JŌŠIPPŌN. - Compiler of midrashic legends, also called Jōšēph ben Gurjōn or Jōšēph hā-ibbrī (“Joseph the Jew”), 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 by Titus (A.D. 70). According to the more extensive recension, the history of the Jews, interwoven with legends, extends from Adam to Titus.
The work was printed with a Latin version by J. F. Breithaupt at Gotha (2nd ed., 1710). As early as 1540, a version in Judeo-German (jiddif) had appeared.
A shorter and critically purer recension had been published at Mantova between 1476 and 1479 and reprinted at Münster and at Basilea in 1541.
There exists an abbreviated recension in Arabic; a fourth recension is contained in the so-called Arabic Libro dei Maccabei, published in the London Poliglotta (vol. IV). At its centre are the events of the Maccabees. The original work, shorter in form, 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 Flavio Giuseppe.