In my book, How the Bible Became Holy, I suggested that both Josephus and Paul should be seen in a similar light: Jews from Jerusalem who, like many in their class, were brought up with little knowledge of Hebrew or Scripture, and whose first real exposure to written Scripture was in Greek translation in the Diaspora. I have published a few preliminary studies on this, and not that long ago published the scholarly version for the argument about Paul. Now the scholarly article on Josephus, “Josephus’s Knowledge of Scripture,” has just appeared in the Journal of Ancient Judaism. The article can be accessed here, but requires either a fee or institutional access to Brill. Here, though, is the Abstract:
Scholars have long debated whether Josephus learned Scripture while he was in Jerusalem or only once he got to Rome. The question intersects with, and is hard to answer without, a more general assessment of language use and the education of the (priestly) elite in Jerusalem at that time. This paper argues that Josephus knew little Hebrew and never learned to read Scripture in the original; he was, in this respect, typical of the Jewish elite. His introduction to written Scripture was in its Greek translation, in Rome.