The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

circumstances, he withholds the plunder that was taken from the woman fleeing to Roman
territory, then he is maligned as being in cahoots with the Romans. [This is] different [in] the
War: Ptolemy had not crossed over to Roman territory, therefore Josephus here (598) was to be
designated simply as “traitor”; the addition “to the Romans” is omitted.
The view of the incident as a whole ultimately corresponds to all these facts. In the Life
the Dabarittans were identified as “audacious”; after all, Ptolemy’s wife was guarded by
horsemen who had to be overpowered (126) and because of that Josephus justifies why he
could not leave the plunder to the Dabarittans by exhaustively citing Jewish commandments
(128) as well. In the War, on the other hand, the Dabarittans are not labelled by any additional
distinguishing adjectives und it is understood in and of itself without any justification that
Josephus wants to have nothing to do with the robbery (596).
When the plunder was brought to Josephus, he explains that the walls of Jerusalem
were to be built from the proceeds according to Life 128; he wished to set aside the plunder for
this purpose. Yet according to the full context of the Life Josephus needs a pretext in order to
withhold this plunder. But the Dabarittans became angry because they had not received a
share of it and in revenge they started the rumour that Josephus intended to betray the land to
the Romans. This rumour gains general credence, [people] gather together in the racetrack of
Tarichea and demand the punishment of Josephus for high treason. But just as in [point] 1
above, where the inherently clear view of the Life is disrupted by a strange addition which was
entered from the War, so also the same obtains here; for the Dabarittans, who according to 129
[60] spread the rumour that Josephus meant to betray the land to the Romans [with the
intention] of maligning him, with [this] same intention declare in 130 that Josephus wanted to
return the money to its owner, i.e. Agrippa (cf. footnote, page 58). Now, once again it is
precisely sections 130 - 131 that assume, in contradiction to the preceding presentation of the
Life, that Agrippa was affected by the robbery, while according to 128 it is Ptolemy. With
respect to this last point, we have already established in 1[above] that there is an influence
from the view of the War. In principle, therefore, we shall already expect the other details
contradicting the rest of the Life to be influenced [by the War] as well. The facts truly satisfy
this [expectation].
The War contains no information about the ruse [concerning] the walls of Jerusalem;
instead Josephus plays an open hand here in conformity to the overall view: he reprimands the
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