The Importance of Practical Education

Josephus

Against Apion 2.171–174

Late 1st Century

All practices, employments, and studies, for us, refer back to piety toward God; for [Moses] did not leave any of these phenomena unexamined or indeterminate. All education and the training of habits fall under two forms: one is didactic by means of speech, the other through the cultivation of character. The other lawgivers, therefore, at variance in their opinions, would choose one form and dispense with the other as it appeared right to each of them. The Lacedaemonians [Spartans] and Cretans, for example, used to educate through customs, not by words, while the Athenians and nearly all the rest of the Greeks would prescribe the things to do or not to do through their laws, yet they would neglect to accustom their people to these prescriptions through actions. But our lawgiver combined both forms with much care: for he neither left the training of character absent of verbal instruction, nor did he allow the letter of the law to be ineffectual in practice. Instead, beginning immediately from the first stage of their nurturing and way of life in accordance with the household of each, he left nothing, not even the most minor elements, to the individual discretion of those making use [of the laws]. But even concerning foods—those which one should abstain from, and which are to be consumed—and concerning the people with whom they would have dealings in daily life—both the strenuousness of their labors and alternatively their rest—he established the Torah as both the boundary and standard for them, in order that by living under the authority of this law, as our father and master, we would not sin either by desiring so or through ignorance.

Translated by William Whiston, adapted byAaron Samuels.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 2: Emerging Judaism.

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Josephus argues that primary education in Jewish households differs from Greco-Roman educational practices in that Jewish education combines oral instruction with practical guidance in matters of daily life. Jewish parents do not merely tell their children what to do and what to abstain from, but through their own practice, they provide models to emulate. Such demonstrated guidance includes various aspects of daily life, such as food choices, behavior toward others, work, and leisure. Note that words and actions, not book learning, are promulgated here. There is also no reference to formal teachers and schools. Rather, Jewish learning takes place in the household, is continuous, and starts at an early age. It consists of socialization into customary practices.

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Creator Bio

Josephus

37–100

Flavius Josephus was born into a prominent Jewish priestly family and served as a general stationed in the Galilee during the First Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE). He was captured by the Romans and eventually integrated into the Flavian imperial aristocracy, who commissioned him to compose chronicles of the Jewish–Roman war and the history of the Jews. Josephus’ works, all written in Greek, include The Jewish War, Jewish Antiquities, Against Apion, and his autobiography, Life of Josephus. These writings provide important insights into the Judaisms of the Second Temple period and include one of the few surviving accounts of the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.

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