Jewish historiography is the scholarly analysis of Jewish history in modern times. Jewish histories dealt with the history of the Jewish religion, and increasingly, national histories of the Jewish people. Each major publication was influenced by the political climates of their respective times.
Early modern histories
Talmudic authorities such as Joseph Caro discouraged the writing of history in the medieval and Renaissance era, and some attempts such as de Rossi were met with controversy. Josippon was a medieval source familiar to Hasdai ibn Shaprut and Ibn Hazm, probably composed by a pseudonymous "Joseph ben Gorion" in the 10th century based on the earlier Josephus, and called "Josephus of the Jews."
Some historians, acting on a desire to achieve Jewish equality, used Jewish history as a tool towards Jewish emancipation and religious reform. “Envisaging Jewish identity as essentially religious, they created a Jewish past that focused on Jewish religious rationality, and stressed Jewish integration within the societies in which Jews lived.” The Haskalah, or Jewish enlightenment, became interested in Sephardic Jewish sources and had an idea of historiography with an eye toward reformism.
De Rossi
Azariah dei Rossi (1511-1578) was an Italian-Jewish physician and a leading Torah scholar during the Italian Renaissance. Born in Mantua, he translated classical works such as Aristotle, and was known to quote Roman and Greek writers along with Hebrew in his work. His 1573 work Meor Einayim (Light of the Eyes) is an important early work of humanistic 16th century Jewish historiography. It was an attempt at a "New History" of the Jews and a work of ecclesiastical historiography, that adopted as its main tool, logical and philological criticism. De Rossi's work was critical of the rabbinical establishment and was met with condemnation and bans; Joseph Caro called for it to be burned.
Gans
David Gans (1541–1613) was a German-Jewish rabbi, astronomer/astrologer, historian, and chronicler whose comprehensive historical work Tzemach David (1592) was a pioneering study of Jewish history. Gans was a student of the Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, known as the Maharal, whom Yerushalmi says had the more profound ideas about Jewish history. Gans also corresponded with secular astronomers such as Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe, and drew on August Spangenberg. Gans' work is a hybrid of two parallel stories of world and Jewish history.
Basnage
Jacques Basnage (1653-1723), a Huguenot living in the Netherlands, was one of the first authors in the modern era to publish a comprehensive post-biblical history of the Jews. Basnage aimed to recount the story of the Jewish religion in his work Histoire des juifs, depuis Jésus-Christ jusqu'a present. Pour servir de continuation à l'histoire de Joseph (1706, in 15 volumes). Basnage heavily cites early modern and medieval Sephardic Jewish historians, such as Isaac Cardoso, Leon Modena, Abraham ibn Daud, and Yosef ha-Kohen (whom he called "the best historian this nation has had since Josephus"), but also drew on Christian sources such as Jesuit Juan de Mariana.
It was said to be the first comprehensive post-biblical history of Judaism and became the authoritative work for 100 years; Basnage was aware that no such work had ever been published before. Basnage sought to provide an objective account of the history of Judaism. His work was widely influential, and developed further by other authors such as Hannah Adams. Basnage's work is considered the birth of the "Christian historiography" of Jewish history.
Jost
Isaak Markus Jost (1793-1860) was the first Jewish author to publish a comprehensive post-biblical modern history of the Jews. His Geschichte der Israeliten seit den Zeit der Maccabaer, in 9 volumes (1820–1829), was the first comprehensive history of Judaism from Biblical to modern times by a Jewish author. It primarily focused on recounting the history of the Jewish religion.
Jost's history left "the differences among various phases of the Jewish past clearly apparent". He was criticized for this by later scholars such as Graetz, who worked to create an unbroken narrative.