Josephus The Jewish War It took 7 years and several Roman legions to supress the Jewish rebellion of A.D.66. Recent excavations of Masada curiously corroborate some details of Josephus's history, which so grimly evidences the turbulence of the New Testament period. In a war which was sullied by every kind of treachery and atrocity, Josepus, though a Jewish governor o... more »f Galilee, sided with the Romans. He is not always historically reliable, but his unique account of the war and of such figures as Herod, the Agrippas, Pontius Pilate, and Vespasian remains an important source-book for a period and place of which we know little else.« less