EAJS Conference Grant Programme 2020/21
REPORT
From Josephus to Yosippon and Beyond: An International Conference
www.fromjosephustojosippon.com
Abstract
An international conference on Josephus and his reception, Sefer Josippon and its reception, as well as the interconnections between the two, organized by the University of Bern, Bar-Ilan University and the University of Amsterdam, hosted by the Amsterdam School for Historical Studies (ASH) and sponsored by the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) Conference Grant Programme in European Jewish Studies (Amsterdam, August 23-26, 2021).
Organisers: Carson Bay (University of Bern), Michael Avioz (Bar-Ilan University) and Jan Willem van Henten (University of Amsterdam).
Technology Administrator: Nienke Groskamp (University of Amsterdam)
Authors of Report: Carson Bay (University of Bern), Michael Avioz (Bar-Ilan University) and Jan Willem van Henten (University of Amsterdam)
Conference Aim
The purpose of this conference was to bring together international researchers on Josephus and his reception with scholars studying Sefer Josippon and to engage them by exploring together the research avenues implied by the interconnections between Josephus and Josippon. The conference aimed to bridge the gap between the Second Temple and early Roman periods and the Medieval period via two complementary foci: (1) the Jewish and Christian reception of Josephus up to and through the Middle Ages and (2) Josippon’s use of sources—not least Latin translations of Josephus and the influential work of ‘Pseudo-Hegesippus’—as well as his patterns of re-interpretations of Second Temple period history. The conference had a multivalent comparative perspective: (a) most fundamentally comparing Josephus, in Greek and Latin, with later reworkings of Josephus, notably Pseudo-Hegesippus and Josippon; (b) comparing the various versions of Josippon; (c) reading Josippon comparatively alongside other medieval literature; and (d) establishing Josephus’ and Josippon’s literary Nachleben in European and non-European contexts across various languages, time periods, and regions.
Event Rationale
Flavius Josephus, born Joseph ben Matityahu in 37 CE, was a Jewish priest who acted as commander of Galilee during the Jewish rebellion against Rome (66-70 CE) until his arrest at Jotapata/Yodfat in 67. After his prediction that the Roman commander Vespasian would be the next emperor came true, he was rewarded by the new emperor and spent the rest of his life in Rome as a historian. Josephus wrote four works: a history of the armed conflict between the Jews and Romans (The Jewish War), a history of the Jewish people from the creation of the world up to Josephus’ own time (The Jewish Antiquities), an autobiographical work that demonstrates his credentials (The Life) and, finally, an apologetic work called Against Apion. Without these works we would know hardly anything about Jewish history from the mid-Hasmonean period until the destruction of Jerusalem (ca. 125 BCE-70 CE)—the period that witnessed both the rise and fall of Jewish statehood and the emergence of Christianity. Surprisingly, there is little evidence for a Jewish reception of Josephus’ writings in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. However, the author of Josippon, a tenth-century Hebrew work and one of the most important pieces of Jewish historiography of all time, used ‘Josephus’ unremittingly by consulting Latin versions of Josephus’ works, which were often creatively adapted and expanded.
Josippon was for centuries thought to be the most important history of the Second Temple Period. Rashi, for example, considered it authoritative and assumed that it dated from the Second Temple Period itself. One of the manuscripts refers to a translation of the book by Joseph ben Gurion the priest, composed “in the year 885 after the Destruction” (i.e. 953 CE, 885 years after 68 CE), but fragments from the Cairo Geniza imply that the work is earlier. Josephus was wrongly identified with this Joseph and is sometimes presented as the book’s author. The impact of Josippon among Jews and non-Jews is significant. It was translated into many languages and functioned as the history of the Second Temple period for many people over the course of a millennium. After reading a shortened version of the book, Oliver Cromwell allowed the Jews to settle in England again. Scholars have even argued that Josippon was a prominent source of inspiration for Jewish nationalism. The book’s historical significance can hardly be overstated. Yet scholarly assessments of the work remain few and far-between.
