The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

superfluous after Josephus had to delete it from the War for the reasons described on page 67.
But the theme of building the walls — once it existed in the source — continued to have an
effect and could fortunately be exploited even now: instead of designating the money for
building the walls of Jerusalem it was now ostensibly to be claimed for Tarichea and the other
towns. Admittedly Josephus could not set this forth as the true purpose, since he did after all
intend to restore the money to Agrippa, but [he could] well [set it forth] as a guileful means to
deal with the opponents that were threatening him. Of course these are then the ones who
have been deceived and Josephus underscores this particularly forcefully (610) so that the
impression may not arise that he had any intention other than to restore the stolen goods to
their owner. Thus our findings consolidate into a well-rounded picture: According to the
administrative report it was Josephus’ intention to give the plunder back to Ptolemy; he
therefore withholds the money under the pretext that he intends to use it for building the
walls of Jerusalem. The War turns the legitimate plunder into a violent robbing of Agrippa that
Josephus criticizes most vehemently; the proceeds from it could thus not be designated for
building the walls of Jerusalem even in pretence. But then, when Josephus is hard pressed by
the Taricheans, he extricates himself by now promising the Taricheans etc. in pretence to
build the walls, [this being] a transference of the theme of building the walls that had become
superfluous. Thus the transformation of the narrative in the War is due only to the author’s
unrestricted powers of imagination. One sees how strong the dependency on the
administrative report is despite this, not only by the retention of the theme of building the
walls even though it was used otherwise, but also by [the fact] that Josephus even now (596)
did not send the money directly back to Agrippa, but only had the intention of doing so; the
money was not to be dispensed with for the subsequent narrative which follows the
administrative report.
Thus Josephus actually used his old administrative report as a model when he
composed the War, but in [certain] details he expanded it diversely [mannigfach] in such a way
that it was not new sources but rather his freely working powers of imagination [73] that
provided him with the material for his expansions that were inspired in addition by the
objective of moving Josephus’ meritorious efforts on Agrippa’s behalf into the spotlight.
Consequently a certain discrepancy did arise now between the two reports and in order to
smooth this over the old administrative report was expanded by the passages Life 130 - 131 and
66