The Slavonic Version of Josephus'sJewish War

The Slavonic version of Flavius Josephus's Jewish War is one of the most fascinating of all medieval translations. In his prologue to the Greek version, Josephus says that he himself was the author of two versions of Jewish War, one, written in his native tongue for a Jewish readership, the second, in Greek for a readership of Greeks and Romans. The chapter explores if the Slavonic Josephus, with its “additions” (some concerning the ministry of John the Baptist and a “wonderworker”), “omissions” from the extant Greek text, and different editorial perspective to the surviving Greek, could be an accurate representation of the first version of Jewish War, written by Josephus himself, and now lost in Greek. This chapter addresses this question, and examines how scholars have tried to explain the origin of this Slavonic work, which is not based on any extant Greek text.