This conference constitutes a major contribution to the interrelated academic subdisciplines of Josephus studies, Josippon studies, Jewish studies, Medieval studies, and the many fields of historical, textual, and literary scholarship invested in these areas. The sheer number of papers given on Josippon alone constitutes the largest historical collocation of Josippon scholarship at one place and time, so far as we know. The complementary areas of expertise represented by participating scholars lent the conference an unusual potential to help establish the state of the art across several key, distinct, yet closely-connected areas of study. By bringing scholars of Josephus, of Josippon, and of contiguous subjects into close conversation over a four-day period, we were able to clarify key issues regarding the state of the text of the Latin Josephus tradition, the current state of Josippon’s Hebrew text, the relationship between Josippon and its sources, the relationships between Josephus and his later inheritors, and the complicated issues of translation, manuscript studies, intertextuality, historical and socio-cultural context pertaining the Josephus and/or Josippon traditions. The conference enjoyed a good balance of senior, mid-career, and junior scholars, of men and women, of a variety of countries and institutions and disciplinary competencies. Scholars from six countries across time zones differing by ten hours came together with a number of other attendees, sometimes from even further afield. In addition, the Zoom format of this conference necessitated by Covid-19 allowed to include many other attendees in addition to conference presenters—well over a hundred people participated in the four-day event, and the conversations, arguments, and ideas generated appeared critical, collegial, and altogether valuable. The conveners see to the conference as having been an unmitigated success, and they look forward to the potential for future continuations of conversations begun here and to further disseminating the event’s scholarly content.
Event Programme (Papers, Masterclasses, Discussion Sections, Digital Expeditions)
Papers – the core contribution of this conference was comprised of 17 scholarly research papers presented by 19 scholars over the course of 5 paper sessions that took place during the conference. Each session was composed of a cluster of three or four papers thematically correlated in some way. Each paper was allotted 45 minutes total, and papers usually took around 30 minutes to present, which left 15 minutes for question and discussion, in addition to open discussion sessions that occurred mid-day and end-of-day for each conference day as a way of allowing all attendees to engage with presenters and with each other and to facilitate the sustained and continued discussion of important questions that arose. Each paragraph below describes briefly the contents and highlights of each of the 5 paper sessions, but note that this represents a far from exhaustive overview of all the ideas conveyed and debated.
Session 1 (Monday, August 23, 17:00-20:00) was unique at the conference as the only session to deal with Josephus proper, i.e. his Greek-writings and first-century context, as opposed to his literary afterlives from antiquity through the Middle Ages into modernity. By design, Steve Mason’s (Groningen) leading paper helped structure the conference by offering considerable and lively collection of methodological suggestions for studying Josephus, one which also provided helpful application for the study of texts within Josephus’ later reception history as well. The key takeaway of Mason’s talk is reflected in his paper title: “Interpreting Josephus Contextually: Composition, Audience, Messages, & Meaning.” Mason suggested that interpreting an (ancient) author contextually necessarily involves recourse to considering composition, audience, messages, and meaning, and used this method to address the stakes of what literary historians do in practice. Two examples of such practice came next, when Silvia Castelli (Leiden) and Michael Avioz (Bar-Ilan) gave a two-part talk on “Josephus & Legislation: Exegesis and Language in Josephus’ Treatment of Law(s).” Castelli and Avioz presented complementary explorations of Josephus’ technical legal language, exploring the intersections of Josephus’ Greek and earlier biblical (Avioz) and Hellenic (Castelli) traditions. The law and legal language in Josephus has been a major topic in recent years, and Castelli and Avioz helped distill some of the discussion and made helpful contributions of method and content. With Martin Goodman’s (Oxford) paper on “English versions of Josephus in the nineteenth century: omissions and additions,” participants jumped forward a couple of millennia and were treated to a fascinating discussion of the politics and economics of producing, marketing, and even editing Josephus’ writing following William Whiston’s 1732 translation of Josephus into English (a translation still often cited today, interestingly enough). This paper, developing in some part out of the Oxford Josephus Reception Project of which Goodman has been a foundational part, provided a wealth of data and highly significant, and sometimes surprising, perspective on how Josephus was produced and consumed as literature within and around the 1800s. Equally enlightening, and similarly surprising, was Meir Ben Sahar’s (Shaanan College) talk on “The Jewish historian and the Israeli student: Josephus in the Israeli education system.” This paper marked one of several points in the conference where non-Israelis were treated to a rare glimpse into world of Josephus within the discourse of culture and modern Israel. By the end of Session 1, all present has been taken from Josephus’ original first-century context of writing and his Greek works into Josephus’ presence in the modern world of text-printing and education. The rest of the conference was to deal with the several thousand years in between.
