Talk:Tiberius Julius Alexander

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Can anyone explain why we need an article on this person? Based on what is written here, his chief claim to fame is that he was a nephew of Philo, & some kind of relative to Herod Agrippa. Only one article links here, "List of Famous Romans". Frankly, as this article stands his father (who is described as a government official & "rich") is more worthy of an entry than he is.

Either we need more information in this stub, or it needs to be removed. -- llywrch 22:39, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)


 * Did this guy live in the 20th century, or around 1500 BC, or what?? Michael Hardy 22:23, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Tiberius Julius Alexander (TJA) and Flavius Josephus were one and the same person. TJA was the wealthiest man in the Roman empire with the possible exception of the emperor. He (and his father) amassed their fortune as prefect and tax collector in Egypt. The OT Joseph, likewise, was a Jew who had gone to Egypt and became fabulously wealthy. Thus, TJA was the "Roman Joseph" and hence took the nickname as a pseudonym. Josephus' supposed Hebrew patronymic was "Bar Mathias", i.e. son of Matthew which he dropped in favor of the new Flavian dynasty with whom he lived in the imperial palace after the Jewish/Roman war. Josephus presumably had a front-row seat with Titus from which he could view the war and subsequently write his history. TJA was the experienced military commander on whom Titus relied to conduct the war. TJA also retired to the imperial palace after the war and disappears from history. Josephus must have known TJA and received much information from him about the war, yet he (TJA) is not mentioned much. Further, the name Bar Mathias (drop the initial B and final s) is very close to (Joseph of) Arimathea, another Jew who was supposed to be very wealthy. It is possible that TJA/Josephus is the writer of the original gospel stories and thus a founder of the Christian religion. He deserves an article in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.205.65.198 (talk) 23:41, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If that's true (hint: it isn't) then Josephus must have been one terribly conflicted dude, what with massacring his own people and then writing about it for posterity's sake.--172.190.37.56 (talk) 08:23, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

GA passed
Congrats! Excellent article, well worthy. Moreschi Deletion! 12:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps (Pass)
This article has been reviewed as part of WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review.

I made one minor change: I removed the following sentence from the end of the article: "If so, it provides a paradoxical tribute to the unprecedented nature of his achievement." because it constitutes commentary in its current form. Please feel free to add this back if suitably rewritten and sourced. All the best, EyeSerene TALK 18:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 08:44, 30 April 2016 (UTC)