To start with, here is what Josephus writes about what appears to be Exodus 22:28, which in some translations says not to revile the "gods", an exaggerated term sometimes used for judges acting on behalf of God:
"(207) Let no one blaspheme those gods which other cities esteem such; nor may anyone steal what belongs to strange temples; nor take away the gifts that are dedicated to any god." (117)
Numerous errors are taught here. To start with, though there is irrationalistic and unbiblical moral relativism taught by Josephus here (he would probably think that the sins of Deuteronomy 17:2-5 are sins only for Israelites), the verse he seems to be thinking of, Exodus 22:28, does not say what he claims. It says in some translations not to revile "the gods." Translations like the ESV say otherwise, although the phrase could indeed refer to human judges enforcing (Psalm 82). Though there is etymological ambiguity in whether the Hebrew word means "the gods" (as in pagan deities), "God" (as in Yahweh), or human judges operating on Yahweh's behalf, if Exodus 22:28 literally meant that it is immoral to curse or oppose paganism, it would absolutely contradict other parts of the Torah. Along with passages like Deuteronomy 7:24-26, 8:19-20, see the following:
Deuteronomy 12:2-3—"Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places."
Deuteronomy 16:21-22—"Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the Lord your God, and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the Lord your God hates."
Exodus 22:28 is clarified by the likes of Leviticus 24:13-16 and Deuteronomy 17:8-12, which respectively condemn cursing God and Levitical priests or judges upholding the laws Yahweh reveals. Yahweh is, after all, the God of all humankind (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:1-2, Numbers 27:16, Isaiah 19:23-25, 56:3, and so on), though he revealed himself to the Hebrews in a special way for reasons other than their righteousness or alleged superiority in any arbitrary, meaningless separate standard (Deuteronomy 7:7, 9:1-6, 10:14-15, Psalm 147:19-20). Yahweh is also said to be the only god even ahead of the writings of Isaiah that emphasize this dramatically (see Deuteronomy 4:35, 39). Now, if only Jews are obligated to worship Yahweh, then this contradicts his status as the only deity (the same would be true if he was the supreme deity out of many, though the Torah does not actually teach this as some think); it cannot be logically or morally valid to worship something that demonstrably does not exist, and thus since Judaism entails the nonexistence of other gods, any Jew who thinks worship of gods other than Yahweh is permissible for Gentiles would be an ideological hypocrite.
Also, by logical necessity, if something is good or evil, it is good or evil for all people capable of practicing it, and Gentiles are certainly able to worship Yahweh. The Hebrew Bible would be inherently false it its teachings actually contradicted this or any other necessity of reason. However, the Torah itself directly acknowledges that its moral obligations are, except where logic requires otherwise (for instance, there cannot be Levitical sacrifices if there is no active priesthood), absolutely universal across time, geography, and nationality (Leviticus 18:24-30, 20:22-24, 24:10-16, Deuteronomy 4:5-8, and so on). Jews having additional obligations just because they are Jews would be racist against them, and Gentiles having a lesser relationship with Yahweh just because they are Gentiles would be racist against everyone else. Josephus is an intellectual insect both with regard to the plain teachings of the Hebrew Bible and, more importantly, with regard to knowing the necessary truths of logic, even if only concerning what follows and does not follow from the tenets of true Judaism.
"(214) Let there be seven men to judge in every city, and such as have been before most zealous in the exercise of virtue and righteousness. Let every judge have two officers, allotted him out of the tribe of Levi." (117)
Deuteronomy 16:18-20 prescribes having judges in each town of the Promised Land, but nothing is said about the number of judges or the exact nature of those beneath them on a hierarchy. The arrangement Josephus describes is also not at all what Moses himself claims to have established in Deuteronomy 1:15-18, where he summarizes how he set up an unspecified number of leaders who preside over groups of up to thousands and administer justice. Josephus either mistook traditions for the Torah's teachings without reading it, and reading it without making assumptions at that, or he actually read the Torah and thought that it states what it does not. He assumed regardless: if one is wrong, one could only have assumed, since there is no way to accept an untruth other than on the irrational grounds of belief without proof.