Session 2 (Tuesday, August 24, 14:00-16:15) began with what must be considered one of the most important contributions of the conference: Saskia Dönitz (Frankfurt) gave the leading talk on the state of Sefer Yosippon’s Hebrew text vis-à-vis the standard critical edition, used by everyone in Yosippon studies, by David Flusser in 1978-1981, in her paper, “Sefer Yosippon and Its Hebrew Manuscripts: The State of the Question.” Dönitz clarified and built upon findings she has made in over a decade of work on Yosippon, stating that the text does not have three recensions (A, B, C) as Flusser posited but rather at least four. More importantly, Dönitz provided an overview and commentary on the oldest known strata of Yosippon, which are not represented in Flusser’s critical edition but rather which come from one twelfth-century manuscript and a number of fragments from the Cairo Geniza. Dönitz’s contribution establishes a baseline for all scholars who will work on Yosippon’s (earliest) Hebrew text in future. Next Jan Willem van Henten (Amsterdam) was the first to bring participants to the narrative of Yosippon itself in his talk: “Sefer Yosippon 15 (טו): The Maccabean Mother & Her Seven Sons.” Van Henten here compared Yosippon’s iteration of the well-known story familiar from 2 Maccabees 7 and 4 Maccabees with those texts (in Greek and Latin) and with the many other Maccabees traditions that arose across the first thousand years of the Common Era. Van Henten clarified Yosippon’s sources (finding evidence only for engagement with 2 Maccabees) and initiated a conference theme by discussing the literary character and narrative structure reflected in Yosippon’s retelling of traditional stories. These themes found continuation in Carson Bay’s (Bern) paper entitled “Killing Matthias: De Excidio 5.22 & Sefer Yosippon 81 (פא).” Bay’s contribution was to make a close reading between the Latin of one of Yosippon’s major sources—“Pseudo-Hegesippus” or On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De excidio Hierosolymitano)—and Yosippon’s Hebrew itself. Through this comparison he posited a general theory about how Yosippon’s reworked its sources writ large and how we should therefore understading Yosippon moving forward. This second session tackled subject matter not closely studied before, and thus added to some of the academic bedrock that emerged from this conference both for the study of Yosippon and for the study of its Latin sources.
Session 3 (Tuesday, August 24, 16:45-19:45) marked a kind of borderline in the conference themes between the study of Yosippon proper (and its sources) and the study of its various intertexts and receptions. The leading paper of David Levenson (Florida State) and Carson Bay (Bern) was on “Yosippon & the Latin Josephus Manuscript Tradition: Exploring Flusser’s Suggestion.” This paper addressed a critical scholarly question: can we guess at which manuscripts the author of Yosippon might have used when sourcing the Latin Jewish Antiquities and Pseudo-Hegesippus? This paper assessed and problematized a suggestion made by David Flusser half a century ago and laid out the way forward for what manuscripts scholars might look to for the closest approximate to what Yosippon’s Latin text(s) might have been while also showing how Yosippon sometimes used these two Latin Josephan sources together in his narrative. Next, Ruth Nisse’s (Wesleyan) paper on “The Beginning of the End: Yosippon’s ‘Aeneid’ and Adso’s Apocalypse” provided an important critical literary turn in conference discussions. Nisse suggested that Yosippon can be read as an eschatological text in some way when portions of it, particularly its second chapter which draws on Vergil’s Aeneid, are read alongside contemporaneous apocalyptic texts. Nisse’s suggestion constitutes one of many new and interesting trajectories for research that emerged from the fertile soil of conference presentations. Another exciting turn came in Yael Feldman’s (NYU) paper on “Whose Masada? A Celebrated Jewish/Israeli Poem from Josephus to Yosippon.” In it Feldman suggested that the well-known Jewish poem Masada took as its inspiration not only Josephus’ account of that final scene of the Roman-Jewish War, but Yosippon’s quite different record. Is this a way that Yosippon’s legacy snuck into modern Israeli culture, in which it has often been subordinated to Josephus’ own writing? The last paper in this session came from Steven Bowman (Cincinnati), one of the major voices in Yosippon studies over the past 30+ years. His paper, “Yosippon as Innovative and Creative Historian,” provided some helpful context for Yosippon’s place and situation of writing, and touched upon a series of important passages in the narrative, opening up discussion in the conference in this session and hereafter. Overall, this session witnessed not only a turn toward the reception of Yosippon after its initial writing, but also a growing momentum in questions and discussion from fellow presenters and attendees.
