From Josephus to Yosippon and Beyond: Text – Re-interpretations – Afterlives

Two millennia ago, the Jewish priest-turned-general Flavius Josephus, captured by the emperor Vespasian in the middle of the Roman-Jewish War (66–70 CE), spent the last decades of his life in Rome writing several historiographical works in Greek. Josephus was eagerly read and used by Christian thinkers, but eventually his writings became the basis for the early-10th century Hebrew text called Sefer Yosippon, reintegrating Josephus into the Jewish tradition. This volume marks the first edited collection to be dedicated to the study of Josephus, Yosippon, and their reception histories. Consisting of critical inquiries into one or both of these texts and their afterlives, the essays in this volume pave the way for future research on the Josephan tradition in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and beyond.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Figures Abbreviations Notes on Contributors 1 An Introduction to Josephus, Yosippon, and Beyond: The Past, Present, and Future of a Josephan Legacy in Modern Scholarship  Carson Bay, Michael Avioz and Jan Willem van Henten Part 1: Flavius Josephus: Context, Greek Text, and Literary Features 2 Interpreting Josephus Contextually: Composition, Audiences, Messages, and Meaning  Steve Mason 3 Josephus and the Bible  Erich S. Gruen 4 Ancient Jewish Court-Tales, Scriptural Adaptation, and Greco-Roman Discourses of Exemplarity: Joseph, Esther, and Agrippa I in Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae  David R. Edwards 5 The Language of the Law: Narratology and Register Variation in Josephus’ Cultic Laws and Constitution  Silvia Castelli 6 Free Speech and Moses’ Laws: The Limits of παρρησία in Josephus’ Works  Ursula Westwood Part 2: Sefer Yosippon and Latin Josephus: Manuscripts and Text Criticism 7 The Hebrew Manuscripts of Sefer Yosippon  Saskia Dönitz 8 Beyond Flusser: The Text of Latin Antiquities 13 and Sefer Yosippon  David B. Levenson Part 3: Sefer Yosippon: Traditions, Intertexts, and (Re-)Interpretations 9 The Beginning of the End: Yosippon’s ‘Aeneid’ and Adso’s Apocalypse  Ruth Nisse 10 The Maccabean Mother and Her Seven Sons in Sefer Yosippon 15: Interconnections with Previous Versions of the Martyrdom and Important Motifs  Jan Willem van Henten 11 Killing Matthias: De excidio 5.22 and Sefer Yosippon 81 (פא)  Carson Bay 12 Yosippon as an Innovative and Creative Genius  Steven Bowman 13 Sefer Yosippon as a Source for Hasmonean History: The Mysterious Story of John Hyrcanus and the Parthians  Kenneth Atkinson 14 Sefer Yosippon and Sefer Masaʿot: A Reconsideration  Daniel Stein Kokin Part 4: Beyond Josephus and Yosippon: Reception, Afterlives, and Legacy 15 English Versions of Josephus in the Nineteenth Century: Omissions and Additions  Martin Goodman 16 Josephus on the School Bench  Meir Ben Shahar 17 ‘Josephus Proudly Presents’: Figurations of Josephus Presenting His Work in High Medieval Latin Manuscripts (12th and 13th Centuries)  Katharina Heyden 18 Between Josephus and Yosippon: Lamdan’s Masada  Yael S. Feldman 19 Schalit’s Modern Hebrew Translation of Josephus’ Antiquitates Judaicae: A Reassessment  Michael Avioz 20 Zena Ayhud (The History of the Jews): The Text and Context of the Ethiopic Version of Sefer Yosippon  Yonatan Binyam 21 The Christian Reception of Sefer Yosippon in Western Europe  Nadia Zeldes 22 Un-writing the End: Histories and Counter-histories in the Early Modern Yosippon  Andrea Schatz Index of Modern Authors Index of Ancient and Medieval Sources Index of Subjects