The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

surroundings of the War and inserts it into a passage where there could be mention made of
the intention to build walls for Tiberias; so in the Life this segment necessarily moves to
section 156. Thus the complaint of the Tiberians, which was raised there, is nothing other than
the modification of the theme of building the walls from War 2.638, which had become
necessary for the Life. Therefore this is the source, and for this reason also section 156 must be
recognized as an added segment that was introduced into the context while the administrative
report was being formulated into the Life.
In fact, this paragraph [can] be easily removed from its surrounding [text], which gains
clarity only by its extraction. Instead of many words I [shall] write down the original context:
οἱ δὲ τὴν τῶν Τιβεριέων πόλιν κατοικοῦντες γράφουσιν πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα παρακαλοῦντες
πέμψαι δύναμιν τὴν φυλάξουσαν αὐτῶν τήν χώραν· θέλειν γὰρ αὐτῷ προστίθεσθαι. // μετὰ δὲ
τρίτην ἡμέραν // συνέβη τινὰς Ῥωμαίων ἱππεῖς οὐ πόρρωθεν τῆς πόλεως ὁδοιποροῦντας
ὀφθῆναι, οἳ δόξαν παρέσχον τὴν παρὰ τοῦ βασιλέως δύναμιν ἥκειν. A glance at War 2.632 ff.,
where a paraphrase of the idea just written [above] is present, shows that this context truly
did exist. When Josephus then formulated the Life, he supplemented the text with two
sentences in which he spoke about the walls of Tiberias in the sense identified above. But if the
Tiberians were making complaints to him, then Josephus must be in Tiberias (156). Since this,
however, did not fit into the continuation of the narrative, Josephus had to be brought again
from Tiberias to Tarichea in section 157. Both passages, which essentially complement each
other, are thus the indispensable result of the new view[point] of the theme of building the
walls, and fall [into place] with it [chronologically]. In reality, the Life had [94] already
pictured Josephus in Tarichea since section 127, so that the data from Life 159 connect
smoothly to this, whereas the insertion of 156 and of [the segment] in 157 now disrupt this
context as well. The additional consequence of this insertion is that the unsuspecting reader is
due to calculate the date “after the third day” from Josephus’ presence in Tiberias whereas it
refers factually to the dispatch of the written [message] to Agrippa.
Thus the same result as in sections 1 and 2 has emerged for us by the stratification
[Zergliederung] of this story as well: Josephus’ oldest report about the relevant events
exists within the nucleus of the Life, the old administrative report; this was
reworked with a definite bias by Josephus for his War, and finally Josephus
formulated the Life to [the text] that we [ currently] have.
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