The studies collected in this volume explore various facets of rabbinic literature composed in or... more The studies collected in this volume explore various facets of rabbinic literature composed in or about medieval Moravia, a semi-autonomous region within the medieval Kingdom of Bohemia. Responsa, minhagim-books, and fragments of Hebrew manuscripts evidence the activities of rabbinic networks from the late thirteenth century on to the year 1454 when Jews were expelled from the most important Moravian cities. Rabbinical texts are considered in the present book as devices of rabbinical power.
Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan's Works and Their Reception. Brepols 2019., 2019
The book, examining Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan’s work and its later reception, contains two... more The book, examining Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan’s work and its later reception, contains two key introductions and nine chapters grouped into four parts. The book is opened by Tamás Visi, who critically summarises Berechiah’s writings and offers a historical as well as intellectual context of his life and works. Berechiah was probably born in Northern France in the 1120s, 1130s or 1140s, and he was interested in natural sciences and philosophy. He was familiar with the biblical commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra. Sometimes, perhaps after 1161, he migrated to Provence and became connected with Meshullam ben Jacob’s circle in Lunel. There he read Judah Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translations of Judeo-Arabic literature, as well as a work by Abraham ben David of Posquierres, and possibly Joseph Qimḥi’s commentary on Job. He composed Musar and Matzref in Provence. Berechiah also mastered the “metric” poetry of the Andalusians in Provence and may have been exposed to further cultural and linguistic influences coming from the Andalusian refugees recently settled in Provence. Afterwards, he returned to Normandy, where he composed the Mishlei Shu‘alim during the 1180s or 1190s. He passed away perhaps by 1200, certainly by ca. 1215 the latest. The second introduction by Tovi Bibring highlights the relationship between Berechiah and medieval Christian fable writers and offers a profound literary analysis of his masterpiece, the Mishlei Shuʻalim (Fox Fables). Through a thematic and linguistic comparative reading of Aesopic fable “The Mouse and the Frog”, Bibring shows universal common places which connect the works of Berechiah with Marie de France. Simultaneously, she points out culturally conditioned details which are characteristic for either Christian or Jewish communities. The translations and adaptations into different languages and the diffusion (written and oral) of different versions of the fables attest to the vigour of the exchanges that took place in medieval literature. The first part of the book continues with a discussion concerning the milestones in Berechiah’s life and focuses on the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The first chapter by Revital Refael-Vivante discusses the value of charity in the Mishlei Shu’alim and asks whether there a situation could arise in which a poor person would be denied charity and how far the giving of charity is dependent upon the circumstances of the beggar’s poverty. These questions are answered through the analysis of the fable “The Wasp and the Ant”, where Berechiah condemned the pretenders who exploit the institution of charity. Mishlei Shu’alim seems to have been influenced by philosophical moral texts written by Judeo-Arabic intellectuals, possibly Maimonides and his Mishneh Torah. A comparison of Maimonides' ideas of charity helps us understand Berechiah's aggressive and controversial tone about this topic. In the second chapter, Cyril Aslanov suggests that Berechiah, who spent most of his life in Normandy within the Ashkenazi tradition, was exposed to literary influences from Sephardic Jews or even from the Orient. Berechiah’s collection of fables contains rhetoric and poetic techniques of Al-Andalus, and, thus, it opens up the question about Berechiah’s geographical origin and cultural background. Berechiah, who is usually associated with Northern French or Anglo-Norman Jewry, seems to be influenced by Arabic-speaking Jewries or Jewries outside the cultural area of Al-Andalus, specifically Babylonia. The following part of the book is devoted to Berechiah’s scientific works. The third chapter, by Tamás Visi, deals with Jewish as well as Christian sources and predecessors of Berechiah’s scientific writings. Although the dominant rabbinic tradition of Northern French Jews did not value the study of natural sciences and learning from Christians, Berechiah draws from Latin scientific text, namely Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature. Berechiah was probably encouraged by earlier Hebrew scientific literature: the Hebrew medical encyclopaedia Book of Remedies, attributed to Asaf, the Sefer Hakhmoni by Shabbatai Donnolo, and the work of Abraham Ibn Ezra. These works prepared the local Jewish audience to take an interest in scientific themes and texts. Moreover, a new interest in natural history emerged within the context of rabbinic culture itself during the twelfth century. In the fourth chapter, Hagar Kahana-Smilansky continues with the exploration of Berechiah’s sources and shows that Berechiah’s Book of Questions, popularly known by the title Dodi ve-Nekhdi, was inspired by Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature, and that Berechiah had better knowledge of Aristotelian zoological ideas than Adelard himself in some respects. This chapter, exploring the discrepancies between the three extant manuscript versions of Dodi