The Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus: A Biographical Investigation

they sent off the legation”; yet in the transmitted text a new statement is attached to “they
were afraid” so that this moves to an incorrect position. These minor stylistic oversights,
which are a result of the insertions, confirm our view in the most desirable way. It is of course
also self-understood, in principle, that Josephus introduced expansions right at the beginning
of his old report when he was shaping it into the Life.
Similarly to the other insertions, it is also the role of these to suggest the idea that the
High Council in Jerusalem was occupied with war issues in the [same] manner as was
determined for the War on page 103: they see the rebel movement against Rome escalating, but
in any case they wish to keep it under control, and wait, armed, to see what the Romans do. If
these thoughts were inserted here by Josephus only later, however, then this is once again a
new proof that when he was composing the old administrative report Josephus did not at all
have the feeling yet that his posting to Galilee had something to do with the war that he
designated simply as “the War” later on. Josephus was to take the weapons away from the
robbers, because the Council in Jerusalem was afraid of falling upon hard times otherwise. And
it was only later when Josephus was composing the War that he reinterpreted things to such an
extent that henceforth his first activity in Galilee already became a part of “the War”. In this
respect as well, it is therefore the War that quite intentionally shifted the stock of facts to a
new viewpoint to which Josephus also remained true later on, when he was making the
additions to the administrative report. The old view still figures in this very [writing] itself,
however. When Schürer believes from this (page 607, note 18) that Josephus [107] was
insolent enough to declare in the Life that the purpose of his being sent was to calm down
Galilee, so in truth it was precisely this calming of Galilee and the disarming of the robbers that
was Josephus’ actual mandate. The reproaches that one must raise against him are therefore to
be brought forward for just the opposite [reason, namely] because Josephus concealed the
picture in the War and in the added segments of the Life: he [had] wished to appear as the
appointed army commander in the war against Rome in these [writings] later on.
After the departure of [Josephus’] fellow envoys reported in section 77, his activity and
attitude now change quite suddenly, and it seems to me that a very important observation is
provided by this. First the evidence. John of Gischala attempts to persuade the Galileans to
desert Josephus and to join him[self] with the rationale: κρεῖττον γὰρ ἐμοῦ στρατηγήσειν
αὐτῶν ἔφασκεν (123) – so Josephus is likewise an army commander. In Tiberias Jesus attacks
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