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 three major Latin sources--the Book of Maccabees, the writings of Josephus, and the Hegesippus. The Hebrew author, who was fluent in Latin, also had access to the Vulgate and its Apocrypha, and to some Roman sources (Livy, Virgil's Aeneid, Orosius, and others).

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 and translations

The editio princeps of the Hebrew text of Josippon was published by Abraham Conat in Mantua, Italy in 1474-76; see ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1474-76 Conat), book (ed. princeps - Hebrew)

In 1510 Jacob Tam ibn Yahya ben David (1475c-1542) published in Constantinople a revised Hebrew text, enlarged and emended on the basis of a ms. edited by Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi in the 14th century; see ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1510 Tam ibn Yahya), book

Based on the Constantinople ed., Sebastian Münster published in Basel in 1544 a new edition of the Hebrew text with a Latin translation, which for the first time made the text accessible to a larger audience; see Iosephus Hebraicus (Josippon / 1541 Münster) book.

The Constantinople ed. was the basis of all editions of Josippon in the 16th and 17th centuries (Venice 1544; Cracow 1588 & 1599; Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1689). Two translations of the work also appeared in the 16th century: in Yiddish by Michael Adam (Zurich 1546; Prague, 1607; Amsterdam, 1661), and in English by Peter Morwen (London 1558; often reprinted).

At the beginning of the 18th century, Jean Gagnier produced a new Latin translation in 1706. On year later, Friedrich Breithaupt published a new edition of the Hebrew text with a Latin translation and notes (Gotha 1707; repr. 1710); see יוסיפון בן גוריון id est: Josephus Gorionides, sive Josephus Hebraicus (Josippon / 1707 Breithaupt), book. In 1743 Menahem Amelander revised Adam's Yiddish translation; see כתר כהונה, והוא, ספר יוסיפון / (Josippon / 1743 Amelander), book

During the 18th and the 19th century, the Hebrew text of Josippon was reprinted at Amsterdam (1723), Prague (1784), Warsaw (1845 & 1871), Zhitomir (1851), and Lvov (1855).

In the 20th century new critical editions of the Hebrew text were published by Wertheimer (1937), Hominer (1967), and Flusser (1978). Ariel Toaff completed in 1969 the first Italian translation of the work

• . ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1937 Wertheimer), book
• ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1967 Hominer), book
• ספר יוסיפון (Josippon / 1978-80 Flusser), book

In 2009 Shulamit Sela produced the most comprehensive edition of the Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic texts, based on her 1991 dissertation: ספר יוסף בן גוריון הערבי (Josippon / 2009 Sela), book