The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

convictions to the fore with full insistence (cf. page 176, 198); because it is these passages that
demonstrate more than ever how actively the new outlook continued to affect Josephus. But
the author was not satisfied with this either; the manuscript of the War, which lay right before
him on his writing table, was likewise supplemented by these new ideas; it is most notably the
story of Herod that now undergoes the influence of the Antiquities in several passages (209;
211/12; 214/5). Josephus, who was planning a new reformulated edition of the War at that time
(Ant. 20.267), therefore did the same here as in the segment War 2.602 - 208, which concerned
him personally: with this he began to incorporate his new outlook into his older writing as
well. So intensely did Josephus experience his new political conviction, [namely] that of the
Jews with their national aspirations.
[220] Under all these circumstances, Josephus was surely quite glad upon completion of his
14 th book when he could lay hold of a source that did not exhibit the [same] trend [that was]
sympathetic to Herod, as the one that had been adopted in the War from Nicolaus. A quick
glance showed long ago that the changeover from book 14 to book 15 is connected to a change
in sources; because right at the beginning of the 15 th book Josephus takes hold of a source as
his own underlying basis, which has nothing to do with his War or with Nicolaus, and which
features a much more objective standpoint in comparison to the one-sidedly favourable
illumination of Herod by Nicolaus. Within the frame of our line of argument it is at any rate
not insignificant that this change in sources coincides exactly with a changeover from one
book to the next [Buchwechsel]; because here also it is apparent that no one other than
Josephus himself effected the change. Herod’s biography, upon which Josephus based book 15
ff. while only occasionally including additions from the War, has not been preserved in its
original [form] and therefore a comparison, like that made in book 14 in order to uncover
Josephus’ method of working, cannot be readily extended to these parts. That the subjective
element and Josephus’ personal activity are not to be underestimated here either is shown, for
one, by the remodeling of the War in this biography of Herod, by the insertion of Jewish
legends, which Josephus wove into the segments extracted from the biography of Herod just as
[he did] into the parts extracted from the War, and finally, by the very personal comments
about himself and his attitude to the Herodians as stated, for example, in 16.183 ff. Therefore
in-depth investigation will probably be able to reveal the personal colouring of many factual
reports by Josephus in books 15 and 16 as well, even if the source is not available. At any rate,
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