Josippon
Josippon Hebrew ספר יוסיפון sefer yosipon , "Book of Josippon", is a Hebrew folk book written in the year 953 by an anonymous Jewish author in southern Italy .
characterization
It is a retelling of the “ Jewish War ” ( De Bello Judaico ) by Josephus (supplemented by Hegesipp and a few other texts): a story of the Jews from the fall of Babylon to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.
The Sefer Josippon was compiled in Hebrew in the 10th century by a Jewish author from the Greek-speaking Jewish community of southern Italy , which at that time was part of the Byzantine Empire . Juda Leon ben Moses Mosconi, a Romaniotic Jew from Achrida , edited and expanded the Sefer Josippon later.
The work was later wrongly ascribed to the ancient Jerusalem patrician Josef ben Gorion (executed 68 AD), and since he had been falsely identified with Flavius Josephus, also to Flavius Josephus himself. This made the book a pseudepigraph, although the author clearly shows his dependence on Josephus.
Written in very lively Hebrew, interspersed with fables and fairy tales, the work was published in countless editions. In addition to the so-called vulgar text, there is another Hebrew review and various Arabic versions; then the work was also greatly expanded, u. a. through a Hebrew version of the Alexander romance .
Peoples list
In § 10 of the Genesis section, the author lists numerous peoples of his time, that is, of the early 10th century, among others.
There are, among others, Angler , Saxons , Bulgarians , Hungarians , Pechenegs and Morava Moravians , Karvati Chorwaten , Sorbin Sorbs , Lutschanin Lutizen , Ljachin Lachen , Krakar Krakauer , Bojmin Bohemia , Dodanin Dadosanen , Russians on the Kiva River (the Dnepr in Kiev ?) On Sea Gurgan ( Caspian Sea ).
expenditure
- First printing Mantua 1480
- Flusser, David (Ed.): ספר יוסיפון, סדור ומוגה על־פי כתבי־יד בלוויית מבוא, ביאורים וחילופי גרסאות [The Josippon [Josephus Gorionides], edited with an Introduction], Commentary and Notes. 2 vols. Jerusalem 1978-80.
Latin translation
- Sebastian Münster : Iosephus Hebraicus diu desideratus ... Basel 1541.
- Jean Gagnier: Josippon sive Josephi ben-Gorionis historiae Judaicae libri sex ex Hebraeo Latine vertit, praefatione et notis illustravit Johannes Gagnier . Oxford 1706.
- Johann Friedrich Breithaupt: Josephus Gorionides sive Josephus Hebraicus accessit… . Gotha 1707.
See also
literature
- Leopold Zunz : Divine Service Lectures . 146-154.
- Julius Wellhausen : The Arab Josippus . Kraus Reprint, Nendeln 1970 (reprint of the Berlin 1897 edition).
- Günter Stemberger : Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash . 7th edition, CH Beck, Munich 1982, pp. 299/300
- Dagmar Börner Klein, Beat Zuber: Josippon: Jewish history from the beginning of the world to the end of the uprising against Rome Hebrew-German text edition . Marix Verlag, 2010.
- David Flusser : Josippon . In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 11, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865939-8 , pp. 461-462 (English).
- Saskia Dönitz : Tradition and reception of the Sefer Yosippon . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-16-152663-3 .
Web links
- JOSEPH BEN GORION (JOSEPHUS GORIONIDES; referred to also as Yosippon and Pseudo-Josephus). In: Isidore Singer (Ed.): Jewish Encyclopedia . Funk and Wagnalls, New York 1901-1906.
Remarks
- ↑ Historiography among Byzantine Jews: The case of Sefer Yosippon. Saskia Dönitz, 2012, Brill
- ↑ Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, Norman Roth, 2014 p. 127.
- ^ Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures, Robert Bonfil, 2011, p. 122
- ↑ Gustav Flusser, Zpráva o Slovanech v hebrejské kronice z 10. století , ČČH 48–49, 1947–1948, part 1, p. 239
- ↑ The transcription from the Hebrew text can only assume the vowels a, e, o and u are expressed by the same letter, so the transcription is only possible approximately.