ve-Nekhdi, focuses on two Questions, examining their indebtedness to certain works, including the collections of Latin Salernitan questions. The impact Berechiah’s works had on medieval readers is the topic of the third part. In the fifth chapter, Rella Kuschelevsky describes the imprint Mishlei Shu'alim had on Hebrew prose in the Middle Ages. The more general socio-literary issue of its reception is illustrated by Sefer ha-ma’asim, a remarkable collection of tales in northern France in the 13th century. The chapter examines two of its tales, which are relevant to a comparative study. Read against the broader background of the general editorial strategies in Sefer ha-ma'asim, and in the socio-literary context of the Jews' response to the French literature that flourished in their surroundings, the small sample of these two tales acquires significance and is revealed as indicative and promising for further studies on the poetics of reception of Berechiah's fox fables and its function to mediate Marie de France' fables to his Jewish audience. The sixth chapter, by Andreas Lenhardt, introduces an unknown poetical composition, which is, in fact, a typical maqama, written on a recently discovered Askenazi Hebrew binding fragment preserved in the Cathedral Library of Freising. Some stylistic features are reminiscent of compositions from Berechiah, but none of his texts are identical. The moral of the four meshalim seems to be best understood on the background of the situation of Jewish communities in Ashkenaz at the beginning of the 15th century. Perhaps the author of this unique composition was a certain Avraham ben Ya‛aqov from Regensburg, who might have been inspired by Berechiah. The concluding part of the book takes us to the early modern and modern afterlife of the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The seventh chapter, by Magdalena Jánošíková, traces early modern Jewish readership and explores the transformation of Berechiah’s fox fables as a printed medium between 1557 and 1818. In this period, the fables became the subject of adaptations and translations. Mishlei Shu’alim thus reached new audiences in their Yiddish or Latin version. Although a male Hebrew-educated Jew was no longer the book’s only target reader, Jánošíková suggests that this collection of fables remained primarily a Hebrew book read by Jewish men with a good command of Hebrew. A new circle of readers, including Christian intellectuals, is the topic of the eighth chapter, by Daniel Soukup. He focuses on contextual analysis of Parabolae vulpium (Prague 1661), the Latin translation of the Mishlei Shu’alim, introduces its editor, Jesuit Melchior Hanel, and presents his work as a minor but integral part of an early modern network, the so-called Republic of letters. Hanel’s mentor and teacher of Hebrew, the famous polymath Athanasius Kircher, encouraged him to translate Mishlei Shu’alim into Latin and publish this book as a pedagogical tool for young Jesuits studying biblical languages. Ellen Frankel, in the last chapter, focuses on modern translations of Misheli Shu’alim. When the Jewish American scholar Moses Hadas translated Berechiah’s fables into English in his 1967 book, Fables of a Jewish Aesop, he chose to render them in an archaic style, characterised by outmoded verb endings, mannered vocabulary, inverted syntax and overly formal diction. The result, though quaint and maybe even true to Berechiah’s aesthetic sensibility, is almost unreadable today. On the other hand, Frankel, who translated some of the tales, chose to emphasise their orality over their literariness, sacrificing rhyme, wordiness and archaism in favour of felicitous storytelling and a concise ethical message. The chapter discusses this method of translation on the example of a specific fable and its interpretation.
This book edited by Lucie Dolezalova and Tamas Visi presents a collection of case studies of bibl... more This book edited by Lucie Dolezalova and Tamas Visi presents a collection of case studies of biblical retellings in various contexts. Every section starts with an introduction presenting a brief overview of the field, the issues treated, as well as the nature and directions of contemporary scholarly discourse. After a detailed general introduction defining the Bible itself and the concept of retelling, the notion of Apocrypha is readdressed, particularly analyzing the way they are composed. Then follow the sections Translation and Interpretation from Jerome to the Post-Holocaust period, Preaching and Teaching the Bible in the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment, Biblical Characters as Models in medieval hagiography, Biblical Poetry from Late Antiquity to Bruce Springsteen, and finally the retelling strategies and challenges of Children's Bibles and a brief treatment of retelling Beyond the Text.
Jewish Thought: Journal of the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought Editors, 2023
Menahem Shalem (Prague/Central Europe, ca. 1350 – ca. 1420) formulated theoretical positions abou... more Menahem Shalem (Prague/Central Europe, ca. 1350 – ca. 1420) formulated theoretical positions about dreams and imaginations on the basis of Maimonides and Narboni, which can be read against the background of the Hussite revolution as a critique of religious phantasmagorias and fanaticism. Shalem identified a mechanism of symbolic institution that takes place in dreams: the “prior opinions” (or prejudices) of human beings leave traces in their imaginative faculties; these traces impact the dreams they have, and the dreams lend a semblance of objective reality or truth to their prior opinions. As a consequence, their prior opinions are engraved in the mind and become firm convictions that cannot be refuted by rational arguments.
