Dear Kees Verduin,
Josephus' view (Antiquities 1.64) is also found in rabbinic tradition
(Midrash Genesis Rabbah 23.3, where we find that Tubal-cain, the first who
knew how to sharpen iron and copper, furnished the instruments used in war
and combats. Philo (De Posteritate Caini 34.116-17), like Josephus, speaks
of Tubal-Cain's concern with bodily pleasures and the art of war. The
connection of the invention of the forging of metal with the art of war is
similarly made in Ovid's account of the Iron Age (Metamorphoses 1.142-43).
The statement that Tubal-Cain distinguished himself in the art of war,
procuring thereby the means of satisfying the pleasures of the body, is
reminiscent of Lucretius' attack on war (5.1000-1). If you will look at
Antiquities 1.70-71, in connection with Adam's prediction that the universe
would be exterminated by alternately a fire and water, mankind made two
pillars to inscribe their findings. There is a similar account in the
Chronicles of Jerahmeel 24.7 and parallel passages cited by Moses Gaster (in
one of his books: I do not have the title: perhaps it is the Book of
Asatir), where TubalCain is described as the one who made the pillars or
tablets. Pseudo-Philo,Biblical Antiquities 2.9 says that he showed man
arts in lead and tin and iron and copper and silver and gold and that then
the inhabitants of the earth began to make sculpted objects and to worship
them. On this see Howard Jacobson's commentary on Pseudo-Philo, vol.1, pp.
303-5. You might also want to consult Umberto Cassuto's commentary on
Genesis, Part 1, and Ephraim Speiser's commentary on Genesis in the Anchor
Bible series. Best wishes.
Louis Feldman