Session 4 (Wednesday, August 25, 16:30-18:45) took a decided turn toward Yosippon’s reception, beginning with the paper of Nadia Zeldes (Ben-Gurion) on “The Christian Reception of Sefer Yosippon.” This paper helped frame how Yosippon figured in Jewish-Christian relations in the Renaissance and elsewhere, and provided fruitful fodder for the many scholars present who deal with Yosippon’s later iterations and uses across Western Europe. In a related vein, Daniel Stein Kokin (Greifswald & Arizona State) next talked on “Sefer Yosippon & the Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela,” exploring a critical but understudied issue: the nature of Benjamin of Tudela’s use of Yosippon, a commonly-ceded source relationship. Stein Kokin assesses where this argument came from in the history of scholarship and its merits, locating major problems in common assumptions and eventually showing that Benjamin often appears to have engaged independently with other traditions in passages usually chalked up to Yosippon’s influence. This marks a major contribution to scholarship on Yosippon’s reception. Katja Vehlow (Jewish Theological Seminary) followed with a paper on “The Use of Yosippon and Ibn Daud in Early Modern Christian Writings,” expanding upon her foundational work on Ibn Daud’s famous Hebrew historiography. Vehlow helped attendees further understand how Yosippon fits with other Jewish-Hebrew literature in shaping the Medieval historiographical imagination while also critically assessing how these texts fared among Christian texts of the Early Modern period. This session was the first to fully engage one of the already-lively arenas of Yosippon scholarship, i.e. work concerning Yosippon’s own reception in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period.
Session 5 (Thursday, August 26, 17:00-19:45) was the last regular session of the conference, and in certain ways the icing on the cake of an altogether enjoyable and stimulating event. For, in this session attendees were treated to several introductions to Yosippon’s reception in three different Semitic-language traditions that are not commonly known and whose study has only recently come underway. Things began with Ayub Naser (Groningen) on “Josephus and Yosippon in Arabic Historiography: The Use of Sources in Islamic and non-Islamic Josephan Text Traditions.” Naser lent conference-goers singular insight into the fascinating passage of Yosippon from Hebrew (that of a Jew from Southern Italy) into Arabic translation (made by Coptic Christians) and Judeo-Arabic. Contextualizing this tradition of textual movement within the salient cultural and linguistic matrices, Naser shed expert light on the fascinating movement of Josephus and Yosippon into the Islamic and Islam-contiguous literary- and thought-worlds of Arabic literature around the turn of the first millennium CE and after. Next, Yonatan Binyam (UCLA) provided an expert introduction and overview to the “Zena Ayhud (‘History of the Jews’): The Text and Context of the Gəʿəz (or Ethiopic) Version of Sefer Yosippon.” Fittingly, this text developed out of the Arabic and Judeo-Arabic traditions discussed by Naser, and Binyam put forth a wealth of insight both broad and deep into the Zena Ayhud, both as a piece of historiography within Ethiopia’s Medieval literary-religious milieu and as a continuation of Josephus, through Pseudo-Hegesippus and Yosippon, into subsequent Medieval traditions. Binyam’s work represents the cutting edge of scholarship on this little-studied text, itself part of a larger Ethiopic corpus which is only beginning to receive serious scholarly attention as representative of a rich, deep, old cultural tradition. Finally, Andrea Schatz (King’s College London) spoke on “History and Counter-History in the Ashkenazic Vernacular: The Yiddish Yosippon.” Schatz provided a fitting conclusion to the conference’s formal papers, as her talk dealt with Josephus’ fate in Jewish literature amidst Christian contexts in pre-twentieth century Europe, spanning the gap between the chronological themes represented by the conference’s content, spanning from Flavius Josephus’ antiquity to the modern state of Israel in the twentieth century.
