Acknowledgements

This volume’s genesis may be traced back to when two conferences merged in the Spring of 2020. Jan Willem and Michael were planning a conference, “From Josephus to Yosippon,” to take place in Amsterdam in August 2021. At the same time, Carson was planning with René Bloch a different conference, “The Book of Sefer Yosippon: Past, Present, and Future,” to take place in Bern in August 2021. As both sets of organizers began inviting many of the same scholars to the respective conferences, they quickly learned of each other’s plans and soon joined forces to create “From Josephus to Yosippon and Beyond,” an event that gathered two dozen scholars, junior and senior, from half a dozen countries to discuss Josephus, Sefer Yosippon, and more across four days. Moved online (via Zoom) due to Covid-19, the conference nevertheless proved a major success, drawing over a hundred participants in addition to the presenters and stimulating a wealth of questions, conversations, and debates over questions old and new.

While the conference did not take place in Amsterdam, as initially planned, we remain grateful to our original institutional sponsors: the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam School of Historical Studies & Chair of Religious Studies; Bar-Ilan University, Faculty of Jewish Studies & Vice-President for Research; the University of Bern, Institut für Judaistik; the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF); and the European Association of Jewish Studies (EAJS), the latter of which had generously awarded us a grant to fund the conference. (This grant did end up funding special portions of the event, in addition to the conference website.) We also owe our thanks to the organizations and groups that hosted special portions of the conference: Jitte Waagen and Tijm Lanjouw of 4D Lab UvA facilitated a virtual tour of Vlooienburg, Amsterdam’s Old Jewish Quarter; Heide Warncke, Curator of the Ets Haim Library in the heart of Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter, led an audio-visual tour of the library and facilitated a discussion session; and Tessa Rajak gave a special presentation on the Oxford Josephus Reception Project. In addition, the conference included two masterclasses aimed at students and a broader public: for the first, Michael was joined by Steve Mason to lead a class on translating Josephus into modern languages; for the second, Carson was joined by David Levenson, Tom Martin, Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich, Anthony Ellis, Judith Mania, Lena Tröger, Katharina Heyden, and René Bloch to conduct a class on Josephus’ reception history, Pseudo-Hegesippus, and Sefer Yosippon. Finally, Sara Moscone served as a session moderator, and Nienke Groskamp, based in Amsterdam, provided invaluable assistance in the administration of conference details.

This volume’s contents are drawn primarily from the essays first presented at this conference, augmented by further pieces solicited from Erich Gruen, Kenneth Atkinson, David Edwards, and Ursula Westwood. We thank these latter scholars for their willingness to help fill out this volume. In terms of publication, we are deeply indebted to the University of Bern, the European Association of Jewish Studies, and Brill for all generously contributing to the funding necessary to make this volume Open Access. We thank our anonymous peer reviewers for their careful work in assessing such a diverse and hefty volume. We thank the series editors, René Bloch and Karina Martin Hogan, for accepting this volume and shepherding its progress so diligently. And we thank the staff at Brill, including Katelyn Chin, Katerina Sofianou, and Nitzan Shalev, for their exemplary work in bringing this volume to completion.

Finally, each of the three editors has his own, individual thanks to express.

Carson would like to thank his Bern team, the members of the SNF project “Lege Josephum! Ways of Reading Josephus in the Latin Middle Ages”: Gerlinde Huber-Rebenich, René Bloch, Katharina Heyden, Anthony Ellis, Judith Mania, Lena Tröger, Sara Moscone, Patricia Berchtel, and Melanie Ammeter. All of these people were instrumental in the planning and running of this conference and in the general support of my work in Bern. In particular, I owe my thanks to René Bloch for his unflagging support and guidance as my supervisor and mentor in Bern from 2019 to 2023, and to Anthony Ellis and Judith Mania for being such energizing office mates and conversation partners during those years. I would also like to add how much I have appreciated working with my senior colleagues as a co-editor on this volume. Jan Willem received his PhD the year I was born, and Michael a year before I graduated high school. In the process of editorial collaboration I have benefitted not a little from the many decades of scholarly experience that these my two co-editors have in relation to my comparative youth. Additionally, I would be remiss if were not to thank Lindsay (my wife), Elizabeth (my daughter), Jack (my son), Tuck (my dog), and Jesus Christ (my boss) for the various forms of support they have lent, and lend, to me.

Jan Willem would like to warmly thank his co-organizers and co-editors Carson and Michael for their collegiality and extremely efficient collaboration, as well as Wendy Pezarro, the managerial director of the Department of History, European Studies and Religion at UvA, for her unrelenting help with financial matters.

Michael would like to thank his colleague, Dr. Meir Ben Shahar, who worked together with him on organizing the Newe Ilan conference on Josephus back in April 2019, and to the faculty of Jewish studies at Bar-Ilan.

Together, we three have benefitted from conversation and mutual support from the initial conceptualization of our joint conference through its planning and administration to the collecting, editing, and now publishing of the essays presented here. We are gratified to offer this volume, free of charge, to the wider scholarly community (and beyond!) as a series of essays that represent the state of the art as regards Josephus, Sefer Yosippon, and their respective sources, contexts, and receptions.

Carson Bay, Jan Willem van Henten and Michael Avioz

Kennesaw, GA / Amsterdam / Ramat-Gan, 14 December 2023