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Judah Ibn Tibbon: the Cultural and Intellectual Profile of the “Father of the Hebrew Translation Movement”

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Judah Ibn Tibbon: the Cultural and Intellectual Profile of the “Father of the Hebrew Translation Movement” chapter 5 Judah Ibn Tibbon: the Cultural and Intellectual Profile of the “Father of the Hebrew Translation Movement” Reimund Leicht The most conventional starting points for any research project on the devel- opment of Hebrew terminology in medieval philosophy and science are undoubtedly the translators of the Tibbonide dynasty, and among them Judah He can 1.(אבי המעתיקים) ”Ibn Tibbon – the so-called “father of the translators be called “father” in the double sense of the word: he is the biological father, grandfather, and grandfather-in-law of the following generations of translators within his own family – his son Samuel Ibn Tibbon, his grandson Moses Ibn Tibbon, his grandson-in-law Jacob Anatoli, and his great-grandson Jacob b. Makhir – and the spiritual father of this fascinating, large-scale and enduring enterprise to acculturate philosophical and scientific learning from Arabic, and later also from Latin, culture into Judaism – a phenomenon which is compa- rable to the reception of Greek knowledge by the Arabs and the acculturation of Greco-Arabic knowledge in medieval scholasticism. Judah Ibn Tibbon is the author of what is generally considered to be the first substantial portion of translations of philosophical and scientific works from Judeo-Arabic into Hebrew – translations of classical works of Jewish thought for which he coined, it is generally assumed, a comprehensive set of Hebrew terms in the field of philosophy and science. He was, of course, not the first medieval Jewish author to write about philosophy and science in the Hebrew language. Hebrew authors like Abraham Ibn Ezra, Abraham Bar Ḥiyya, and also Maimonides or (in poetical garb) Salomon Ibn Gabirol preceded him, and a number of Hebrew translations may also have come into being before he started his first translation projects,2 but Judah’s efforts to translate some of the fundamental Judeo-Arabic works in Jewish thought into Hebrew can be seen 1 I owe my gratitude to Gad Freudenthal and Sarah Stroumsa, who carefully read earlier drafts of this paper and gave me many helpful comments. 2 Cf. the useful chronological list of medieval Hebrew translations in Mauro Zonta, “Medieval Hebrew Translations of Philosophical and Scientific Texts: A Chronological Table,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 17–73, and my own remarks below. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004412996_007 Judah Ibn Tibbon 105 as formative events, which initiated not only a new phase in the history of the Hebrew language, but also a new era in Jewish intellectual history. On the other hand, esteem for the “father of the translators” was never unqualified. Opinions are divided as to whether Judah Ibn Tibbon him- self or rather the group of scholars centered around Meshullam b. Jacob of Lunel were in fact the decisive motors for the reception of new knowledge in Provencal Judaism,3 and modern scholarship has correctly pointed out that the works translated by Judah Ibn Tibbon exclusively belong to Judeo-Arabic literature and that he had little, if any, interest in translating Arabic philoso- phy and science as such. Unlike his descendants, Judah does not seem to have composed any scientific or philosophical works of his own, and if he did so, they have not survived. On the other hand, the works he in fact translated were more of a religious, theological, and ethical character rather than works 3 Yisrael Ta-Shema, Rabbi Zeraḥyah ha-Levi Baʿal ha-Me’or u-Vne Ḥugo [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1992), 50–57, at 50, attributes the role of the “prime cause” of the whole movement to Meshullam b. Jacob, whereas Isadore Twersky, “Aspects of the Social and Cultural History of Provençal Jewry,” Journal of World History 11 (1968): 185–207, at 196, regards the process as the result of two factors: the arrival of Andalusian émigrés in Southern France and the “remarkable zest of Provençal Jews for philosophic learning.” Gad Freudenthal stresses in “Causes and Motivations for the Emergence of the Translation Movement in Twelfth-Century Lunel: Judah b. Shaul Ibn Tibbon and His Patrons R. Meshullam b. R. Yaakov and R. Asher b. R. Meshullam,” in Ta Shma: Studies in Judaica in Memory of Israel M. Ta-Shma, ed. A. Reiner et al. (Alon Shevut: Tevunot Press, 2011), 649–70, the cooperative character of the translation activities at Lunel. The latter is to this day the most comprehensive study of Judah Ibn Tibbon’s historical, cultural, and intellectual profile and his role in the begin- ning of the translation movement. As will become clear, the conclusions of this paper agree with the analysis presented in that article in many respects. However, the main difference in perspective seems to be that Freudenthal aims to highlight how the scholarly and religious interests of Meshullam b. Jacob of Lunel and his son Asher b. Meshullam had a decisive impact on the choice of works that were translated by Judah Ibn Tibbon (theology and eth- ics; cf. 664–66), whereas the present article tries to anchor the reconstruction of Judah Ibn Tibbon’s activities in the latter’s intellectual profile; cf. also id., “Abraham Ibn Ezra and Judah Ibn Tibbon as Cultural Intermediaries: Early Stages in the Introduction of Non-Rabbinic Learning into Provence in the Mid-Twelfth Century,” in Exchange and Transmission Across Cultural Boundaries. Philosophy, Mysticism and Science in the Mediterranean World, ed. H. Ben-Shammai et al. (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences, 2013), 52–81. For an interesting controversy about the relation between Jewish interest in philosophy and Christian-Jewish polemics (which does not play a major role in the present paper), cf. Daniel Lasker, “Controversy and Collegiality: A Look at Provence,” Medieval Encounters 22 (2016): 13–24. The present article was completed before Sarah Jean Pearce’s study The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah Ibn Tibbon’s Ethical Will (Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2017) came to my knowledge. In spite of many points of contact, Pearce’s analysis takes in many respects a different direction than mine, and focuses primarily on Judah’s Ethical Will, whereas his activities as a Hebrew translator assume only a secondary place..
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