As noted, the paper sessions were interspersed with coffee breaks and open discussion sections where ongoing questions and issues were often brought up and discussed. These discussions also spilled over into a web of email correspondences between various participants. Some of the items that arose were of a rather incidental nature: for example, in Levenson-and-Bay’s paper the issue was brought whether Yosippon’s author had some special medical knowledge or interest given the rather graphic physiological description of illness evinced in a certain passage of that work. This was debated at several junctures, and other telling intertexts were brought up; subsequently it has been noted that David Flusser discussed Yosippon’s apparent medical expertise in the second volume of his edition, but without paying due attention to at least one important passage. Other issues became themes early on in the conference and cropped up routinely at multiple junctures during paper sessions, open discussions, and elsewhere. Most prominent among these, perhaps, was an issue first highlighted by Schatz following Mason’s conference-initiating paper regarding the distinction between how and why Yosippon’s author engaged its sources in a particular way and what exactly that author sought to convey (and to whom) in his own context of writing and discourse. The question has important methodological implications and also embodies a central distinction that, while by no means dividing discussion at the conference, does seem to represent disparate approaches to Yosippon in practice (largely by disciplinary accident): namely, the distinction between a ‘backward-facing’ approach to Yosippon that is interested in the earliest recoverable Hebrew text and where it came from (i.e. its sources, influences, precursors) and the more ‘forward-facing’ approach of scholarship that looks at Yosippon and its contemporary and later environments of production and reproduction, consumption, and contestation. It is hoped that this conference will serve to encourage scholarship in both directions as time progresses, and that scholars doing both things will find ways to engage with work on the ‘other side,’ and perhaps even to deconstruct the borderline at times. Another paradigmatic comment came in the final discussion section on August 26, and it was most clearly articulated by one of the many non-presenter participants that was present and active for the entirety of the conference. The comment was actually a question, whose gist was: “how should we understanding Yosippon? Given what we have heard about its use of sources, and later uses of it, what was Yosippon doing as a historiographical text? As purveyor of Josephus-based tradition? How can we classify or categorize it as a piece of literature and contribution to intellectual history and moment in Jewish/Hebrew literary history?” This multivalent question still stands after the conference, but this conference has undeniably provided a host of necessary analytical tools and perspectives for pursuing a clearer understanding of Yosippon.
Masterclasses – Before the first paper session, the conference’s actual beginning came in the form of the first of two masterclasses that occupied space during the conference. These events, initially aimed at graduate students and interested parties in Amsterdam, in the digital platform actually came to draw a larger audience of students, interested non-specialists, and experts and became one of the most valuable components of the conference’s busy four days.
Masterclass 1 one had two parts, led by Steve Mason and Michael Avioz. These each dealt with the intricacies of translating Josephus’ Greek into modern languages, English and Hebrew respectively. This masterclass was particularly timely because the ongoing Brill Josephus Project, including new English translations and the first full-length commentaries on each book of each of Josephus’ four extant works is still ongoing under Mason’s editorship, and also because a new modern Hebrew translation of Josephus is a deeply-felt desideratum. Both classes presented clear and simple overviews of the kinds of problems and issues that arise in translation, and each contextualized the translation of Josephus into modern languages in terms of history, region, and culture. Attendees came away with some very valuable insights into what translating Josephus responsibly looks like, and where that industry sits in the contemporary scholarly and popular landscape.
Masterclass 2 was a special offering by the SNF-sponsored research team at the University of Bern, Lege Iosephum! Ways of Reading Josephus in the Latin Middle Ages (https://www.legejosephum.unibe.ch/). It aimed to provide a general overview of Josephus’ reception in Latin and Hebrew between the 4th and 10th centuries—i.e. of the Latin Josephus tradition, including Pseudo-Hegesippus, in addition to Sefer Yosippon—including treatment of non- and paratextual aspects of such traditions. The class began with the most up-to-date overview of the massive manuscript and text tradition of the Latin Jewish Antiquities (and Jewish War) by the leading authorities on this issue, David Levenson and Tom Martin (Holy Cross). Next, Subproject 1 within the Lege Iosephum team—comprised of Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich, Anthony Ellis, and Judith Mania—gave a summary of the paratextual and codicological aspects of Latin Josephus manuscripts, showing how much richer the Latin Josephus tradition is than the simple transmission of text itself. Then one of the researchers from Subproject 3, Lena Tröger, introduced attendees to one of the more significant aspects of Josephus’ influence in the Latin Middle Ages, i.e. that to be found in the History of Jerusalem by the 11th-12th century French cleric-author-scholar and witness to the First Crusade Fulcher of Chartes (1059-1127). This preceded a presentation by Carson Bay (Subproject 2) which constituted a simple introduction to Pseudo-Hegesippus, Sefer Yosippon, and the relationship between. The final two parts of the masterclass took a step away from the textual world. First, Katharina Heyden (Subproject 3) dealt with the enigmatic tradition of Josephus in medieval art and manuscript illuminations, arguing for a more fluid and instrumentalist view of the visual use of the great Jewish historian. Finally, René Bloch (Subproject 2) gave a lesson on the Copenhagen bust erroneously identified as a visage of Josephus, presenting a unique and fascinating angle on Josephus’ appropriation and presentation in recent popular culture.
