Steve Mason - Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees

<head><hi rend="italic">Source Criticism of Josephus: G. Hölscher</hi></head>A major assumption underlying the work of both Paret and Gerlach was the literary unity of Josephus's writings: Josephus was assumed to have one more or less consistent view of the Pharisees. This assumption, however, received a devastating blow in the researches of H. Bloch (1879), J. von Destinon (1881), F. Schemann (1887), W. Otto (1913), and G. Hölscher (1916).<note id="p1_c2_n20" place="foot">H. Bloch,<hi rend="italic">Die Quellen des Flavius Josephus in seiner Archäologie</hi>(Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1879); J. von Destinon,<hi rend="italic">Die Quellen des Flavius Josephus I: die Quellen der Archäologie Buch XII-XVIII</hi>+<hi rend="italic">Jüd. Krieg Buch I</hi>(Keil: Lipsius & Tischer, 1882); F. SchemannM,<hi rend="italic">Die Quellen des Flavius Josephus in der Jüd. Arch. XVIII-XX</hi>+<hi rend="italic">Polemos II, 7-14</hi>(Marburg, 1887); W. Otto, "Herodes",<hi rend="italic">PWRESup</hi>, II, 1-15; G. Hölscher, "Josephus",<hi rend="italic">PWRE</hi>, XVIII, 1934-2000.</note>Although most of these authors expressed no particular interest in the Pharisee passages of Josephus, their source analyses<pb n="22" />harboured serious implications for that material. Only Hölscher, whose article for the<hi rend="italic">Realencyclopädie</hi>marked the peak of the movement, spelled out those implications; we may thus focus our attention on his study.Of Hölscher's sixty-three column article on Josephus, about fifty-four columns are given over to a source analysis of Josephus's writings.<note id="p1_c2_n21" place="foot">The article comprises cols. 1934-2000, the last four of which are devoted to bibliography. The source analysis extends from cols. 1943 to 1996.</note>This proportion reflects the degree to which, by Hölscher's time, an understanding of Josephus had come to be identified with an understanding of his sources. Destinon had long since concluded that<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>1217 was little more than a compilation of Josephus's major, intermediate sources—the Anonymous and Nicolaus of Damascus—and that Josephus's own input here was minimal:<q>Seine Quelle also hat Jos. das Material gegeben, hat ihm die Disposition desselben übermittelt und schliesslich sogar ihn so zu bestricken gewusst, dass er sein selbständiges Urteil drangab.<note id="p1_c2_n22" place="foot">Destinon,<hi rend="italic">Quellen</hi>, 101. Similarly, Bloch (<hi rend="italic">Quellen</hi>, 157-159) found Josephus guilty of<hi rend="italic">sklavische Abhängigkeit</hi>.</note></q>Following Destinon's lead, Hölscher denied to Josephus any substantial role in providing the content or even collecting the sources for the twenty volumes of his<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>Hölscher's first observation on the Pharisee passages in Josephus is programmatic for his analysis:<q>Sein pharisäischer (und damit antisadduzäischer) Standpunkt verrät sich mehrfach in seinen Schriften, obwohl seine Urteile über die drei jüdischen Schulen, je nach den von ihm ausgeschriebenen Quellen, vielfach verschieden auffallen.<note id="p1_c2_n23" place="foot">Hölscher, "Josephus", 1936.</note></q>On Hölscher's view, although Josephus was a Pharisee,<note id="p1_c2_n24" place="foot">Ibid., 1945.</note>he simply failed to alter the judgements of his sources, even when those judgements contradicted his own Pharisaic sentiments. Of the Pharisee passages, he believed,<hi rend="italic">War</hi>1:110-114 is "recht unfreundlich" toward the group.<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>as a whole is "teils unfreundlich" and "teils ziemlich neutral"; only 18:11f. is "anerkennend".<note id="p1_c2_n25" place="foot">Ibid., 1936 and n. + +. Hölscher also suggests that Josephus's own Pharisaic stand-point comes through in<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:297f.</note>Like Paret and Gerlach, then, Hölscher did not find any strong Pharisaic perspective in Josephus's Pharisee passages. His argument, however, was that these passages, like most of<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>and a good piece of<hi rend="italic">War</hi>, tell more about Josephus's sources than they do about Josephus himself.<pb n="23" />Hölscher discerned two main sources for<hi rend="italic">War</hi>, the first reflected in 1:31-2:116, the second in 2:117-283. After that, in discussing the actual events of the war against Rome, Josephus was presumably relying on his own memory, his notes, Vespasian's official report, eyewitness testimony, and other aids.<note id="p1_c2_n26" place="foot">Ibid., 1939, 1942, 1949.</note>Hölscher's criteria for identifying the two sources in books 1 and 2 included the presence of doublets, differences in style, and distinct preferences for certain terms.<note id="p1_c2_n27" place="foot">Ibid., 1944.</note>He attributed 2:117-161, with its detailed description of the Essenes, to a Jewish written source<note id="p1_c2_n28" place="foot">Ibid., 1949 and n. +.</note>and the brief remarks on the Pharisees and Sadducees (2:162-166) to Josephus himself. That 1:31-2:116 comes from Nicolaus of Damascus, Herod's court historian, Hölscher argued chiefly on the basis of a comparison of the style in that section with extant fragments of Nicolaus in F. Jacoby's collection.<note id="p1_c2_n29" place="foot">Ibid., 1946f.</note>Other considerations were: (a) that the material is pro-Herodian; (b) that it seems to be a condensation of a much more detailed source; and (c) that it is the work of a nonJew.<note id="p1_c2_n30" place="foot">Ibid., 1944-1948.</note>In support of this last proposition, significantly, Hölscher pointed to the negative presentation of the Pharisees in<hi rend="italic">War</hi>1:110-114.For<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>the picture is more complex. Whereas, according to Hölscher, Josephus had provided much of the content of<hi rend="italic">War</hi>(books 3-7) himself, in<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>he confined himself almost exclusively to passing on literary traditions.<note id="p1_c2_n31" place="foot">Ibid., 1951.