The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

War here as well; 79 however, it is interesting that there is still an after-effect of the
differentiation of the War in the Antiquities as well: the singling out of two places as
δυνατώταται only makes sense if they alone are named. The entire reason for this is lacking,
however, when the entire series is included.
Ant. 83 may be similarly influenced by stylistic motives; the source – War 161 – lists as
fortified places Ἀλεξάνδρειόν τε καὶ Ὑρκανίαν καὶ Μαχαιροῦντα πρὸς τοῖς Ἀραβίοις ὄρεσιν,
whereas this last added phrase probably was to apply exclusively to Μαχαιροῦντα. The author,
whom we encounter in the Antiquities [and] who has greater stylistic skill, senses the
awkwardness of this structure, which he attempts to eliminate by appending geographic
details to the other places as well. With Alexandrium he is easily successful; indeed he had
recounted shortly before (section 49) that Alexandrium is located near Coreae; he has no such
knowledge for Hyrcania so he deletes the place, and the new structure arises in the Antiquities:
Ἀλεξάνδρειόν τε ὠχύρου τὸ πρὸς ταῖς Κορέαις ἔρυμα καὶ Μαχαιροῦντα πρὸς τοῖς Ἀραβίοις
ὄρεσιν.
But over and above these particulars discussed here, [218] the entire problem has
indeed been placed upon a new foundation by means of the second result that we have
acquired: Josephus is no mechanical copying machine, but a human being who has brought
along his wants and his feelings into his narrative of the past. We shall not yet deal with the
ultimate psychological reasons for these processes; in this context we are satisfied with having
produced the evidence that the same shifts, which we have established among the
administrative report - War - Life, are repeated right here between the War and the Antiquities.
And they have been caused by the same process: around the year 95 Josephus faces the events
differently than [he did] before the year 80, he has undergone a development that has brought
him closer to the Jewish national outlook. Granted, Josephus did not manage to forge this new
personal conviction of his into a coherent new structure; far from it. He calmly uses his old
War, which held a totally different view, as a basis, and wherever he had no intention of
letters.
79
The manuals [Handbücher] should be amended accordingly, because [their authors] have
fallen for the seemingly more comprehensive yet truly less valuable text of the Antiquities. The
broader conclusions of Schürer (vol. 2, page 234) also fall apart as a result. We shall never be
able to determine what the two “smaller” places were, since Nicolaus remained silent about
their names.
191