Which 'Josephus' is Closer to the Original? Pseudo-Hegesippus Book 3 Chapter 21 or Bellum Judaicum Book 3 Chapter 9?

And now to continue with our original program - i.e. comparing the parallel narratives of Hegesippus and Jewish War. There is a short little addition to Jewish War narrative that has no parallel in Pseudo-Hegesippus:

And thus was Joppa taken twice by the Romans in a little time; but Vespasian, in order to prevent these pirates from coming thither any more, erected a camp there, where the citadel of Joppa had been, and left a body of horse in it, with a few footmen, that these last might stay there and guard the camp, and the horsemen might spoil the country that lay round it, and might destroy the neighboring villages and smaller cities. So these troops overran the country, as they were ordered to do, and every day cut to pieces and laid desolate the whole region. [Jewish War 9.8.4]

We now go back to our section by section citation of the two Josephan narrative. The next chapter in Pseudo-Hegesippus which follows after the one cited in our previous post reads:

While these things are being done in Iopen, although at a distance the inhabitants of Jerusalem were passing the time, not even thusly by the partnership of the slaughter they were keeping holiday. It having been heard what things have been done by the Romans in Judaea and especially because they had learned that Josephus had been killed, at first, because no one from those places had come to them as an informer, they did not believe, then they thought that such a great leader not to have fallen recklessly into the hands of the enemy. And in fact no messenger of such a great slaughter had survived, and from this itself the rumor of such a tremendous destruction, because no informer had survived, it was piled on everything to have been destroyed, and nothing to have remained or gotten abroad as information of the things done any rumor whatever greater in the telling, because the very silences themselves terrify the uncertain, everything was believed that was feared, and it was so far from anything that was announced, that even things that had not been done were added. For rumor declared emphatically that Josephus also had been killed and that was a great grief to everyone. But when he was discovered to be passing time with the Romans, they followed up with such a great hatred, that whose death at first they had grieved, that same one's life they called down curses upon as a sign of cowardice or betrayal. From this there was great excitement against the Romans, that they should avenge themselves for Josephus, and the more their situation grew worse, the more they were inflamed to war. When it ought to have been the finish, from there the beginning of misfortunes was seized. For to the wise unfavorable outcomes of things are more a warning to take precautions, lest again the same things happen which have already happened badly, for the foolish however (they are) an incentive of misfortunes. The peril of their allies ought therefore to have been for people of Jerusalem a reason for sobriety, but because they were unwilling to understand that they should conduct themselves rightly, it turned into their ruin.[Pseudo-Hegesippus 21]

The parallel narrative in Jewish War reads:

But now, when the fate of Jotapata was related at Jerusalem, a great many at the first disbelieved it, on account of the vastness of the calamity, and because they had no eye-witness to attest the truth of what was related about it; for not one person was saved to be a messenger of that news, but a fame was spread abroad at random that the city was taken, as such fame usually spreads bad news about. However, the truth was known by degrees, from the places near Jotapata, and appeared to all to be too true. Yet were there fictitious stories added to what was really done; for it was reported that Josephus was slain at the taking of the city, which piece of news filled Jerusalem full of sorrow. In every house also, and among all to whom any of the slain were allied, there was a lamentation for them; but the mourning for the commander was a public one; and some mourned for those that had lived with them, others for their kindred, others for their friends, and others for their brethren, but all mourned for Josephus; insomuch that the lamentation did not cease in the city before the thirtieth day; and a great many hired mourners, with their pipes, who should begin the melancholy ditties for them.

But as the truth came out in time, it appeared how the affairs of Jotapata really stood; yet was it found that the death of Josephus was a fiction; and when they understood that he was alive, and was among the Romans, and that the commanders treated him at another rate than they treated captives, they were as vehemently angry at him now as they had showed their good-will before, when he appeared to have been dead. He was also abused by some as having been a coward, and by others as a deserter; and the city was full of indignation at him, and of reproaches cast upon him; their rage was also aggravated by their afflictions, and more inflamed by their ill success; and what usually becomes an occasion of caution to wise men, I mean affliction, became a spur to them to venture on further calamities, and the end of one misery became still the beginning of another; they therefore resolved to fall on the Romans the more vehemently, as resolving to be revenged on him in revenging themselves on the Romans. And this was the state of Jerusalem as to the troubles which now came upon it. [Jewish War 3.9.5,6]

While the parallels between these two sections are obviously very strong there are other reasons to find this description particularly interesting. The first thing that we should notice is the fact that 'first century Josephus' couldn't possibly know how his reported death was received by the Jewish population. It seems especially vain to imagine Josephus ask the survivors of the contemporary Holocaust "I know it was terrible what happened in Jerusalem but ... how did people take the news that I was dead a few years earlier? ..." This doesn't mean that the question wasn't asked of course. One can imagine a Hollywood celebrity asking such a question. But I would argue that there is an equally plausible explanation that the second century author just made up a narrative. 

