The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

Prologue
The following work has been motivated by evidence that Josephus’ Autobiography,
which was completed after the year 100 CE (chapter I), contains a cursory adaptation of an
administrative report, which he as governor of Galilee recorded around late 66 or early 67 CE
before the outbreak of the Jewish-Roman War. This evidence becomes apparent firstly in an
examination of the Autobiography’s structure, in which we encounter all the passages leading
up to later times as perplexing additions (chapter II); secondly in a comparison of the
Autobiography with the War, completed between 75 and 79, which shows us that the former was
the source for the latter and is therefore the older text (chapter III); and lastly in a close
scrutiny of the core segments of the Autobiography which allows us to recognize with
considerable surprise that Josephus knew nothing whatsoever about the great war against
Rome when he was setting these passages down in writing (chapter IV). This justificatory
writing, composed before the siege of Jotapata had begun, must have subsequently served as
the basis for Josephus’ description of his life and for his treatment of the outbreak of war,
because soon thereafter Josephus fell into the hands of the Romans and their ally Agrippa, in
whose honour he undertook a systematic falsification of history for his presentation of the
War, as will be demonstrated in detail below (chapter III).
The same relationship that exists between the administrative report and the War for
the story of Josephus himself also exists between the historical introduction to the War and the
parallel reports of the Antiquities (chapter V). In fact an examination of, for example, the
observations compiled in chapter III sections 1 and 2 on the one hand, and those compiled in
chapter V sections 8 and 9 on the other hand, quickly reveals that Josephus altered the events
of the past in view of his changed political opinions and his aspirations as an author for the
Antiquities, in the same manner as he had done with his own life story for the War. Thus the
customary approach of source criticism, which up to now has made Josephus out to be a stupid
copyist of the sources lying directly before him, is superseded by a recognition of his own work
and of the gradual development of the unique style of this author (chapter VII); and conversely
it becomes possible to construct a biography of Josephus from the differing perception of the
same event as presented in the various writings and for the various periods. Whereas research
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