. He states that the Romans, after entering the fortress the next day and seeing the mass of those who are murdered (pephoneumenōn), could hardly believe the magnitude of the crime (tolmēmatos) and then states how they were amazed both at the nobility (gennaiotēta) of the plan and at the Judean rebels’ contempt of death (tou thanatou kataphronēsin). Discordant words as these in such close proximity can hardly be attributed to Josephus’ own inexperience with the language. He is rather manipulating his text and allowing readers to see what they want to see at Masada. These last Judean rebels were either very brave to take their own lives or cowards in doing so. They acted irrationally or as those who carefully deliberated the best course of action. Their action was either a horrendous crime or a noble plan. Such effective use of irony allows Josephus to loudly proclaim at Masada that the Roman “victory” was after all not really their victory but God’s punishment upon the Judean stasis and that these Judeans have a nobility that even surpasses that of the Romans. Simultaneously, he gives the Flavians permission in the narrative to dismiss Eleazar and the Sicarii as nothing more than madmen. Safe criticism indeed!

[To read the entire article, click here.]

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