The following pages are merely what they claim to be, a simplification of the story of the Jews as related by Jose phus. In matters pertaining to the Old Testament, I have not deemed it my duty to supplement his narrative from the Bible even where he is most obviously deficient, although I have indicated the fact of such deficiency in notes. With regard to the New Testament, it must be borne in mind that Jose phus makes no mention of Christ or of the Christian religion, except in one short paragraph in the Jewish Antiquities, which is held by some authorities to be an interpolation. Josephus wrote his histories for the Romans, and we need not therefore wonder at his passing over in silence the unpalatable doc trine of the Messiah, or at his modifying and toning down the historical statements of the Mosaic records to recommend them to the prejudices of tiis readers.