Reconstructing the stemma of the manuscripts + preliminary critical edition of the chapters on br... more Reconstructing the stemma of the manuscripts + preliminary critical edition of the chapters on brain and heart.
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 2023
[Follow the link below to access the article.] Some of the ancient manuscripts and versions of Ma... more [Follow the link below to access the article.] Some of the ancient manuscripts and versions of Mark 15.15 add the phrase ‘to them’ after the verb ‘[Pilate] delivered [Jesus]’, suggesting that Pilate delivered Jesus to the Jewish crowd who subsequently crucified him. This textual variant was well-established in the Syriac and Ethiopic traditions while it remained marginal in the Greek, Latin, and Coptic traditions. This pattern suggests that those translators and readers of the gospels who lived on the Eastern fringes or outside of the territory of the Roman empire were more inclined to accept the idea that Jesus had been executed by the Jewish mob (and not by the Roman soldiers) than those translators and readers who lived in the core territories of the empire. The Diatessaron most likely played an important role in disseminating this anti-Jewish narrative. The obliteration of historical memories about crucifixion as a Roman method of execution in late antiquity contributed to the formation of one of the most devastating anti-Jewish narratives of the ensuing centuries.
Abraham Ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides both
utilized earlier sources when they interpreted the bib... more Abraham Ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides both utilized earlier sources when they interpreted the biblical creation narrative. Some of their exegetical solutions, including the idea that the “firmament” and the “waters above the firmament” referred to regions of the atmosphere, can be traced back to earlier Judeo-Arabic commentaries. The latter were based on early medieval miaphysite Syriac sources, particularly Jacob of Edessa’s Hexaemeron, and the exegetical tradition can be traced back ultimately to John Philoponus’ treatise on the creation of the world. Philoponus’ work was never translated to Syriac or Arabic as far as we know, but Philoponian ideas were transmitted in miaphysite Syriac exegetical literature. Nevertheless, we do find Philoponian exegetical solutions in Maimonides’ work which are absent in the presently known intermediary sources. It is possible that Maimonides “reinvented” these Philoponian ideas through a systematic and creative re-reading of the transmitted material. However, despite his reputation as a major initiator of the “meteorological” exegesis in Jewish tradition, Maimonides was less innovative than Ibn Ezra in applying meteorological theories to biblical exegesis.
Some of the key elements of the so-called
meteorological interpretation of the biblical creation ... more Some of the key elements of the so-called meteorological interpretation of the biblical creation narrative that we encounter in the works of medieval Jewish philosophers can be traced back to Syriac sources and ultimately to John Philoponus’ treatise on the creation of the world. Philoponus argued that the words “water,” “firmament,” and “heavens” were used equivocally in the biblical text and that the creation narrative can be understood in terms of meteorological processes. Philoponus’ tract was utilized by Jacob of Edessa, whose Syriac work on creation was probably one of the sources of Da’ūd al-Muqammaṣ’s Judeo-Arabic commentary on the creation narrative. Saadia Gaon and Jacob al-Qirqisānī drew Philoponian ideas from al-Muqammaṣ’s work and transmitted them to later generations of Jewish exegetes.
Lélekenciklopédia : a lélek szerepe az emberiség szellemi fejlődésében / főszerk. Simon-Székely Attila , 2015
A zsidó vallás története és főbb tanításai. A lélek mibenlétéről alkotott hiedelmek és elméletek ... more A zsidó vallás története és főbb tanításai. A lélek mibenlétéről alkotott hiedelmek és elméletek az ókorban. Hellenisztikus zsidó filozófia. Alexandriai Philón a lélekről. Égi utazások: hékhalót miszticizmus. Középkori zsidó filozófusok a lélekről, Sza'adja gáon, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Juda Halévi, Maimonides. A kabbala eredete és rövid története. A Zohár a lélekról. A lélekvándorlás tana. Luriánus kabbala. Haszidizmus.
Rabbinic literature was the most prestigious genre of literature in early nineteenth-century Mora... more Rabbinic literature was the most prestigious genre of literature in early nineteenth-century Moravia. Debates between rabbis shaped public discourse on the local level. As a consequence, maskilic literature could occupy only a peripheral position in the literary system. This point is illustrated by Benjamin Zeev Wolf Prerau’s supercommentary on Ibn Ezra and by Samson Bloch’s geographical–ethnographical work, Shevilei olam. Mordecai Benet, the chief rabbi of Moravia, was remarkably flexible concerning those innovations that did not threaten the prestige of rabbinic literature. However, he was a rigid opponent of any changes that could have restructured the inner hierarchy of the literary system.
