Printing the Most Popular Ancient Greek Historian: The Elinor Eisemann Collection of Flavius Josephus

For centuries, Flavius Josephus was the most widely read Greek-language historian. Not unrelated, his book The Antiquities of the Jews was thought to contain the only non-Biblical source for the historicity of Jesus. The exhibit presents the history of book publishing through editions of Josephus, all of which come from the Elinor Eisemann Collection of Flavius Josephus. Covering more than five centuries of printing on three continents, the exhibit presents not only Josephus’s words, in many languages, but also the ways printers illustrated his books and the ways readers engaged with them.

Curator: Scott Libson, Special Collections Librarian, Divinity Library