Bibliography
| Title: Interpretative Traditions in the "Hypomnestikon Biblion Ioseppou" (Vol. I and II) Type: Thesis Year: 1994 Abstract: "Hypomnestikon Biblion Ioseppou, a handbook of the Bible and Christianity, is divided into 166 chapters in the best extant manuscript. Most of its chapters have a title in the form of a question, followed by an answer in the form of a list. The dissertation's first chapter is an introduction. Chapter 2 describes the manuscript tradition of the Hypomnestikon, and Chapter 3 discusses the history of scholarship. Chapter 4 assesses the extent to which its author had a personal knowledge of Judaism. It concludes that the Hypomnestikon is a book produced from other books, all of which were transmitted in Christian circles. Chapter 5 contains an extensive discussion of the history of scholarship on Hippolytus of Rome and deals in particular with the theory of Pierre Nautin that the Chronicle (plus the Elenchos and De Universo) usually attributed to Hippolytus was actually written by a previously unknown Iosippos. This argument is significant since the appendices to the Chronicle formed the nucleus of the Hypomnestikon. Nautin's hypothesis cannot be accepted as proposed. The relationship between the Chronicle and the Hypomnestikon is explored at greater length in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 deals with issues of genre and Chapter 8 with authorship and dating. The proposal of Voss, Moreau, and Goranson that Joseph of Tiberias authored the Hypomnestikon is firmly rejected. Joseph was a confidant of the Patriarch and fluent in Hebrew. This is inconsistent with the profile of the Hypomnestikon's author, who knew nearly no Hebrew and writes about Judaism based on study in a library. In addition, since the Hypomnestikon was written no earlier than 393 C.E. (and no later than 431), Joseph would have had to be more than 100 years old when he wrote the Hypomnestikon. This work is a hypomnestikon of Josephus because it contains material abstracted from Flavius Josephus, not because it was written by a Josephus. While the name of the true author cannot be determined, it is evident that he had access to a library, but was not a monk, was Apollinarian in theological outlook, and may have been a resident of Alexandria". Keywords: Reception of Josephus: Antiquity, Middle Ages, Early Modern Period |