JOSIPPON B. GORION in nvor), also called jOSEPH B. GORION, the reputed author of the celebrated Hebrew Chronicle entitled -Imo ovivo the book of yosippon, or 41ZZ-I Ilh'014 Me Hebrew yosippon. This chronicle consists of six books, begins its record with Adam, explains the genealogical table in Gen. xi., then passes on to the history of Rome, Babylon, Cyrus, and the fall of Babel, resumes again the history of the Jews, describes the times of Daniel, Zerubbabc1, Esther, etc.; gives an account of Alexander the Great, his connection with the Jews, his exploits, and expedi tions of his successors, and then continues the history of the Jews, of Heliodorus' assault on the Temple, the translation of the O. 'I'. into Greek, the deeds of the Maccabees, the events of the Herodians, and the last war which terminated in the destruction of the Temple by Titus. The authorities quoted in this rcmarkable book are-1, Nicolaus the Damascene ; 2, Strabo of Cappadocia; 3, Titus Livius ; 4, Togthas of Jerusalem 5, Porophins of Rome; 6, The History of Alexander, written in the year of his death by Magi ; 7, The book of the antediluvian patriarch Cainan b. Enos ; S, Books of the Greeks, Medians, Persians, and Macedonians ; 9, Epistle of Alexander to Aris totle about the wonders of India ; Ie., Treaties of alliance of the Romans ; II, Cicero, who was in the Holy of Holies of the Temple, during the reign of Pompejus ; 12, The intercalary years of Julius Cxsar, composed for the Nazarites and Greeks ; 13, The chronicles of the Roman Emperms ; 14, The constitutional diploma which Vespasian vene rated so highly that he kissed every page of it ; 15, The Alexandrian Library with its 995 volumes ; 16, Jewish histories which are lost ; and 17, The national traditions which have been transmitted orally.
As to the author and date of this book, the greatest divergency of opinions prevails amongst scholars. The writer himself says that Ile is the triest of yerumlem, i.e., Flavius Josephus, and that he was appointed governor of the whole Jew ish nation by Titus (pp. 6S, 157, 164, 367, 673, ed. Breithaupt), and this has been the unanimous opinion of the most learned Jewish writers since the days of Saadia (A. D. 95o). It is quoted as the genuine production of Flavius Josephus by the celebrated Rashi (on 2 Kings xx. 13; Is. xxi. 4; XXXiX. 2; Ezek. xxvii. 17 ; Hag. ii. 7; Zech. ix. 14; Dan, v. ; vi. 29; vii. 6 ; viii. 21; Xi. 2, 4, 16, 17, 29); Ibn Ezra (on Gen. xxxvii. 25; Is. ii. 2 ; Hos. xiv. 2; Hag. ii. 9; Ps. xlix. 20; cxx. 5 ; Dan. ii. 39 ; xi. 3) ; Kimchi (Lex. art. .170 "ILM); Pseudo- Saadia ( on Dan. ix. 27); De Rossi (Near Enainz, ed. Mantua 1574, c. xix., p. 86, b); and a host of other scholars, both Jewish and Christian. But Zunz (Zeitschrifi, Berlin 1822, p. 3oo) has tried to show that this Josippon is ignorant of history. He says, ex. gr., that Titus executed the high-priest Ishmael b. Elisa (p. MS), makes Ptolemy Lagi ancl Antigonus identical (p.
153), Ptolemy and ”A-1 separate persons (p. 176), etc. ; he sometimes forgets to simulate Josephus 2, 510, 524, 370, 373, (comp. pP. 443, 446, 45 250, 334, 350, where he quotes the Latin transla tion of Josephus as belonging to somebody else, and from p. 677 speaks of Josephus as a third person); he speaks of later nations and countries, viz., of Campagna (p. 7), Romagna (p. 20), Sor rento (p. 19), Trani (p. 869), Tessin° (p. 6), Po (ibid.), Candia (p. 163), the Danes (p. 745), Turko
mans (p. 92), the Goths in Spain (p. 221); he alsc describes the coronation of an emperor, speaks of popes and bishops (p. 67i). Zunz therefore concludes that the writer was a French Jew, who flourished in the 9th century, that this deceiver made the fragments of the genuine Josephus which had been translated into Hebrew the basis of his work, and that he made use of other apocryphal writings and his own imagination to fill up the gaps, and that subsequent hands have made all manner of interpolations into it. In his notes on Benjamin of Tudela (ed. Asher, 1841, vol. ii., p. 246), how ever, Zunz speaks of Josippon b. Gorion in more respectful terms, regards him a.s 'the [Hebrew] translator and editor of Josephus,' and says that he lived in Italy about the middle of the latter half of the loth century, and that his accounts of several nations of his time are as important as his orthography of Italian towns is remarkable.' Stein schneider, who also assigns its birth to the loth century and to northern Italy, describes the book as the Hebrew edition of the Latin Hegesippus,' and as an offshoot from the fully developed Mid rash of Arabian and Latin literature' (yewish LiteraMre, London 1857, p. 77); whilst Graetz maintains that it is a Hebrew translation of an Arabic book of Maccabees, entitled (TARICH AL MAKKABAIN, JUSSUFF IBN G'ORG'ON) iliStOry the Maccabees of joseplz b. Gorion, which has partly been published in the Polyglotts (Paris 1645 ; Lon don 1657) under the title of the Arabic book of Maccabees, and which is to be found complete in two MSS. in the Bodleian (URI Catalogue, Nos. 782, 829), and that the translator, an Italian Jew, has made additions to it and displayed great skill in his Hebrew style (Geschichte der yuden, v.
2SI).
The first edition of this work appeared in Mantua 1476-1479, with a preface by Abraham b. Salomon Conato. A reprint of this edition (the text vitiated), with a Latin version by Munster, was published at Basle, 1541. There appeared an edition from a MS. containing a somewhat different version of thc work, and divided into ninety-seven chapters, edited by Tam Ibn Jachja b. David, Constanti nople 151o. New editions of it were published in Venice 1544 ; Cracow 1589 ; Frankfort-on-the Maine 1689 ; Amsterdam 1723 ; Prague 1784 ; Zolkiew iSo5 ; Vilna 1819. It was partly trans lated into Arabic by Zechariah ben Said el-Temeni about 1223 ; and into English by Peter Morwyng, London 155S, 1561, 1575, 1579, 1602. There are two other Latin translations, besides the one by Munster, 154r; one was made by our countryman the learned orientalist John Gagnier, Oxford 1706, and one by Breithaupt, the last has also the He brew text and elaborate notes, and will alway-s continue the students' edition. We have German translations by Michael Adam, Zurich 1546 ; Moses b. Bezaliel, Prague i6o7 ; Abraham b. Mordecai Cohen, Amsterdam 1661; Seligmann Reis, Frank fort-on-the-Maine 1707. Comp. Zunz, Zeitschrift fiir Wissenschaft des yudenthzints, Berlin IS22, p. 300, ff. ; Die Gollesdienstlichen Vortrake der yuden, Berlin 1832, p. 146-154 ; Delitzsch, Geschichte der jildischen Poesie, Leipzig 1836, p. 37-40 ; Car moly in yost's Annalen, vol. i., Frankfort-on-the Maine 1839, p. 149, ff.; Dibliotheca Yudaica, vol. ii., p. 14. ; Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr.
Hebr. in Bibliotheca .b'odlelana, col. 1547-1552. C. D. G.