Greek and Roman Documents from Republican Times in the Antiquities: What Was Josephus' Source?

Abstract

The standard theory claims that Josephus made use of a collection of documents composed in earlier times, or that he himself found the documents in the Roman archives. For different reasons, however, both theories appear problematic. A third possibility may now be suggested, namely, that Josephus cites copies, perhaps copies of copies, of original documents found in the archives of the Jewish Diaspora. This seems supported both by the peculiar features of the texts themselves and, also, by the lack of chronological order in which they are displayed in Josephus’ narrative.