The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

who suggests that “he should betake himself to the court of justice not as a commoner, but
rather under sufficient protection indeed”. This is then followed by a report concerning these
security measures, which corresponds to the War. The Antiquities thus attributes the security
measures to the advice of Antipater, admittedly not only these [measures] about which the
War had also related, but also Herod’s appearance “not as a commoner”. We do not learn what
is meant by this until section 173: Herod appears attired in purple with his head adorned, i.e. he
appears with regal pageantry (cf. 489). Now, since section 173 belongs to an insertion, whose
essence and extent has already been quite correctly identified by Destinon (page 105), it so
follows that it was precisely this insertion that precipitated the reformulation of the text in
section 169 as well. Therefore Josephus has reformulated the War for the Antiquities in such a
way that he retained the narrative about the security measures, yet he extended them with the
supplement, taken from the insertion, that Herod had appeared “not as a commoner.” Since
this idea, which was not to be transformed into fact until [Herod’s appearance] before the
court, could not already be inserted into a factual report about the preparations, [Josephus]
therefore had this [idea] as well as the first announcement about the security measure appear
as Antipater’s advice, which also had its model in the War – however, the words τῶν
πραγμάτων διδόντων παρρησίαν from the War were no longer of any use now and were
deleted. The idea [expressed] in the War[, namely] “in order that it would not have the
semblance that he intended to remove Hyrcanus [from his] rulership”, is equally incompatible
with the fact of the regal appearance, therefore it was toned down for the Antiquities to a dull
“in order that he not appear to Hyrcanus as a subject of terror.” One thus sees, step by step,
how the War was the direct model for the Antiquities, which brought a new bias into the view of
the War.
Now, this material could not be expanded upon, as in the preceding cases, by means of
fragments from Strabo who reported nothing about these [matters]; for this Josephus
depended on [176] Jewish sources, which varied extensively in value. Herod’s trial before the
Sanhedrin (171 - 176) may not be submitted as evidence that the view of the Antiquities is the
correct one in comparison to that of the War; because the report of this [trial] has indeed
nothing at all to do with Herod, rather it is the transference of Mishnah tractate Sanhedrin 19a,
which deals with king Jannai and his servant, over to Hyrcanus and Herod (cf. Leszynsky, Die
Sadduzäer, 1912, page 86 f.). Now, although this expansion became an organic element of the
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