The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

question. Ant. 457 reads ἐπὶ τὸν Πάππον correctly, where the parallel passage offers the
corrupted ἐπὶ τὸ στρατόπεδον (War 334), directly following this the War reads περὶ τὴν
παλουμένην Κανᾶ κώμην, the correct name results from Ant. 457: περὶ κώμην Ἰσάνας
καλουμένην. In both cases there are obvious scribal corruptions in the War. 78
As deliberate reworkings by Josephus in the Antiquities we have already identified Ant.
14.277 compared with War 223 (cf. footnote, page 188), section 452 compared with War 329 (cf.
page 206 ff.). I detect the same process in Ant. 275 compared with War 221. The latter [text]
relates that Cassius “has sold” the residents “of Gophna and Ammaus, and of two others among
the number of smaller places” because the imposed war tax could not be paid. By contrast, the
Antiquities says of the towns ἦσαν αἱ δυvατώταται Γόφνα τε καὶ Ἀμμαοῦς, πρὸς ταύταις δὲ
Λύδδα καὶ Θάμνα. This passage appears as one of the main proofs for the theory of the
common source in Destinon (page 14 f.), and yet one grasps the contrivance [involved] quite
clearly here; for there is no doubt that Lydda exceeded the other localities named by Josephus
in importance; after all, he himself designates Lydda as κώμη πόλεως τὸ μέγεθος οὐκ
ἀποδέουσα (Ant. 20.130), and that this place definitely exceeded Gophna and probably also
Ammaus in importance and size is beyond doubt to anyone who examines the evidence in
Schürer, vol. 2, page 230, note 32 ff. Gophna, Ammaus, Lydda, and Thamna are equally the
capitals of four toparchies and also for that reason it is totally impossible that the common
source of the War [217] and the Antiquities, which is presumed, would have named two of these
capitals – and, for all that, certainly the lesser important ones – and remained silent about the
others. In truth, Cassius sold Gophna and Ammaus and another two places of lesser
importance, whose names were not mentioned precisely for that reason. In the Antiquities it
seemed inappropriate to Josephus that two names were not mentioned while two others were
given and therefore he added the two missing [names] from the list of toparchies; because War
3.55 afforded him precisely the material that was necessary for the addition. Here Gophna is
followed by Acrabeta Θάμνα πρὸς ταύταις καὶ Λύδδα, Ἀμμαοῦς. Here we have the origin
of the information; the group of words in boldface is transferred into Ant. 275 in the exact
equivalent formulation. Therefore the researcher may abide exclusively by the material of the
78 This passage was damaged in the earliest codex [Urkodex] of the War. There are 28 letters
between the two errors, and after 54 more letters there is another corruption; a proper
amendment was probably made in between. Josephus’ στίχος included approximately 26
190