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 2020
The consensus of present-day historians that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 CE has been c... more The consensus of present-day historians that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 CE has been challenged by a minority of scholars who argue that the execution of John the Baptist could not take place earlier than 35 CE, and for that reason Jesus must have been crucified at the Passover of 36 CE. This paper argues that both parties have strong and convincing arguments, and for that reason we must conclude that John was probably executed after Jesus' death. The collective memory of the early Christians did not succeed in retaining the chronological order of these events, and this circumstance allowed the synoptics to turn the Baptist into a forerunner of Christ. https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-2019003.xml
Lehmhaus, Lennart (ed.), Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Jewish Cultures and Traditions,, 2019
Sections of Sefer Asaf that are based on Hippocrates' Aphorisms are abridged versions of Shabatai... more Sections of Sefer Asaf that are based on Hippocrates' Aphorisms are abridged versions of Shabatai Donnolo's Hebrew paraphrase of the Aphorisms. For this reason, Sefer Asaf in its final form cannot be earlier than the tenth century, and it is very likely that some sections of it were composed in Byzantine Italy.
Publishing date: 2019 November
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_1365.ahtml
Published online as "advance article;" the link below should lead you to the article.
Summary
... more Published online as "advance article;" the link below should lead you to the article.
Summary
Medical writings written by Jews in late medieval Western and Central Europe demonstrate that although Jews were excluded from universities, the medical world outside of the universities was open to them. Jewish medical writers relied on Latin and vernacular sources and often they wrote in German. Emphasising the importance of knowledge of authoritative books, they attempted to secure their social standing by demonstrating that they confirmed to the generally accepted social norm that required physicians and surgeons to rely on learned medicine. Nevertheless, only a few Jewish medical practitioners wrote books.
https://academic.oup.com//shm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/shm/hky110/5272709?guestAccessKey=2b1e77a2-63fc-4a51-a979-7fd39c12b057
During the fifteenth century Jewish litrugical texts and customs were reconsidered by rabbis livi... more During the fifteenth century Jewish litrugical texts and customs were reconsidered by rabbis living in Austria, Moravia, and neighbouring countries. The writings of two famous rabbis that were active in Brno for some time during the earlier half of the fifteenth century, Eizik Tirna and Jisrael Bruna, fragments of liturgical manuscripts found in the bookbindings of Christian books and documents in Moravia, and marginal glosses in the Trebic machzor all attest these attempts to correct the text of Jewish prayers. Im mittelalterlichen Leben der Juden spielte das Gebet eine wichtige Rolle. Es herrschte die allgemeine Überzeugung, daß Gebete absolut unerläßlich für die Sicherung des Überlebens sowohl für den Einzelnen, als auch die Gesellschaft sei-en. 1 Zudem war eine verbreitete Ansicht, daß es sich beim Beten nicht um einen spontanen Ausdruck religiöser Gefühle handle; es sei im Gegenteil nötig, vorherbe-stimmte Texte zu rezitieren, und zwar sowohl in der richtigen Reihenfolge als auch zu den richtigen Zeiten. Falls das Gebet nicht richtig vorgetragen werde, sei es ungül-tig und unwirksam. Fromme Menschen verwandten damals viel Zeit und Energie darauf, festzustellen, wie der richtige Text von Gebeten lauten solle. 2 Heutigen Lesern mag es verwunderlich erscheinen, wieviel Gründlichkeit mittel-alterliche Juden etwa Fragen hinsichtlich der korrekten Aussprache eines bestimm-ten hebräischen Wortes widmeten oder dem Problem, ob die Konjunktion " und " in einen Text gehört, obwohl dies in keiner Weise dessen Sinn ändert. Es ist wich-tig, gleich zu Beginn zu unterstreichen, daß mittelalterliche Juden ein derart kleines Detail in Texten hebräischer Gebete sehr ernst nahmen, da sie glaubten, daß die Wirksamkeit eines Gebets genau davon abhinge. Im 15. Jahrhundert spielte Mähren eine wichtige Rolle bei der Herauskristallisie-rung der sogenannten ost-aschkenasischen Liturgie, die in späteren Jahrhunderten
The studies collected in this volume explore various facets of rabbinic literature composed in or... more The studies collected in this volume explore various facets of rabbinic literature composed in or about medieval Moravia, a semi-autonomous region within the medieval Kingdom of Bohemia. Responsa, minhagim-books, and fragments of Hebrew manuscripts evidence the activities of rabbinic networks from the late thirteenth century on to the year 1454 when Jews were expelled from the most important Moravian cities. Rabbinical texts are considered in the present book as devices of rabbinical power.
Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan's Works and Their Reception. Brepols 2019., 2019
The book, examining Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan’s work and its later reception, contains two... more The book, examining Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan’s work and its later reception, contains two key introductions and nine chapters grouped into four parts. The book is opened by Tamás Visi, who critically summarises Berechiah’s writings and offers a historical as well as intellectual context of his life and works. Berechiah was probably born in Northern France in the 1120s, 1130s or 1140s, and he was interested in natural sciences and philosophy. He was familiar with the biblical commentaries of Abraham Ibn Ezra. Sometimes, perhaps after 1161, he migrated to Provence and became connected with Meshullam ben Jacob’s circle in Lunel. There he read Judah Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translations of Judeo-Arabic literature, as well as a work by Abraham ben David of Posquierres, and possibly Joseph Qimḥi’s commentary on Job. He composed Musar and Matzref in Provence. Berechiah also mastered the “metric” poetry of the Andalusians in Provence and may have been exposed to further cultural and linguistic influences coming from the Andalusian refugees recently settled in Provence. Afterwards, he returned to Normandy, where he composed the Mishlei Shu‘alim during the 1180s or 1190s. He passed away perhaps by 1200, certainly by ca. 1215 the latest. The second introduction by Tovi Bibring highlights the relationship between Berechiah and medieval Christian fable writers and offers a profound literary analysis of his masterpiece, the Mishlei Shuʻalim (Fox Fables). Through a thematic and linguistic comparative reading of Aesopic fable “The Mouse and the Frog”, Bibring shows universal common places which connect the works of Berechiah with Marie de France. Simultaneously, she points out culturally conditioned details which are characteristic for either Christian or Jewish communities. The translations and adaptations into different languages and the diffusion (written and oral) of different versions of the fables attest to the vigour of the exchanges that took place in medieval literature. The first part of the book continues with a discussion concerning the milestones in Berechiah’s life and focuses on the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The first chapter by Revital Refael-Vivante discusses the value of charity in the Mishlei Shu’alim and asks whether there a situation could arise in which a poor person would be denied charity and how far the giving of charity is dependent upon the circumstances of the beggar’s poverty. These questions are answered through the analysis of the fable “The Wasp and the Ant”, where Berechiah condemned the pretenders who exploit the institution of charity. Mishlei Shu’alim seems to have been influenced by philosophical moral texts written by Judeo-Arabic intellectuals, possibly Maimonides and his Mishneh Torah. A comparison of Maimonides' ideas of charity helps us understand Berechiah's aggressive and controversial tone about this topic. In the second chapter, Cyril Aslanov suggests that Berechiah, who spent most of his life in Normandy within the Ashkenazi tradition, was exposed to literary influences from Sephardic Jews or even from the Orient. Berechiah’s collection of fables contains rhetoric and poetic techniques of Al-Andalus, and, thus, it opens up the question about Berechiah’s geographical origin and cultural background. Berechiah, who is usually associated with Northern French or Anglo-Norman Jewry, seems to be influenced by Arabic-speaking Jewries or Jewries outside the cultural area of Al-Andalus, specifically Babylonia. The following part of the book is devoted to Berechiah’s scientific works. The third chapter, by Tamás Visi, deals with Jewish as well as Christian sources and predecessors of Berechiah’s scientific writings. Although the dominant rabbinic tradition of Northern French Jews did not value the study of natural sciences and learning from Christians, Berechiah draws from Latin scientific text, namely Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature. Berechiah was probably encouraged by earlier Hebrew scientific literature: the Hebrew medical encyclopaedia Book of Remedies, attributed to Asaf, the Sefer Hakhmoni by Shabbatai Donnolo, and the work of Abraham Ibn Ezra. These works prepared the local Jewish audience to take an interest in scientific themes and texts. Moreover, a new interest in natural history emerged within the context of rabbinic culture itself during the twelfth century. In the fourth chapter, Hagar Kahana-Smilansky continues with the exploration of Berechiah’s sources and shows that Berechiah’s Book of Questions, popularly known by the title Dodi ve-Nekhdi, was inspired by Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature, and that Berechiah had better knowledge of Aristotelian zoological ideas than Adelard himself in some respects. This chapter, exploring the discrepancies between the three extant manuscript versions of Dodi ve-Nekhdi, focuses on two Questions, examining their indebtedness to certain works, including the collections of Latin Salernitan questions. The impact Berechiah’s works had on medieval readers is the topic of the third part. In the fifth chapter, Rella Kuschelevsky describes the imprint Mishlei Shu'alim had on Hebrew prose in the Middle Ages. The more general socio-literary issue of its reception is illustrated by Sefer ha-ma’asim, a remarkable collection of tales in northern France in the 13th century. The chapter examines two of its tales, which are relevant to a comparative study. Read against the broader background of the general editorial strategies in Sefer ha-ma'asim, and in the socio-literary context of the Jews' response to the French literature that flourished in their surroundings, the small sample of these two tales acquires significance and is revealed as indicative and promising for further studies on the poetics of reception of Berechiah's fox fables and its function to mediate Marie de France' fables to his Jewish