Wednesday, May 28, 2008

what did the original text(s) of Josephus say?

The rabbinic tradition [Sefer Olam Zutra etc.] knows of only one Agrippa. While most scholars simply employ Jewish Antiquities uncritically and take for granted its implicit claims of an 'Agrippa I' and an 'Agrippa II' there is good reason to be skeptical. As Thackeray notes, the surviving Greek works of Josephus betray contact with latter day 'helpers' who apparently transformed a lost original text. What did the authentic compositions of Josephus actually look like? We will likely never know for sure. What we are left with - in the case of Jewish Antiquities at least - is a mid-second century work, 'corrected' by at least one writer who read too much Thucydides.

In point of fact it seems highly unlikely to me at least that Josephus ever attempted a work like the present day Jewish Antiquities. The earliest references to his historical works inevitably focus on the Jewish War which interestingly survives in various lengths and forms in cultures throughout the world. Is there a version of this original Josephus tradition which mentions only one Agrippa rather than two? At the present moment the answer would have to be no - all texts make at least passing reference to two Agrippas. Nevertheless it is worth noting that a careful examination of the various surviving versions of the text makes a compelling case that the original core material likely did not reference two Agrippas.

The reason for this assertion is that the underlying structure of the surviving texts CAN BE READ AS IF THERE ONE AGRIPPA. There is only a short message of a 'transition' between the one and the other. The original structure seems to be borrowed from the Latin Hegesipus (see below). You could easily read the texts as if there was only one Agrippa. IN MY MIND THE UNDERLYING ORIGINAL TEXT UNDOUBTEDLY READ THIS WAY in order to account for all the strange variations in other translations (and developments) in the literature.

The Slavonic text, while acknowledging two Agrippas again, emphasizes that there was no relation between the two. How could this have been developed? The answer must be that there was one original text which simply told the story of one Agrippa from the time of Caligula which was eventually 'corrected' by various Christian editors in slightly different ways. We read:

Pseudo-Hegesipus [Latin]:


Agrippa was very powerful in his state, but while he wished to encircle Jerusalem with a great wall, so that it would become impregnable to the Romans---for he foresaw its imminent destruction---prevented by death he left the task unfinished. Nor did he exercise less power while Claudius was ruling, because he was also in the midst of his own beginnings, since with Gaius having been killed he had been thrust by the soldiers into the rule of the empire, the senate resisting him from weariness of the royal power, he sent Agrippa as his deputy, with whom as negotiator the promise of moderation having been given, an accommodation having been begun, a peace is agreed upon. In place of Agrippa the father Agrippa his son is substituted as king by Claudius Caesar.

Slavonic Josephus

Agrippa had pacified [the soldiers]. [Claudius] gave him all his father’s kingdom and added to it the land of Trachonitis and Auranitis, apart from these, he handed over to him another kingdom, which Lysanias had ruled. He order his magistrates to write out bronze tablets all [his] honours. And to deposit them at the Capitol, to make it known also to later generations, what honours Agrippa had received from Claudius. And [Agrippa] speedily acquired wealth untold. And at Jerusalem he immediately began to build walls of such height and thickness as never before. If he had completed them in his own lifetime, the Romans could by no means have taken Jerusalem. But before finishing the work he himself died at Caesarea after a reign of three years having no son. [XI 5, 6]

Jewish War [Greek]


Upon Agrippa he forthwith conferred the whole of his grandfather’s kingdom, annexing to it from over the border not only the districts of Trachonitis and Auranitis, of which Augustus had made a present to Herod, but a further principality known as the kingdom, of Lysanias. This donation he announced to the people by an edict, and order the magistrates to have it engraved on brazen tablets to be deposited in the Capitol. He moreover presented Herod, who was at once the brother, and by marriage with Berenice, the son in law of Agrippa, with the kingdom of Chalcis. From so extensive a realm wealth soon flowed into Agrippa, nor was he long in expending his riches. For he began to surround Jerusalem with a wall on such a scale as, had it been completed, would have rendered ineffectual all the efforts of the Romans in the subsequent siege. But before the wall had reached the projected heights, he died at Caesarea, after a reign of three year, to which must be added his previous three years’ tenure of his tetrarchies. He left issue by his wife Cypros, three daughters Berenice, Mariamme and Drusilla – and one son. And the last was a minor. Claudius again reduced the kingdoms to a province … [215 – 220]

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