The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

Surprising as this result will appear at first glance, in principle it provides at the same
time the answer to a question that can already be posed on the basis of superficial
consideration and therefore has already been expressed by another party. The Autobiography is
in truth no autobiography, as Schürer and many others 25 explain to us, rather it deals almost
exclusively with the preparatory activity of Josephus as commander of Galilee before the
collision with the Romans. “The short biographical notes at the beginning and end
of the writing are related to this main body of the contents only as
introduction and conclusion.” But now if, as we were able to demonstrate, these
biographical [notes] were actually only secondary elements worked into a foreign context,
then what remains as the old part of the writing is precisely what Schürer and others took as
the actual nucleus: Josephus’ report about his activity as governor of Galilee until the hostile
collision with the Romans.
Now we are also finally prepared to return to the problem from which our investigation
departed at the beginning of chapter 2: How is it that Josephus does not present in the
Autobiography a portion of the things reported in the War, rather he refers to the report in the
War for [these details], while he recounts others as if there had never existed a [54] parallel
writing? — All the explanations that we attempted to provide above had to fail; now after it
has been recognized that the Autobiography is compiled from the old report about Josephus’
actions in Galilee and the biographical elements that were added later, a new solution is
unavoidable: How, then, are the two parts, that are stylistically oriented in such a different
manner, related to the two groups that have just been identified? The formulation of the
questions leads directly to our objective: Josephus’ report about his preparatory
activity as governor is entirely without a single reference, even though it is
also right here that the parallel [passages] are to be found (cf. page 7), whereas
the bordering sections, that we have recognized as additions, are those that
contain the references. But from here it follows: if Josephus, did not refer factually to the
War wherever he could have in his report about his actions in Galilee, then there is only one
single explanation for this author who so loved to quote from himself: the parallel
25 Felten I.612: The Autobiography ... apart from some biographical comments at the beginning
and the end, … includes only a defence of Josephus’ conduct in Galilee before the beginning of
the actual war with the Romans.
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