The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

limelight. Therefore the oldest narrative is present in the Life stripped of
additions, i.e. in 126 - 129 and 132 ff.; this report was reinterpreted in
deference to Agrippa [and formed] into the version of War 2.595 ff. and finally
the Life was expanded through the additions 130 - 131 [63] which were to bring
about an equalization with the view of the War.
Our finding from chapter 2.3 is entirely confirmed by this realization. We had
established there that an older administrative report of Josephus, which was already composed
before the War, was worked into the Life, and now we have verified in a single instance that of
the two parallel versions of the War and the Life, that of the Life is in fact the original one.
Since this same finding will repeatedly impose itself on us, we [shall] already
register it here as a firm result of our research, and in order to express this
outwardly as well I shall use, in the future course of [this] research, the
expression ‘administrative report’ as a confirmed item, and I understand by
this the foundation of the Life that has been stripped of later additions and
that was composed before the War.
4. Our findings encounter a very important and gratifying complement in immediate
connection with these discussed texts, if we turn our attention to the actions of the
Taricheans. According to the War, the crowd who gathered at the racetrack of Tarichea
demands the traitor’s stoning or burning, as the case may be. Josephus’ friends — thus the
report continues in essence — had fled, frightened by the crowd’s attack; he himself was still
sleeping, and when the house was already set on fire he quickly arose and stepped before the
assailing crowd without regard to his personal isolation and without fear, assuming the
demeanour of one who was humbling himself in order to win over the crowd in this way (600
ff.). According to this, the building inhabited by Josephus must have been located in the most
immediate vicinity of the racetrack; because nowhere is it indicated, even with one word, that
the crowd or a part thereof betook themselves from the racetrack to Josephus’ house; rather,
as soon as Josephus leaves his house he stands directly in front of the crowd gathered at the
racetrack. — Matters lie downright opposite to this in the Life; for here it is unquestionably
understood that the house inhabited by Josephus can be reached only by a more or less distant
route from the racetrack. [64] Indeed, from sections 132 and 136 one can infer only that there
is a certain distance from the racetrack to the house — but both passages at best still agree
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