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The open access publication of this book was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem, an anonymous Latin Christian text from Late Antiquity (c. 375 CE), paraphrased Flavius Josephus’ Greek Jewish War (ca. 75 CE) to reinterpret the Roman-Jewish War (66-70 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple (70 CE) as proof that God had abandoned the Jews (because they had rejected Jesus Christ). No Jewish alternative to this supersessionist historiography existed for hundreds of years. Then, around 900 CE, the anonymous Hebrew Book of Yosippon rewrote this history anew, based on the narrative of On the Destruction Jerusalem. This monograph provides the first extensive comparison of these texts, showing how the Book of Yosippon biblicized, theologized, and Judaized its Latin source, overwriting the Christian narrative of late-Second Temple Judaism and underwriting a new version of that story. In so doing, the Book of Yosippon resurrected the spirit of Hellenistic Judaism, reclaiming Jewish history for the Jews in the Early Middle Ages.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem, an anonymous Latin Christian text from Late Antiquity (c. 375 CE), paraphrased Flavius Josephus’ Greek Jewish War (ca. 75 CE) to reinterpret the Roman-Jewish War (66-70 CE) and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple (70 CE) as proof that God had abandoned the Jews (because they had rejected Jesus Christ). No Jewish alternative to this supersessionist historiography existed for hundreds of years. Then, around 900 CE, the anonymous Hebrew Book of Yosippon rewrote this history anew, based on the narrative of On the Destruction Jerusalem. This monograph provides the first extensive comparison of these texts, showing how the Book of Yosippon biblicized, theologized, and Judaized its Latin source, overwriting the Christian narrative of late-Second Temple Judaism and underwriting a new version of that story. In so doing, the Book of Yosippon resurrected the spirit of Hellenistic Judaism, reclaiming Jewish history for the Jews in the Early Middle Ages.
Price: $110.00
Publisher: Brill
Imprint: Brill
Publication Date:
17 September 2026
ISBN: 9789004759107
Format: Hardcover
Carson Bay is Associate Professor of Classics & Biblical Studies at the University of Austin (UATX). His publications include the monograph Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity: The Historiography, Exemplarity, and Anti-Judaism of Pseudo-Hegesippus (Cambridge University Press, 2023).