The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

nothing. The best proof of this, besides many others, is that a part of this report exists in the
Antiquities. Evidently Josephus got hold of this account and then inserted it piece by piece
wherever it seemed factually appropriate to him. Now we can fortunately determine precisely
the time when Josephus recorded the story of the Babylonian Jews. From Antiquities 17.28 it
follows that Agrippa II must have died, since this passage speaks about the transfer of his rule
to the Romans as if it were a bygone fact: παρ’ ὧν (sc. Agrippa I and II) Ῥωμαῖοι δεξάμενοι τὴν
ἀρχὴν. 20 Now we already know that the entire part Life 32 - 62 was also composed after the
death of Agrippa II; for it (40) presupposes [the existence of] Justus’ work which did not appear
until after the death of Agrippa II. But it is still very gratifying when the same evidence can be
provided once again as well for 46 - 62 in particular.
But now if, as has just been proven, the entire report was written down after 100, the
year of Agrippa’s death, then it follows with irrefutable logicality that we are to recognize Ant.
17.23 - 31 as an addition, since the Antiquities was already completed by 93/94. The fact of an
insertion from a later time into the old text of the Antiquities is admittedly no longer surprising
to us since we already had to recognize 20.259 - 266 as an addition once again from the time
following Agrippa’s death. Nonetheless it is significant that we see Josephus at work in a
second passage after the year 93/94 as well. Nobody who casts a glance at the section Ant. 17.23
- 32 and its surrounding text will doubt that we are facing a subsequent insertion here; because
up to section 22 Josephus is dealing with the situation at Herod’s court, [only] to resume this
presentation again after section 31. Our report is sandwiched in between; meaning and order
return to Josephus’ text by removing it.
For the Life as well, implications arise that are of no slight significance. As a start — to
return to [46] the initial point of this investigation — it has now been proven concerning also
the part dealing with Philip and the Babylonian Jews in Gamala (46 - 62) that it has nothing to
do with the presentation of Josephus’ experiences in the Life: Josephus never comes into
contact with the situation described here; it belongs within an entirely different context. For
this reason 46 - 62 has the same factual status as groups 32 - 42 and 43 - 45 discussed above, and
the same is also proven from the contents of the overall passage 32 - 62 21 as was from [an
20 Luther, Josephus and Justus von Tiberias, page 57.
21 The exact upper boundary [of the passage] is yielded from the preceding explanation in
such a way that [the text] is to be cut before τοὺς ἐν Τιβεριάδι (31). The end must lie between
43