</note>In<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>1:27-13:212, for example, Hölscher identified large blocks of material from the teaching notes (<hi rend="italic">Lehrvortrag</hi>) of the Alexandrian Jewish schools.<note id="p1_c2_n32" place="foot">Ibid., 1956-1966. Hölscher argues that, since Josephus's biblical paraphrase sometimes departs from both the LXX and the Hebrew Bible, he must have used these sources only at second hand, already in processed form.</note>It was in these schools that the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, pagan traditions, and Jewish apocrypha and legends were synthesized; Josephus himself probably never saw any of this material first hand. His contribution at most consisted of copying, excerpting, and combining large blocks of material—all of which implies, "dass man sich die eigene selbständige Arbeit des J. so gering wie möglich vorzustellen hat".<note id="p1_c2_n33" place="foot">Ibid., 1962.</note>On the content of<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:212-17:355, Hölscher observed that, although it parallels the account from Nicolaus in<hi rend="italic">War</hi>1, it sometimes corrects Nicolaus, is often anti-Herodian, and distinctly favours the<pb n="24" />Hasmoneans.<note id="p1_c2_n34" place="foot">Ibid., 1970-1973.</note>These observations led Hölscher to propose that Josephus is here using a tendentious reworking of Nicolaus by a pro-Hasmonean Jewish polemicist. This polemicist was able to critique Nicolaus by consulting also a biography of Herod, which became the main source for<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>15-17.<note id="p1_c2_n35" place="foot">Ibid., 1977f.</note>In addition to these two main sources, Nicolaus's<hi rend="italic">Verfälscher</hi>used local Jewish legends, a high priest list, collections of official documents, and various pagan writings.<note id="p1_c2_n36" place="foot">Ibid., 1973f.</note>The polemicist was even responsible, Hölscher thought, for the asides and reflections that appear in<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13-17.Hölscher also attributed<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>18-20 largely to the Jewish polemicist.<note id="p1_c2_n37" place="foot">Ibid., 1992. Among the alleged proofs that Josephus did not write this section himself (1986-1992) are: (a) its unfulfilled cross-references; (b) Josephus's purported inability to read the Latin sources that appear therein; and (c) the polemic of<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>20:154157, which reminded Hölscher of<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>16:187, which he had already attributed to the polemicist.</note>Here, however, the polemicist has outrun his two<hi rend="italic">Hauptquellen</hi>—Nicolaus and Herod's biography—and so the narrative becomes more disjointed.In essence, then, Hölscher thought that some unnamed polemicist was responsible for the whole of<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:212-20:455 and, therefore, for all of the Pharisee passages in<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi><note id="p1_c2_n38" place="foot"><hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:171-173 falls outside this block; nevertheless, Hölscher (1973) attributed it also to the polemicist.</note>But since he conceived of the polemicist as only an intermediate source, Hölscher could also trace the Pharisee passages back to earlier origins: some he regarded as elements of Jewish tradition or legend,<note id="p1_c2_n39" place="foot">Ibid., 1973f. He included<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:171-173; 15:3, 370-372 in this category.</note>another as the contribution of Nicolaus,<note id="p1_c2_n40" place="foot">Ibid., 1973, 1975 (and n.), on<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:400-432.</note>and another as a story from the biography of Herod.<note id="p1_c2_n41" place="foot">Ibid., 1979, on<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>17:41-45.</note>All were reworked by the polemicist before coming into Josephus's hands. To Josephus's own pen Hölscher attributed only (a) the brief description of the PhariseeSadducee dispute that follows the story of John Hyrcanus (<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13:297298) and (b) an anti-Herodian notice connected with the Pharisee Pollion (<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>15:4).<note id="p1_c2_n42" place="foot">Ibid., 1973f.</note>Finally, Hölscher attributed the description of the schools in<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>18:11-25 mainly to the polemicist, on the ground that Josephus the Pharisee could hardly have named a Pharisee as a cofounder of the zealot faction.<note id="p1_c2_n43" place="foot">Ibid., 1991; cf.<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>18:4.</note><pb n="25" />How are we to imagine the Jewish polemicist who wrote most of<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>13-20? He was, according to Hölscher, a compiler and not a historian, who allowed tensions and doublets to stand unresolved in his presentation.<note id="p1_c2_n44" place="foot">Ibid., 1981f.</note>He was a conservative, priestly, pro-Hasmonean aristocrat, who had no sympathy for the rebels and little respect for either the masses or the popular Pharisees.<note id="p1_c2_n45" place="foot">Ibid., 1974f., 1982, 1983.</note>Important for Hölscher was the belief, based on<hi rend="italic">Life</hi>10-12, that Josephus was a devoted Pharisee. This belief implied that Josephus could not have written derogatory accounts of the Pharisees, so someone else must have written them—whether a non-Jew or an anti-Pharisaic aristocrat.<note id="p1_c2_n46" place="foot">Ibid., 1936. Hölscher also appealed to Josephus's Pharisaic education as proof that he could not have known well the Greek authors cited throughout<hi rend="italic">Ant.</hi>, so that someone else must have provided those references (1956).</note>Josephus's own Pharisaic allegiance remains, as we shall see, an important criterion for the source-critical analysis of his Pharisee passages.

Steve Mason - Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees

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