The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

At any rate, with Josephus we have the advantage that we have still received two
parallel versions externally as well; on the other hand, as a thinker and a human being he is on
an inferior level and was not able to work more on a grander scale. Precisely this is the
advantage with Polybius. With him we may lay each word upon the scale and in this way he
makes up for the disadvantage that we have acquired only one version directly from him.
Considered externally, the analysis of Josephus is easier, internally [the easier] is that of
Polybius. The former springs more [easily] to the eye, the latter takes root all the more deeply
the more one contemplates this profound and noble man. Therefore the analysis of Josephus
did not move me personally in the [same] way as [did] that of Polybius; its value lies mainly in
the verification of the methodological correctness of my new mode of examination
[Betrachtungsart]: I do not [come to] understand texts systematically, but rather [by departing
from] the [hi]story of the author; or conversely: texts must supply material to us in order to
construct the inner biography of the writer.
Chapter VIII. The course of Josephus’ career
Whoever examines the available literature about Josephus in works of reference and
textbooks will detect that the positive details of the author about himself preserved in his
works are used exclusively as a basis for his biography. Some [details] from this material may
in fact be consulted without objection; so, for example, there is not the slightest reason to call
into any doubt the date of birth that he has disclosed (37/38 CE). But in other points greater
restraint would certainly be called for; we [need] only consider his Autobiography, which is
particularly heavily consulted by nature, but about which we were compelled to prove that
within it exists an old nucleus [that has undergone] considerable reworking, such that directly
false details could be identified in fairly large quantity. Can we have confidence in such a
source, [246] in such an author, where we cannot directly prove the error or the falsification
with our resources? I refer to only one point. We have seen that Josephus, [in response] to the
attacks of Justus of Tiberias, endeavours to prove his suitability as historian by virtue of [the
fact] that he stands entirely within the living tradition of Judaism and therefore has nothing in
common with the chatter of the Greeks who strive to outdo the truth by means of elegant
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