"The Final Battle" or "A Burnt Offering"?: Lamdan's Masada Revisited

Publication Date: January 2009

Publisher: Association for Jewish Studies; Association for Jewish Studies

Author(s): Yael S. Feldman; Yael S. Feldman

Research Area: Culture and religion

Keywords: Literature; History; Religion; Zionism

Type: Report

Abstract:

The author examines Isaac Lamdan's 1926 epic poem "Masada". She argues against the commonly held assumption that Josephus's "Jewish Wars" was Lamdan's primary source. Rather, the author points to the medieval Hebrew work "Book of Yosippon", an anonymous and reworked version of Josephus's history which incorporates religious and sacrifical imagery and language in a manner much closer to Lamdan's poem than Josephus's original work.