Indeed it is almost plausible to imagine that if 'first century Josephus' was skilled Greek writer, he might have developed an account of things he witnessed first hand in the third person to make the narrative have a sense of objectivity. But since there are clear moments where Josephus jumps into the first person in the narrative, one would think that this would be one such place where that might occur. Something akin to "I heard later that ..." or something of that nature because this is a particularly unusual part of the narrative - i.e. a reference to what others were thinking about the narrator when the narrator could not possibly know what this third party was saying about him.

I have already noted that the capture of Josephus at Jotapata is a fiction. The original capture according to the natural chronology of Vita when compared side by side Jewish War must have occurred much later and probably in the early stages of the siege of Jerusalem. As such it makes a great deal more sense to see this as an example of a deliberate juxtapostion developed by the second century author of the Jewish War regarding the reception of two related pieces of 'news' by the Jewish at Jerusalem. The first being the destruction of the rebels at Jotapata and Joppa, the second the death and then capture of Josephus.

It can't be coincidence that we just saw a long account of the irrational behavior of those at Joppa (i.e. those under the power of the 'law of the Jews' and Saul's para-suicidal example) falling on their swords rather than submitting to nature and natural law. The news of Josephus's paradigmatic reconciliation with Rome is explicitly said in Hegesippus to have actually fueled the irrational hatred of the Jews towards their own ruin:

For rumor declared emphatically that Josephus also had been killed and that was a great grief to everyone. But when he was discovered to be passing time with the Romans, they followed up with such a great hatred, that whose death at first they had grieved, that same one's life they called down curses upon as a sign of cowardice or betrayal. From this there was great excitement against the Romans, that they should avenge themselves for Josephus, and the more their situation grew worse, the more they were inflamed to war. When it ought to have been the finish, from there the beginning of misfortunes was seized. For to the wise unfavorable outcomes of things are more a warning to take precautions, lest again the same things happen which have already happened badly, for the foolish however (they are) an incentive of misfortunes. The peril of their allies ought therefore to have been for people of Jerusalem a reason for sobriety, but because they were unwilling to understand that they should conduct themselves rightly, it turned into their ruin.

Jewish War softens the original formulation obviously because the artificiality of the formulation raises questions about the authenticity of the narrative. 

Could Josephus really have written a narrative where his example literally became the demarcation line of the whole rebellion? I mean, it is only natural that everyone thinks they are the center of the universe but is it believable that a former commander in an insurgency against the Roman Empire developed a text which argued that Jews were destroyed because they wouldn't follow his example?

It's ludicrous. 

Nevertheless the synergoi or as I would prefer to explain it - the second century editor of the Jewish War narrative written in 147 CE - frames the story in this way because of his explicit purpose to his contemporaries i.e. to warn against future rebellions. It is worth noting that one can argue that the second century author of Jewish War got his idea from Justus of Tiberias's chronology if we assume that the entire description of the siege of Jerusalem derived from that source. 

As I have noted many times the arrangement of that part of the work is very different in style. It develops as nothing short of a theological exposition where the events of the destruction of Jerusalem mirror the prophesy of the seventy weeks. One key element that we will see in Pseudo-Hegesippus and the Yosippon is the idea that the destruction of the temple was the result of the Jews not heeding Agrippa's call for peace at the very beginning of the Jewish War narrative (as such he represents the messiah who was 'cut off' Daniel 9:26 in most Jewish and many Christian interpretations of the historical events here).

I have always thought that what now passes as 'the Jewish War' of Josephus is really a fusion of Josephus's original apologia for his involvement in the war effort BEFORE the siege of Jerusalem with Justus's account of what happened in Jerusalem (he was a captive held there). Justus's account is structured around the Jews rejection of Agrippa as their rightful monarch. It is bracketed on the one end by the long speech by Agrippa (ten pages of print!) in the Yosippon and other traditions (starting on p. 277 in Flusser's edition) which warns the Jews against these traits of theirs.

The Yosippon interesting has the Jewish rebels continually referring back to that original speech in a parallel form of artificiality - i.e. whenever things are getting really bad one rebel turns to the other and says 'remember what Agrippa said about seeking peace, do you think he was right?' 

I think Justus developed one form of literary artificiality and then in the second century the hypomnema of Josephus kept developing to the point that it was developed into a second artificial narrative, where the capture and submission of Josephus became the paradigmatic example of how Jews should accept their role in the Empire.