Yosippon [History]

(JOSEPH BEN GORION)

Abraham ben Solomon Conat

(Mantua)

(1475)

FIRST EDITION

Vinograd, Mantua 3; Goff 65; Goldstein 16; Offenberg 79; Steinschneider, p. 1549, no. 6033-1; Thesaurus A8; Wineman Cat. 10

THE FIRST HEBREW SECULAR BOOK PRINTED. The Wineman Copy, as that of the JNUL, is incomplete. The title is a somewhat misleading. Yosippon is not be confused with the work by Josephus Flavius, an eyewitness account of the events leading up to and including the destruction of the Second Temple. According to Prof. David Flusser, Yosippon, a pseudopigraphic work attributed to one “Joseph ben Gorion Hakohen,” was actually composed in Southern Italy in the year 953 C.E. This anonymous author plagiarized the works of Josephus. Many medieval greats, including the Bible commentator Rash”i, took Yosippon at face value, believing it to be written by a Second Temple historian. See EJ, Vol. X, cols. 296-298. In 1978 The Hebrew University published a facsimile edition of the original version of Josippon, Ms. Jerusalem 8º41280, with a lengthy introduction by Prof. Flusser. Flusser contends that Conat's Mantua edition was not based on the original version of Josippon (“Version A”) composed in 953, but rather on a polished edited version (“Version B”). This version has been preserved in a single manuscript, Vatican Ms. 408. The later printed edition of Constantinople 1510 and the editions which followed, were based on yet a third, expanded version of Josippon (“Version C”). See Flusser's introduction, pp. 6, 11