The masterclasses were well-attended and much-liked. Each contain an hour or more of pedagogy but left considerable time for questions and discussion. The classes provided a context for conversation on some more basic issues that are critical for understanding current scholarship on Josephus, Yosippon, and related things and were a unique learning opportunity for those present, as they made accessible a number of content-areas that stand at the forefront of modern Josephus-related scholarship.
In addition to the masterclasses, Tessa Rajak (Reading, Oxford) gave a special presentation on the Oxford Josephus Reception Project (https://josephus.orinst.ox.ac.uk/) as well as her own current work on Josephus and Yosippon. This talk bridged the gap between full-on academic presentations and the longer masterclasses, and provided a good opportunity for attendees to encounter (and even participate in!) one of the major research efforts into Josephus’ reception-history in recent times (that of the Oxford project), as well as to hear from one of the scholars whose voice has been most prominent in Josephus studies over the last forty years.
Discussion Sections – The discussion sections of the conference, comprised of open coffee breaks (30 minutes each) and longer sessions where anyone could talk about anything related to the conference, were a good complement to the formal paper sessions. These allowed presenters and attendees to come together at their leisure to socialize, discuss other things, and to continue conversations begun elsewhere. One particular item of interest from these sessions was the opportunity to discuss Steven Bowman’s forthcoming translation of Sefer Yosippon into English (Wayne State University Press, anticipated August 2022), the first modern English translation of the work (based on Flusser’s text) and a major boon to scholarship. The announcement of this long-anticipated project at the conference was a serendipitous convergence of timing indeed.
Digital Expeditions – One special and enjoyable addition to the conference came from two separate digital expeditions that were open to all attendees and which pertains to two different features of historical Judaica within Amsterdam. Expedition 1 was a virtual tour of Vlooienburg, the old Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam, facilitated by the state-of-the-art 4D technology of the 4D Lab UvA administered by Jitte Waagen and Tijm Lanjouw. This one-of-kind opportunity allowed participants to take their own personal avatars around the digitally-reconstructed part of the city and enjoy a show-and-tell by the lab’s avatar guide. Expedition 2 was an audio-visual tour and discussion session of the Ets Haim Library at the heart of Amsterdam’s Jewish Cultural Quarter led by the library’s curator, Heide Warncke. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the rich history of Amsterdam’s historical Jewish communities came alive to participants during this digital experience, as they were given a front-row seat to behold the holdings, layout, and history of one of the great Judaica libraries of Western Europe. These expeditions added a special touch to the conference, hopefully helping to make up for our not being able to meet together in person (and indeed, more people were able to attend these outings, and the conference, than would have been able to otherwise) and expanding what the conference was able to offer attendees both intellectually and experientially.
Outcomes & Output
The outcomes of the conference were several and significant. First, a number of collaborations and professional network connections were made throughout the duration of the event. In addition, the venue provided a widely-publicized and well-attended platform for a number of junior (and senior) scholars to present the fruition of dissertations and current work, as well as an expedient way to advertise current major research projects at the University of Bern and the University of Oxford. Academically, the conference paved the way for future research into Josephus and Yosippon by providing clear overviews of the state of the Latin text of the Latin Josephus tradition, the state of the Hebrew text of Sefer Yosippon, and the basic features of how Yosippon related to its sources linguistically and literarily. In general, a great deal of the conference content explored portions of Yosippon hardly touched, and scarcely known, by scholars heretofore and/or established key information pertaining to the study of (Josephus and) Yosippon that has not been widely available previously.
Discussions emerged, and are ongoing, regarding future formal collaborations stemming from this conference, perhaps even a ‘sequel’ in coming years. Several smaller workshops or meetings will grow out of this conference, enlisting certain of its participants and building upon research first shared at it, including a small workshop on Yosippon and its Latin sources to take place at the University of Bern in early 2022.
The output for most of the scholarly material presented at the conference is planned to come in a volume edited by the conference conveners, hopefully in Brill’s Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series. This volume should represent a major landmark in Josephus studies and even more so for the study of Sefer Yosippon, as it will be the most substantial collection of scholarship on Yosippon to appear together in one place to date. It is hoped that this volume, like the conference, will stimulate new and current researchers working on Josephus and/or Yosippon to pave new ways forward, to explore new questions, and to continue to grow our knowledge of this important tradition.