The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

dealing with Josephus’ life has emanated up to now from the isolated superficial assertions
that Josephus makes about himself in the War and in the additions to the Life, we shall avoid
this unreliable and falsified material, and take as basis for the earlier period the newlyacquired
administrative report which was derived directly from the events and in which there
are one-sided biases that are easy to recognize and amend. For the later period we shall adopt
new methodology, working with those conclusions about the shifts in his outlook that can be
drawn from the deliberate falsifications of Josephus. Consequently, in chapter VIII there will
emerge before our eyes a new image of the politician and author, by which we may uniquely
appreciate his work fully.
About ten years ago I acquired the basic insights that are used in this writing; a primary
composition was largely completed when the outbreak of war in 1914 called me to arms. After
the terrible collapse that our fatherland suffered as a result of being outnumbered by its
enemies, I immediately started to re-design the manuscript so that only a few passages contain
the exact wording of the old draft. Just as the memory of my academic work never left me,
even during the hardest times in the field, so also during the composition of this new writing,
which was possible after a long interruption only by supreme exertion, I was pervaded by the
proud and at the same time poignant memory of all the devotion and sense of duty that I was
privileged to witness among my comrades every day, in fact every hour!
Gießen, Pentecost 1920
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