audience. The sixth chapter, by Andreas Lenhardt, introduces an unknown poetical composition, which is, in fact, a typical maqama, written on a recently discovered Askenazi Hebrew binding fragment preserved in the Cathedral Library of Freising. Some stylistic features are reminiscent of compositions from Berechiah, but none of his texts are identical. The moral of the four meshalim seems to be best understood on the background of the situation of Jewish communities in Ashkenaz at the beginning of the 15th century. Perhaps the author of this unique composition was a certain Avraham ben Ya‛aqov from Regensburg, who might have been inspired by Berechiah. The concluding part of the book takes us to the early modern and modern afterlife of the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The seventh chapter, by Magdalena Jánošíková, traces early modern Jewish readership and explores the transformation of Berechiah’s fox fables as a printed medium between 1557 and 1818. In this period, the fables became the subject of adaptations and translations. Mishlei Shu’alim thus reached new audiences in their Yiddish or Latin version. Although a male Hebrew-educated Jew was no longer the book’s only target reader, Jánošíková suggests that this collection of fables remained primarily a Hebrew book read by Jewish men with a good command of Hebrew. A new circle of readers, including Christian intellectuals, is the topic of the eighth chapter, by Daniel Soukup. He focuses on contextual analysis of Parabolae vulpium (Prague 1661), the Latin translation of the Mishlei Shu’alim, introduces its editor, Jesuit Melchior Hanel, and presents his work as a minor but integral part of an early modern network, the so-called Republic of letters. Hanel’s mentor and teacher of Hebrew, the famous polymath Athanasius Kircher, encouraged him to translate Mishlei Shu’alim into Latin and publish this book as a pedagogical tool for young Jesuits studying biblical languages. Ellen Frankel, in the last chapter, focuses on modern translations of Misheli Shu’alim. When the Jewish American scholar Moses Hadas translated Berechiah’s fables into English in his 1967 book, Fables of a Jewish Aesop, he chose to render them in an archaic style, characterised by outmoded verb endings, mannered vocabulary, inverted syntax and overly formal diction. The result, though quaint and maybe even true to Berechiah’s aesthetic sensibility, is almost unreadable today. On the other hand, Frankel, who translated some of the tales, chose to emphasise their orality over their literariness, sacrificing rhyme, wordiness and archaism in favour of felicitous storytelling and a concise ethical message. The chapter discusses this method of translation on the example of a specific fable and its interpretation.
This book edited by Lucie Dolezalova and Tamas Visi presents a collection of case studies of bibl... more This book edited by Lucie Dolezalova and Tamas Visi presents a collection of case studies of biblical retellings in various contexts. Every section starts with an introduction presenting a brief overview of the field, the issues treated, as well as the nature and directions of contemporary scholarly discourse. After a detailed general introduction defining the Bible itself and the concept of retelling, the notion of Apocrypha is readdressed, particularly analyzing the way they are composed. Then follow the sections Translation and Interpretation from Jerome to the Post-Holocaust period, Preaching and Teaching the Bible in the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment, Biblical Characters as Models in medieval hagiography, Biblical Poetry from Late Antiquity to Bruce Springsteen, and finally the retelling strategies and challenges of Children's Bibles and a brief treatment of retelling Beyond the Text.
Jewish Thought: Journal of the Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought Editors, 2023
Menahem Shalem (Prague/Central Europe, ca. 1350 – ca. 1420) formulated theoretical positions abou... more Menahem Shalem (Prague/Central Europe, ca. 1350 – ca. 1420) formulated theoretical positions about dreams and imaginations on the basis of Maimonides and Narboni, which can be read against the background of the Hussite revolution as a critique of religious phantasmagorias and fanaticism. Shalem identified a mechanism of symbolic institution that takes place in dreams: the “prior opinions” (or prejudices) of human beings leave traces in their imaginative faculties; these traces impact the dreams they have, and the dreams lend a semblance of objective reality or truth to their prior opinions. As a consequence, their prior opinions are engraved in the mind and become firm convictions that cannot be refuted by rational arguments.
Reconstructing the stemma of the manuscripts + preliminary critical edition of the chapters on br... more Reconstructing the stemma of the manuscripts + preliminary critical edition of the chapters on brain and heart.
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 2023
[Follow the link below to access the article.] Some of the ancient manuscripts and versions of Ma... more [Follow the link below to access the article.] Some of the ancient manuscripts and versions of Mark 15.15 add the phrase ‘to them’ after the verb ‘[Pilate] delivered [Jesus]’, suggesting that Pilate delivered Jesus to the Jewish crowd who subsequently crucified him. This textual variant was well-established in the Syriac and Ethiopic traditions while it remained marginal in the Greek, Latin, and Coptic traditions. This pattern suggests that those translators and readers of the gospels who lived on the Eastern fringes or outside of the territory of the Roman empire were more inclined to accept the idea that Jesus had been executed by the Jewish mob (and not by the Roman soldiers) than those translators and readers who lived in the core territories of the empire. The Diatessaron most likely played an important role in disseminating this anti-Jewish narrative. The obliteration of historical memories about crucifixion as a Roman method of execution in late antiquity contributed to the formation of one of the most devastating anti-Jewish narratives of the ensuing centuries.
