Anticipating the theological controversialists of later times, Josephus sets special store on the Bible book that is most miraculous, because miracle and exact prognostication of the future are for his audience the clearest testimony of God. Hence the predictions of Daniel are the best refutation of the Epicureans, who cast Providence out of life, and do not believe that God has care of human affairs, but say that things move of their own accord, without a ruler and guide. [Footnote 1: Ant. X. x.] [Footnote 2: Ant. X. xi. 7.] When he comes to the history of the Restoration from Babylon, Josephus follows what is now known as the apocryphal Book of Esdras, in preference to the Biblical Ezra and Nehemiah, probably because a Hellenistic guide whom he had before him did likewise. It is clear that he based his paraphrase on the Greek text. His chronicle therefore differs considerably from that given in our Scripture, and on one point he differs from his guide. For while Esdras represents Artaxerxes as the king under whom the Temple was rebuilt, Josephus, relying on a fuller knowledge of Persian history, derived probably from Nicholas of Damascus, substitutes Cambyses.[1] Our Greek version of Esdras I is unfortunately not complete, but the book, differing from that included in the Bible, must have originally comprised an account of Nehemiah. According to Josephus, Ezra dies before Nehemiah[2] arrives in Judea, whereas in the canonical books they appear for a time together. He states also that Nehemiah built houses for the poor in Jerusalem out of his own means, an incident which has not the authority of the Bible, but which may well have reposed on an ancient tradition. The account of the marriage of Sanballat with the daughter of Manasseh the high Priest, which is touched on in our Book of Nehemiah, is described more fully by Josephus,[3] who based this account on some uncanonical source. And following the Rabbis, who shortened the Persian epoch in order to eke out the Jewish history over the whole period of the Persian kingdom till the conquest of Alexander, he makes the marriage synchronize with the reign of Philip of Macedon. Josephus was anxious to avoid a vacuum, and by a little vague chronology and the aid of the fragmentary records of Ezra and Nehemiah and a priestly chronicle, the few Jewish incidents known in that tranquil, unruffled epoch are spread over three centuries. [Footnote 1: Ant. XI. ii.] [Footnote 2: Ant. XI. v.] [Footnote 3: Ant. XI. vii. 2.]