The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

the form considered up to now (i.e. without 602 - 608) as War I. The theme of the building of
Jerusalem’s walls, having now become unserviceable to this War, had been transferred over to
Tarichea in such a way that Josephus could give this promise to build the walls indeed only as a
deception (ἠπατημένων 610; ἀπάτῃ δευτέρᾳ 611) because he had claimed here that in reality he
intended to restore the money to Agrippa and because, on the other hand, his rapport with
Tarichea was to be portrayed negatively. But now the theme of building the walls of Tarichea
also has been inserted subsequently into the Life, which had reported the intention to build the
walls of Jerusalem in its old text. This procedure has thus admittedly led to a factually totally
inappropriate and absolutely unhistorical duplication, and this all the more so for Josephus
very consciously and logically abstains from the contention that there was any deception in
the Life; because ἠπατημένων and ἀπάτῃ are mentioned in the corresponding context of the
War — as is appropriate to its bias (page 72) — [but] the corresponding passage in the text of
the Life reads: πιστεύσαντες (144); in contrast, there is not a word about ruse or deceit to be
found.
It follows from section 140 that when Josephus composed this part of the Life he did in
fact intend to have it taken as true that he wished to fortify Tarichea and the other towns with
the money that belonged to Agrippa. According to this [section] his opponents wished to kill
him for having been found guilty of treason “in the event that he should admit that he had put
aside the money for the king” — but he does not make this [75] admission; on the contrary he
sets forth his intention that he meant to use the money for building the walls. Whoever reads
the narrative [in] 137 - 144 impartially will never be able to come to the idea that the money
was set aside for any purpose other than to be used for building the walls. In fact, Josephus did
intend it to be understood thus, because in the section of the War (605) that corresponds to our
passage, Josephus says quite sharply that it was not his intention to restore the money to
Agrippa in whom he sees the common enemy of the Jewish cause. Here then, in fact, a
completely different wind is blowing towards us: there is no longer any trace of the
consideration for Agrippa and the effort to attribute his own risks to this consideration, i.e. of
the fundamental idea of War I; on the contrary, Josephus moves far away from Agrippa.
However this movement is very sharply elaborated in War II, whereas in the Life it is more a
tacit premise of the narrative.
But it is not only the attitude towards Agrippa that had shifted in the two parallel
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