THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM

Josephus Flavius was a complex, renegade Jew who was with the Romans during the fall of the second Temple in Jerusalem. He is our only eyewitness outside scripture of that destruction and the battle of Masada, which is also excerpted here. Narrator Dietz's voice is somewhat heavy and slow; one wishes he would get on with it, though one hears echoes of Josephus himself, immensely weary and discouraged. The narration does not reflect the ebb and flow of the story; there is no audible excitement, for example, when the breaching of the wall occurs. Unfortunately, too, the translation itself is anachronistic, with "thee's" and "thou's" bringing forth the memory of boring preachers. D.W. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT 92]