JŌŠIPPŌN. - A collector of midrashic legends, also called Jōšēph ben Gurjōn or Jōšēph hā-ibbrī ("Joseph the Hebrew"), who passes himself off as the author of a work entitled Sepher haj-jāfār ("book of the just"), and who lived at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem carried out by Titus (70 A.D.). According to the fuller recension, the history of the Jews, stuffed with legends, runs from Adam to Titus.

The work was printed with a Latin version by J. F. Breithaupt at Gotha (2nd ed., 1710). From as early as 1540 a version in Judeo-German (jiddif) had appeared.

A shorter and critically purer recension had been published at Mantua between 1476 and 1479 and reprinted at Münster and at Basel in 1541.

There exists an abbreviated recension in Arabic; a fourth recension is contained in the so-called Arabic Book of Maccabees, published in the London Polyglot (vol. IV). The central subject of it all is the fortunes of the Maccabees. The original, shorter work must have been composed in Italy in the 8th century; the longer one, likewise in Italy, at the beginning of the 10th century. The author was sometimes confused with Flavius Josephus.

Bibliography2 works

BIBL.: J. Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, II, pp. 111-14; G. Karpelès, Geschichte der jüdischen Litteratur, Berlin 1886, pp. 524-1017.

Pietro De Ambrogei

@incollection{ec7_josippon, author = {De, Ambroggi Pietro}, title = {JŌŠIppŌN}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VII}, pages = {593}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1951}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/josippon} }

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Jōšippōn

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