C. Iulius Caesar und Hyrkanus II. Überlegungen zur chronologischen Abfolge der Dokumente bei Flavius Josephus ant. 14,10,2–10 (190–222) und ant. 14,8,5 (145–148)

The key thesis of this essay is that, in the documentary excursus of the 14th book, Josephus took the official titles of Caesar from the text of his sources. The titles of Caesar were perfectly understandable to the contemporaries of the original documents in respect of their chronological statement. If one approaches the texts of Josephus with this perspective, then the documents can be put into a chronological order that gives a conclusive historical and political sense.    Only from the backward point of view of Josephus (and also of today reader) the titles of Caesar confusing. As a result, Josephus presented the documents in a chronological, confused order because he had the documents as a loose collection of deeds, and because he did not understand their datings. But this was negligible with regard to Josephus’ apologetic intention, as he was concerned not with a historically accurate arrangement of the documents in their correct chronological order, but with proof that the Romans had in the past repeatedly granted the Jews special privileges.   For this purpose, Josephus’ chosen manner of presenting the documents was perfectly adequate. With this result, a further argument for the latest interpretation – elaborated by Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev (1998) – is now obtained, that Josephus’ direct or indirect sources for the documents in the 14th book of the antiquitates Iudaicae were authentic documents. A systematic overview of the reconstructed chronology and sequence of documents and the individual titles of Caesar 48–44 BCE can be found in the chronological table at the end of the article.