Abraham Ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides both
utilized earlier sources when they interpreted the bib... more Abraham Ibn Ezra and Moses Maimonides both utilized earlier sources when they interpreted the biblical creation narrative. Some of their exegetical solutions, including the idea that the “firmament” and the “waters above the firmament” referred to regions of the atmosphere, can be traced back to earlier Judeo-Arabic commentaries. The latter were based on early medieval miaphysite Syriac sources, particularly Jacob of Edessa’s Hexaemeron, and the exegetical tradition can be traced back ultimately to John Philoponus’ treatise on the creation of the world. Philoponus’ work was never translated to Syriac or Arabic as far as we know, but Philoponian ideas were transmitted in miaphysite Syriac exegetical literature. Nevertheless, we do find Philoponian exegetical solutions in Maimonides’ work which are absent in the presently known intermediary sources. It is possible that Maimonides “reinvented” these Philoponian ideas through a systematic and creative re-reading of the transmitted material. However, despite his reputation as a major initiator of the “meteorological” exegesis in Jewish tradition, Maimonides was less innovative than Ibn Ezra in applying meteorological theories to biblical exegesis.
Some of the key elements of the so-called
meteorological interpretation of the biblical creation ... more Some of the key elements of the so-called meteorological interpretation of the biblical creation narrative that we encounter in the works of medieval Jewish philosophers can be traced back to Syriac sources and ultimately to John Philoponus’ treatise on the creation of the world. Philoponus argued that the words “water,” “firmament,” and “heavens” were used equivocally in the biblical text and that the creation narrative can be understood in terms of meteorological processes. Philoponus’ tract was utilized by Jacob of Edessa, whose Syriac work on creation was probably one of the sources of Da’ūd al-Muqammaṣ’s Judeo-Arabic commentary on the creation narrative. Saadia Gaon and Jacob al-Qirqisānī drew Philoponian ideas from al-Muqammaṣ’s work and transmitted them to later generations of Jewish exegetes.
Lélekenciklopédia : a lélek szerepe az emberiség szellemi fejlődésében / főszerk. Simon-Székely Attila , 2015
A zsidó vallás története és főbb tanításai. A lélek mibenlétéről alkotott hiedelmek és elméletek ... more A zsidó vallás története és főbb tanításai. A lélek mibenlétéről alkotott hiedelmek és elméletek az ókorban. Hellenisztikus zsidó filozófia. Alexandriai Philón a lélekről. Égi utazások: hékhalót miszticizmus. Középkori zsidó filozófusok a lélekről, Sza'adja gáon, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Juda Halévi, Maimonides. A kabbala eredete és rövid története. A Zohár a lélekról. A lélekvándorlás tana. Luriánus kabbala. Haszidizmus.
Rabbinic literature was the most prestigious genre of literature in early nineteenth-century Mora... more Rabbinic literature was the most prestigious genre of literature in early nineteenth-century Moravia. Debates between rabbis shaped public discourse on the local level. As a consequence, maskilic literature could occupy only a peripheral position in the literary system. This point is illustrated by Benjamin Zeev Wolf Prerau’s supercommentary on Ibn Ezra and by Samson Bloch’s geographical–ethnographical work, Shevilei olam. Mordecai Benet, the chief rabbi of Moravia, was remarkably flexible concerning those innovations that did not threaten the prestige of rabbinic literature. However, he was a rigid opponent of any changes that could have restructured the inner hierarchy of the literary system.
Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 2020
The consensus of present-day historians that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 CE has been c... more The consensus of present-day historians that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 CE has been challenged by a minority of scholars who argue that the execution of John the Baptist could not take place earlier than 35 CE, and for that reason Jesus must have been crucified at the Passover of 36 CE. This paper argues that both parties have strong and convincing arguments, and for that reason we must conclude that John was probably executed after Jesus' death. The collective memory of the early Christians did not succeed in retaining the chronological order of these events, and this circumstance allowed the synoptics to turn the Baptist into a forerunner of Christ. https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-2019003.xml
Lehmhaus, Lennart (ed.), Defining Jewish Medicine. Transfer of Medical Knowledge in Jewish Cultures and Traditions,, 2019
Sections of Sefer Asaf that are based on Hippocrates' Aphorisms are abridged versions of Shabatai... more Sections of Sefer Asaf that are based on Hippocrates' Aphorisms are abridged versions of Shabatai Donnolo's Hebrew paraphrase of the Aphorisms. For this reason, Sefer Asaf in its final form cannot be earlier than the tenth century, and it is very likely that some sections of it were composed in Byzantine Italy.
Publishing date: 2019 November
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_1365.ahtml
Published online as "advance article;" the link below should lead you to the article.
