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In 1 Esdras, Zerubbabel wins the contest at Darius's court by arguing that truth is stronger than wine, the king, and women. Josephus follows 1 Esdras rather than Ezra for this period, retelling the contest and the speech about truth.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Esdras 4:35
Esdras A, 3 Esdras
Deuterocanon
33 Then the king and the nobles looked at one another. So he began to speak concerning truth. 34 “O sirs, aren’t women strong? The earth is great. The sky is high. The sun is swift in its course, for it circles around the sky, and returns on its course again in one day. 35 Isn’t he who makes these things great? Therefore the truth is great, and stronger than all things. 36 All the earth calls upon truth, and the sky blesses truth. All works shake and tremble, but with truth there is no unrighteous thing. 37 Wine is unrighteous. The king is unrighteous. Women are unrighteous. All the children of men are unrighteous, and all their works are unrighteous. There is no truth in them. They shall also perish in their unrighteousness. 38 But truth remains, and is strong forever. Truth lives and conquers forevermore. 39 With truth there is no partiality toward persons or rewards, but truth does the things that are just, instead of any unrighteous or wicked things. All men approve truth’s works. 40 There is no unrighteousness in truth’s judgment. Truth is the strength, the kingdom, the power, and the majesty of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth!” 41 With that, he stopped speaking. Then all the people shouted and said, “Great is truth, and strong above all things!”
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 11.3.6
Classical
6 And when the princes and rulers looked one upon another, he began to speak about truth: and he said: “I have already demonstrated how powerful women are. But both these women themselves, and the King himself are weaker than truth. For although the earth is large, and the heaven high, and the course of the sun swift, yet all these are moved according to the will of God, who is true and righteous. For which cause we also ought to esteem truth to be the strongest of all things; and that what is unrighteous is of no force against it. Moreover all things else that have any strength are mortal, and short lived, but truth is a thing that is immortal, and eternal. It does not indeed afford us such a beauty as will wither away by time, nor such riches as may be taken away by fortune; but righteous rules and laws. It distinguishes them from injustice, and puts what is unrighteous to rebuke.”
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Notes and References
“... Josephus made use of 1 Esdras in his Antiquities (10.70-83; 11.1-157), including the narrative of the three bodyguards (Ant. 11.33-68). Whether Josephus can be taken as a trustworthy witness to the text of 1 Esdras has occasioned some debate (§ V above). ...”
Patmore, Hector M.
"1 Esdras" in Aitken, James K. (ed.) 1 Esdras, in The T&T Clark Companion to the Septuagint
(p. 191) Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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