The Josephus Problem

Edward Butler

Type: Beta project
Genre: Historical fiction
Word count: 90,000

Warnings: Graphic violence, graphic sexual content, swearing

Flavius Josephus is one of the ancient world’s most controversial figures — Jewish commander turned Roman chronicler, traitor to some, survivor to others. The Josephus Problem follows Yosef and his wife Leah from the siege of Jotapata to Rome — a novel about impossible choices, the price of survival, and whether bearing witness can itself be an act of faith. Please note: this book is only available in PDF format.

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What’s this?

Flavius Josephus is one of the ancient world’s most controversial figures — Jewish commander turned Roman chronicler, traitor to some, unlikely survivor to others. But history records only what he chose to write. The Josephus Problem tells what lies beneath.

70 CE. When Rome lays siege to the Galilean fortress of Jotapata, commander Yosef ben Matityahu makes a prophecy that saves his life and damns his reputation. His wife Leah, pregnant and alone, must fight her way south through a collapsing world toward Jerusalem and the son she left behind.
Tracing their parallel journeys from the caves of Galilee to the gilded courts of Rome, The Josephus Problem is a novel about the impossible choices that survival demands — of faith tested to its limits, of a marriage stretched across years of silence and war, and of whether bearing witness to catastrophe can itself be an act of courage.

Edward Butler teaches History and English at an international school and has spent much of his adult life living and working abroad. Married with three children, years of travel have sharpened his fascination with outsiders, contested histories, and the human cost of empire. He is a lifelong reader of literary fiction, drawn particularly to writers who find the personal within the historical — among them Robert Graves, Anita Diamant, William Boyd and Ian McEwan. The Josephus Problem is his first novel, three years in the making.

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