Category:Josippon (text)

• See Josephus Studies

Josippon (mid 10th-cent. CE) is a medieval Jewish chronicle of Second Temple Judaism.

Overview

Written in Hebrew, the Sefer Josippon was composed in southern Italy in the mid-tenth century CE, based on Latin versions of the writings of Josephus and the Hegesippus.

After providing a discussion of the table of nations in Genesis 10 and a narrative of the founding of Rome, Josippon focuses on the history of the Jews in the Second Temple Period down to the fall of Masada.

Manuscripts

The Josippon has a very complex history.

The oldest extant abstract was made in southern Italy, about 1150, by Jerahmeel ben Solomon

Another abstract, made in 1161 by Abraham ibn Daud, was used as the third book of his Sefer Seder ha-Qabbalah.

Printed editions

The editio princeps was published in 1474-76 by Abraham Conat in Mantua, Italy.

• Yosippon (1475-76 Conat), book (ed. princeps)

• Constantinople ed., 1510 by Jacob Tam ibn Yahya ben David (1475c-1542) (enlarged on the basis of the ms. edited by Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi (or Massoni) in the 14th century
  • Sefer Josippon le Josef ben Gorion hak-Kohen (1510 Tam ibn Yahya), book

• Iosephus Hebraicus (1541 Münster) book (Basel ed.; Hebrew text and Latin translation by Sebastian Münster).

• Venice 1544 (repr. of the 1510 ed.)

• Cracow 1588 & 1599

• Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1689.

• Gotha, 1707 and 1710; with Münster's preface and a Latin translation and notes by Friedrich Breithaupt.
  • יוסיפון בן גוריון id est: Josephus Gorionides, sive Josephus Hebraicus (Josippon / 1707 Breithaupt), book

Other editions appeared at Amsterdam (1723), Prague (1784), Warsaw (1845 and 1871), Zhitomir (1851), and Lvov (1855)

• כתר כהונה והוא ספר יוסיפון בלשון אשכנז (Josippon / 1767 Amelander), book

• ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1937 Wertheimer), book

• ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1967 Hominer), book

• ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1978 Flusser), book

• ספר יוסיפון ומקורות מקבילים בערבית ובערבית יהודית (Josippon and its Parallel Versions in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic / 1991 Sela), book

Translations

• Latin Translation by Sebastian Münster (1541)

• Yiddish translation by Michael Adam, a convert (the book was published in Zurich 1546 by Christoph Froschauer; with its richly illustrated woodcuts, it is regarded as the most beautiful printed work in Old-Yiddish literature. Reprinted in Prague, 1607; and Amsterdam, 1661).
  • ספר יוסיפון / Sefer Yosipon (Josippon / 1546 Adam), book
    • The work was later revised by Menahem ben Solomon Amelander, and published under the title Keter Torah (Amsterdam, 1743).

• English tr. by Peter Morwen (1558) (often reprinted)

• English tr. by Jean Gagnier (1706)

• Latin tr. by Friedrich Breithaupt (1707)

• Yiddish tr. by Menahem ben Solomon Amelander (1743) <A revision of Adam's 1546 Yiddish translation>

• Italian tr. by Arie Toaff (1969)

A Yiddish translation with illustrations was published by Michael Adam (Zürich, 1546; Prague, 1607; Amsterdam, 1661); it was later revised by Menahem ben Solomon ha-Levi, and published under the title Keter Torah (Amsterdam, 1743).