The Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus. Study Edition (2 vols)

Brill has just re-issued the concordance heralded in 1984, at the time of the emergence of its final volume, as a “major achievement” (Feldman in ANRW, II.21.2). The original five volumes (four of concordance, and a Namenwoerterbuch) have been compressed into two — through no diminution of print size, simply a somewhat lighter bond of paper — and reproduced verbatim, with the briefest of publisher’s prefaces and with erratum slips bound in. (This last makes for the slight oddity that the first page of emendanda is replicated on consecutive pages.) It is a pity that the opportunity was not seized to correct the English of Rengstorf’s Introduction to the first edition: it is nowhere obscure, but often an inelegant “translationese”, which does a disservice to the care with which he produced the concordance. His concern throughout is to provide the most serviceable guide to the reader of Josephus — be it in typographical arrangement of entries or in suggested interpretations. Brill has been faithful to this concern in its exact reproduction of the text; I am sorry they did not extend their own preface a little to sketch the extraordinary florescence of Josephus studies since the early 1980s, surely not unconnected with the availability of this concordance. The work of the Internationales Josephus-Kolloqium, at least, deserves mention. But this is nonetheless a very welcome reprint.