The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

have become aware of this problem, would surely have drawn the conclusion that Life 43 - 45
was an interpolation originating from another hand. In truth, this book will show that
Josephus, just like Polybius before him, wavered back and forth in his evaluation and
description of certain people and incidents at quite different points in time. It is this fact that
also endows Life 43 - 45 with its definitive character: the image of John that Josephus
creates here originates from a different time than the rest of the Life.
From part 32 - 62 encompassing the section under investigation only the presentation
concerning Gamala (46 - 62) remains to be examined. If the only observation of any
significance to us at this point in time is that [43] this passage also in no way prepares the
reader for the circumstances which Josephus encounters there, and that it consequently does
not fulfill those premises which would be understandable within the frame of the Life alone,
yet I shall still pass over this immediate task in order to deal with Josephus’ entire
presentation of Gamala connected to this. The news that Josephus actually provides about this
forms a self-contained group of absolutely uniform coherence.
The first passage is Ant. 17.23 - 30: Herod the Great settles Jewish colonists from
Babylon in Batanea under the leadership of a certain Zamaris. Bathyra, the village settled
there, acquires some importance as a base against the Trachonites and as a safe shelter for the
Jews travelling from Babylon to Jerusalem for the sacrificial celebrations. Thus the population
increased and [the village] maintained its special status until Roman times despite sporadic
oppressions by Agrippa I and Agrippa II. The Babylonian Zamaris left several sons behind [him]
among whom Jacimus was distinguished; he in turn died at an advanced age and was followed
by Philip who had a particularly close relationship with King Agrippa and pleased him by
frequent levying of troops. With this preview of the future, Josephus interrupts his
presentation here, but not without first having indicated that in the “process of the narrative”
he would provide more specific details about Bathyra etc., “where it was suitable” (17.28).
This suitable moment is first reached in Life 46 ff.; if this passage is thus directly
connected to Ant. 17.30, as immediately springs to the eye, then it follows once again that
Josephus considered his Life together with the Antiquities as a unified λόγος, which we
suggested in chapter I. Philip the son of Jacimus, as is stated there, almost fell as Agrippa’s
leader in Jerusalem, but his Babylonians saved him and he eventually reached Gamala. From
there he sends a message about his escape to Agrippa and Berenice, namely through the
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