The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

principle. But what does Josephus make out of this? First he follows Strabo and has Aristobulus
revolt behind Pompey’s back, and then following the War he sends him to Dium! But what
more was to happen here now? The rift that occurred there according to the War had already
been recounted [in the version] based on Strabo! So Dium is mentioned without rhyme or
reason in the Antiquities; Josephus was not successful in unifying the two sources in this
passage either.
[157] The researcher has the following at his disposal as independent sources: 1. War 1.131 -
132; 2. Theophanes available as reflected in Diodorus 40.2 and – conveyed by Strabo – in the
additions Ant. 38 - 43 and 46 - 47, not including Josephus’ reinterpretations addressed above, 3.
the quotation from Strabo in Ant. 35 - 36. Theophanes thereby distinguishes himself from
Nicolaus, who was used in the War, by greater thoroughness and by an unbiased judgment in
Jewish matters; on the other hand he is strongly influenced by the sentiments in Pompey’s
headquarters (cf. above).
When we compare the presentation of modern works of history to these findings then
their views are in general to be judged more favourably here than in the preceding
paragraphs; since, as we saw, they in fact draw primarily upon the Antiquities, which reworks
the valuable products of Theophanes - Strabo precisely here, thus it follows as an inevitable
consequence that the modern historian unknowingly used the best available source as a basis
here. But everything that Josephus read into the sources on his own because of his bias must
be removed here as well. Thus Ewald (page 521) and Bertholet (page 25) should not have
recounted that the 200 Jewish noblemen had acted at Antipater’s instigation; this assertion was
contrived by Josephus; and when Wellhausen (page 293) thinks that Pompey did not appear to
have any further concern for the legation of the neutral party, then this assertion cannot be
proven since we hear about this legation only through an additional source [Nebenquelle] that
is no longer quoted later on. Indeed, within the report about the negotiations itself in section
43 Josephus swings over to his reinterpretations derived from the War. On the other hand,
Aristobulus’ revolt behind Pompey’s back has not been considered sufficiently: in this
[incident] one has not referred to the excellent source from Ant. 47, which has just been poorly
exploited by Josephus. Instead of this the opinion was held, following Nicolas (War 132) who is
quite biased here, that the “arrogant” Aristobulus deserted Pompey without any reason, (in
Quaestiones Strabonianae (Leipziger Studien 11.229 ff.).
138