Emending Josephus to Conform to the Mishnah—A Century Later

Although Benedictus Niese (1849–1910) may have expected his three-volume political history of the Hellenistic period, which appeared during the decade from 1893 to 1903¹ and seems to have propelled him from a chair of classical philology in Marburg to one of ancient history in Halle, to be his most famous work, today he is mostly remembered for an earlier project: his seven-volume critical edition of Josephus's works, published between 1887 and 1895.² The degree to which that edition enlivened the field and engendered scholarship may easily be seen in Heinz Schreckenberg's chronological index of publications on Josephus, which needs as much space for the quarter-century following Niese's edition as it did for almost a century before it.³ Here I focus on one item in that flood of scholarship: a brief "critical notice" in JQR at the turn of the twentieth century, in which one M. Simon suggests that a certain passage in Josephus's War be emended to make it conform to the Mishnah.⁴ The typicality of this type of work for its day is illustrated impressively by the fact that in the very same year another translator of the War, Philipp Kohout, citing the Mishnah, independently suggested the same emendation.⁵ It seems that such short and focused discussions as Simon's are particularly apt places to look, as the present editors of JQR graciously invited me to do, for illustration of what has changed in scholarship over the past century.

The passage in question, in War 5.236, is the first of two sentences with which Josephus ends his account of the high priest's vestments described in Exodus 28. After stating in §230 that the high priest did not always officiate but did so frequently on Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals, and then detailing in §§231–235 the eight vestments which he wore when officiating, the received text of §236 goes on to note that:

ταύτην μὲν οὖν τὴν ἐσθῆτα οὐϰ ἐφόϱει τὸν ἄλλον χϱόνoν, λιτοτέϱαν δ' ἀνελάμβανεν ὃποτε δ' εἰσίοι εἰς τὸ ἄδυτον⁶

Josephus then ends his discussion by adding another sentence that explains that the last-named event, viz., the high priest's entry into the inner sanctum, happened "only once a year, on the day when it is the custom for us all to fast for God," that is, on the Day of Atonement.

Concerning the sentence cited in Greek, Simon argued as follows:

1. 1. Since the text consists of three clauses (which I indicated by inserting two commas into the Greek text), of which the second and the third open with a de that apparently contrasts each clause with the one that precedes it, the plain meaning of the sentence must be as William Whiston rendered and punctuated it in his classic eighteenth-century translation: "These vestments the high priest did not wear at other times, but a more plain habit; he only did so [i.e., he only wore the fancier garments, D.R.S.] when he went into the most sacred part of the temple"—namely, on the Day of Atonement.⁷

2. 2. Given the fact that, as noted, earlier in his discussion Josephus had stated that the high priest also served on other occasions, §236 must mean that he wore plainer garments when he officiated on those other occasions, and wore the eight especially ornate vestments only when entering the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.

3. 3. Josephus's testimony concerning this issue diametrically contradicts the mishnaic tractate Yoma, which says the high priest wore the eight vestments (which it terms "golden vestments") whenever officiating except when entering the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur—upon which most special occasion he wore, instead, simpler garments containing no gold.⁸

4. 4. "That the Mishna should be mistaken on such a point," Simon asserts, "is hardly possible; nor can we any more suppose that Josephus should have suffered from a lapse of memory in a matter with which he must have been so familiar."⁹ Therefore, the received Greek text of this sentence must have become corrupted in transmission, and emendation is needed...