Editing Josephus (section)

=== Literary influence and translations ===
Josephus was a very popular writer with Christians in the 4th century and beyond as an independent source to the events before, during, and after the life of [[Jesus of Nazareth]].  Josephus was always accessible in the Greek-reading Eastern Mediterranean.  His works were translated into Latin, but often in abbreviated form such as [[Pseudo-Hegesippus]]'s 4th century Latin version of ''The Jewish War'' ({{lang|la|Bellum Judaicum}}).  Christian interest in ''The Jewish War'' was largely out of interest in the downfall of the Jews and the Second Temple, which was widely considered by Christians to be [[Jewish deicide|divine punishment for the crime of killing Jesus]].  Improvements in printing technology (the [[Gutenberg Press]]) led to his works receiving a number of new translations into the vernacular languages of Europe, generally based on the Latin versions.  Only in 1544 did a version of the standard Greek text become available in French, edited by the Dutch [[Humanism|humanist]] [[Arnoldus Arlenius]]. The first English translation, by [[Thomas Lodge]], appeared in 1602, with subsequent editions appearing throughout the 17th century. The 1544 Greek edition formed the basis of the 1732 English translation by [[William Whiston]], which achieved enormous popularity in the English-speaking world. It was often the book—after the Bible—that Christians most frequently owned. Whiston claimed that certain works by Josephus had a similar style to the [[Pauline Epistles|Epistles of St. Paul]].{{sfn|Maier|1999|p=1070}}<ref name="Josephus-2017">{{Cite book |last=Josephus |first=Flavius |title=The Jewish War |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |page=xxix–xxxv |orig-date=c. 75}}.  Information is from the Introduction, by [[Martin Goodman (historian)|Martin Goodman]].</ref>  Later editions of the Greek text include that of [[Benedikt Niese]], who made a detailed examination of all the available manuscripts, mainly from France and Spain. [[Henry St. John Thackeray]] and successors such as [[Ralph Marcus]] used Niese's version for the [[Loeb Classical Library]] edition widely used today.

On the Jewish side, Josephus was far more obscure, as he was perceived as a traitor.  Rabbinical writings for a millennium after his death (e.g. the [[Mishnah]]) almost never call out Josephus by name, although they sometimes tell parallel tales of the same events that Josephus narrated.  An Italian Jew writing in the 10th century indirectly brought Josephus back to prominence among Jews: he authored the ''[[Yosippon]]'', which paraphrases Pseudo-Hegesippus's Latin version of ''The Jewish War'', a Latin version of ''Antiquities'', as well as other works.  The epitomist also adds in his own snippets of history at times.  Jews generally distrusted Christian translations of Josephus until the ''[[Haskalah]]'' ("Jewish Enlightenment") in the 19th century, when sufficiently "neutral" vernacular language translations were made. [[Kalman Schulman]] finally created a Hebrew translation of the Greek text of Josephus in 1863, although many rabbis continued to prefer the Yosippon version.  By the 20th century, Jewish attitudes toward Josephus had softened, as he gave the Jews a respectable place in classical history. Various parts of his work were reinterpreted as more inspiring and favorable to the Jews than the Renaissance translations by Christians had been.  Notably, the last stand at Masada (described in ''The Jewish War''), which past generations had deemed insane and fanatical, received a more positive reinterpretation as an inspiring call to action in this period.<ref name="Josephus-2017" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rajak |first=Tessa |title=Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East: In the Crucible of Empire |date=2016 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-33017-7 |editor-last=Collins |editor-first=John J. |editor-link=John J. Collins |pages=221–223; 230–233 |chapter=Josephus, Jewish Resistance, and the Masada Myth |doi=10.1163/9789004330184_015 |author-link=Tessa Rajak |editor-last2=Manning |editor-first2=J. G. |editor-link2=Joseph Manning (historian)}}</ref>

The standard ''editio maior'' of the various Greek manuscripts is that of [[Benedictus Niese]], published 1885–95. The text of ''Antiquities'' is damaged in some places. In the ''Life'', Niese follows mainly manuscript P, but refers also to AMW and R. Henry St. John Thackeray for the [[Loeb Classical Library]] has a Greek text also mainly dependent on P. André Pelletier edited a new Greek text for his translation of ''Life''. The ongoing Münsteraner Josephus-Ausgabe of [[Münster University]] will provide a new critical apparatus. Late Old Slavonic translations of the Greek also exist, but these contain a large number of Christian interpolations.{{sfn|Bowman|1987|p=373}}