A Note on Josephus, Antiquities 15:136

In my recent monograph entitled Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come, I sought particularly to examine the question whether Judaism anticipated a New Torah in its ideal future, however conceived. One passage in Josephus, Antiquities, 15:136 has been suggested as relevant to this purpose because it contains the idea that “the Law was given through angels, an idea which in Acts 7:53, Gal. 3:19, Heb.2:2 is associated with the notion that it was to change?” (See Morton Smith, J. B. L., Vol. LXXII, September 1953, pp. 192) Strack-Billerbeck cite the passage in their comment on Gal. 3:19 and take it to refer to the mediation of angels, as do also Grundmann in the Theologisches Wörterbuch (Ed. Kittel), I, p. 74, and Walter Bauer in his Wörterbuch, 1952, col. 13. It is the first aim of this note to follow up a suggestion made to me by Dr. Ralph Marcus that the passage may not refer to angels but to prophets.