The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

these persons, i.e. older than his capture in Jotapata. From all sides we are led to
this same point in time: the administrative report, the nucleus of the Life, dates
from the time when the Roman-Jewish W ar itself was beginning; as a result, a
document of entirely unique significance has been gained, which is to yield the
foundation of all research on the genesis of the war.
We would love to know something about the external form of Josephus’ report; but
since we only have it in a reworked version as the Life, so we must be content [with this].
Surely the writing was to have a political effect, and therefore one must think of an epistle, be
it in the form of a letter or a ὑπόμνημα. Both of these genres are so similar 43 that a distinction
would be possible only if we had acquired the writing entirely in its original form; but the
beginning and ending are missing – which is crucial. It is also not impossible that the [125]
writing did not progress beyond the creation of the notes; after all, the events followed upon
one another so quickly that it is at any rate possible to presume that the work was not
completed.
It is already stated therewith that we may on no account enter upon a path that
appears to help us perhaps for [just] an instant. In two passages Josephus states that in his War
he is providing nothing other than the Greek translation of his presentation of the Jewish War
(1.3 and 6), which was written in Aramaic. Initially it appears that a magnificent external
confirmation of our entire line of reasoning has been provided with this. We have, after all,
discovered a writing that existed before the War, which covers the same events as the War, and
here Josephus tells us something in his own words, which we first had to determine with
arduous work. And if our administrative report exists in the Greek language, then one may
wish to see in this the first translation of the Aramaic original. But such thought processes and
associations cannot be maintained [in the face of] more serious scrutiny. At the beginning of
the War (1.3) Josephus explains that, for his Roman audience he is translating into the Greek
43 I do not know if it has already been noted that Caesar’s commentarii de bello Gallico are based
on the reports that Caesar sent to Rome at the end of every year. We have such an epistle of
Cicero [in] Fam. 15.4 where he reports about his administration with the purpose of securing a
supplicatio for himself. Now, books 2, 4 and 7 of Caesar[’s work] conclude with the formula ob
easque res ex litteris Caesaris dierum quindecim supplicatio decreta est, so the letters mentioned by
Caesar have incorporated precisely that which now exists in the individual commentarii and
which has its definitive parallel in Cicero’s letter; both the litterae and the commentarii are
administrative reports.
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