"(219) But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment." (117)
Nowhere does the Torah say anything remotely similar to this. It is not as if Genesis 1:26-27 and 5:1-2 from the start of the Bible are compatible with only one gender having the right to formally testify, and nothing is said about slaves not having this right. Josephus merely appeals to stereotypes about gender and class despite their inherent falsity [1]. Now, even if the Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 17:6-7 and 19:15 used explicitly "masculine" wording when speaking about witnesses, this neither indirectly entails that the same thing does not apply to women (logic requires consistency if this moral concept is valid) nor actually says that women are excluded or in any way treated differently as witnesses. In fact, as I love to emphasize, a more literal translation of the pronouns in the Bible shows that over and over, male wording refers to both men and women who have already been separately mentioned together.
Male language is often the historical default despite inclusive meaning even when gender equality is not explicitly stated, hence why the 2011 NIV has Deuteronomy 19:15 and other passages on witnesses translated in a clearly egalitarian (gender neutral) way. The obligation, right, or allowance would still have to be the same for men and women by logical necessity unless it has something to do with literal anatomy (as with Leviticus 19:27); if something is evil and doable by all, it is evil for all, and vice versa. As for examples of male language explicitly speaking of women, below is a small number of the Torah's moralistic commands that show how male language alone does not exclude women in its meaning, as if an intelligent person (an actual rationalist, unlike Josephus) could not know this from reason alone. Only one is necessary to affirm this, yet there are many more than these three, emphasis mine:
Exodus 21:20-21 (KJV)—"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money."
Leviticus 13:29-30 (KJV)—"If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard; then the priest shall see the plague: and, behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin; and there be in it a yellow thin hair; then the priest shall declare him unclean: it is a dry scall, even a leprosy upon the head or beard."
Deuteronomy 15:12-13 (KJV)—"And if thy brother, an Hebrew man or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:"
Josephus is wrong on many levels in this matter. His sexism, which in this case is against women, is contrary to both reason and Biblical doctrines.
"(253) He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever (and many such causes happen among men), let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her as his wife any more . . ." (Page 120)
Deuteronomy 24:1-4 does not say that divorced spouses can never remarry each other. The specific example in the case law clearly conveys that if a husband and wife divorce, they cannot remarry if the wife has separately married afterward and then her new husband dies or also divorces her. There is no universal prohibition of remarriage to one's former spouse. Also, Deuteronomy never says spouses can divorce based upon any reason, as in a personal preference for their partner to not wear clothing of a certain color, something which is permissible no matter the dislike of others. It says that there must be some moral deficiency on the other spouse's part, or an "indecency" as the NIV puts it. Josephus, whether because of his own asinine assumptions or yielding to the irrationality of then-contemporary religious leaders, or "better" yet to long-standing erroneous traditions, gets more than one pivotal thing wrong here.
Additionally, the ideological bent of Josephus towards aristocracy, his declaration that free men should not marry slaves, and so on exemplify his utter irrationalistic misconceptions of not only Biblical philosophy, but also reason itself. Some of these concepts are so unrelated or contrary to the concepts actually put forth in Mosaic Law that it takes extreme levels of stupidity to remotely consider them as Biblical. His moral system often reflects the type of social constructs and conceptual misrepresentations Jesus opposed in Pharisaical philosophy (including in Matthew 15:1-20), which is riddled with contradictions and assumptions. No historical or present Jew believes in Jewish myths about the Torah's ethical prescriptions or any other sort of error because they are a Jew and one Jews folly does not mean another shares in it, but from rabbinic literature to Josephus to the New Testament itself, a plethora of writings record examples of sheer legalism on the part of many Jewish individuals.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful, and it is true whether or not you know or like it.
The Works of Josephus: New Updated Edition (Complete and Unabridged in One Volume). Josephus, Flavius. Ed. Whiston, William. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, LLC, 1987. Print.
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