Summary
... more Published online as "advance article;" the link below should lead you to the article.
Summary
Medical writings written by Jews in late medieval Western and Central Europe demonstrate that although Jews were excluded from universities, the medical world outside of the universities was open to them. Jewish medical writers relied on Latin and vernacular sources and often they wrote in German. Emphasising the importance of knowledge of authoritative books, they attempted to secure their social standing by demonstrating that they confirmed to the generally accepted social norm that required physicians and surgeons to rely on learned medicine. Nevertheless, only a few Jewish medical practitioners wrote books.
https://academic.oup.com//shm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/shm/hky110/5272709?guestAccessKey=2b1e77a2-63fc-4a51-a979-7fd39c12b057
During the fifteenth century Jewish litrugical texts and customs were reconsidered by rabbis livi... more During the fifteenth century Jewish litrugical texts and customs were reconsidered by rabbis living in Austria, Moravia, and neighbouring countries. The writings of two famous rabbis that were active in Brno for some time during the earlier half of the fifteenth century, Eizik Tirna and Jisrael Bruna, fragments of liturgical manuscripts found in the bookbindings of Christian books and documents in Moravia, and marginal glosses in the Trebic machzor all attest these attempts to correct the text of Jewish prayers. Im mittelalterlichen Leben der Juden spielte das Gebet eine wichtige Rolle. Es herrschte die allgemeine Überzeugung, daß Gebete absolut unerläßlich für die Sicherung des Überlebens sowohl für den Einzelnen, als auch die Gesellschaft sei-en. 1 Zudem war eine verbreitete Ansicht, daß es sich beim Beten nicht um einen spontanen Ausdruck religiöser Gefühle handle; es sei im Gegenteil nötig, vorherbe-stimmte Texte zu rezitieren, und zwar sowohl in der richtigen Reihenfolge als auch zu den richtigen Zeiten. Falls das Gebet nicht richtig vorgetragen werde, sei es ungül-tig und unwirksam. Fromme Menschen verwandten damals viel Zeit und Energie darauf, festzustellen, wie der richtige Text von Gebeten lauten solle. 2 Heutigen Lesern mag es verwunderlich erscheinen, wieviel Gründlichkeit mittel-alterliche Juden etwa Fragen hinsichtlich der korrekten Aussprache eines bestimm-ten hebräischen Wortes widmeten oder dem Problem, ob die Konjunktion " und " in einen Text gehört, obwohl dies in keiner Weise dessen Sinn ändert. Es ist wich-tig, gleich zu Beginn zu unterstreichen, daß mittelalterliche Juden ein derart kleines Detail in Texten hebräischer Gebete sehr ernst nahmen, da sie glaubten, daß die Wirksamkeit eines Gebets genau davon abhinge. Im 15. Jahrhundert spielte Mähren eine wichtige Rolle bei der Herauskristallisie-rung der sogenannten ost-aschkenasischen Liturgie, die in späteren Jahrhunderten
Syriac and Greek sources of Sefer Asaf; Magnus of Emessa's uroscopic tract as a source of Sefer A... more Syriac and Greek sources of Sefer Asaf; Magnus of Emessa's uroscopic tract as a source of Sefer Asaf; reception of Sefer Asaf in 12th century France.
The purpose of the workshop is to explore the works and reception history of a twelfth-century Je... more The purpose of the workshop is to explore the works and reception history of a twelfth-century Jewish intellectual, Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Naqdan, one of the first Jewish writers who drew extensively from Christian (Latin and Old French) sources. Papers and discussions will focus on Berechiah’s writings as cultural innovations in the context of twelfth-century Jewish culture as well as the fate of his writings among medieval and early modern Jews and Christians.
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The second introduction by Tovi Bibring highlights the relationship between Berechiah and medieval Christian fable writers and offers a profound literary analysis of his masterpiece, the Mishlei Shuʻalim (Fox Fables). Through a thematic and linguistic comparative reading of Aesopic fable “The Mouse and the Frog”, Bibring shows universal common places which connect the works of Berechiah with Marie de France. Simultaneously, she points out culturally conditioned details which are characteristic for either Christian or Jewish communities. The translations and adaptations into different languages and the diffusion (written and oral) of different versions of the fables attest to the vigour of the exchanges that took place in medieval literature.
The first part of the book continues with a discussion concerning the milestones in Berechiah’s life and focuses on the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The first chapter by Revital Refael-Vivante discusses the value of charity in the Mishlei Shu’alim and asks whether there a situation could arise in which a poor person would be denied charity and how far the giving of charity is dependent upon the circumstances of the beggar’s poverty. These questions are answered through the analysis of the fable “The Wasp and the Ant”, where Berechiah condemned the pretenders who exploit the institution of charity. Mishlei Shu’alim seems to have been influenced by philosophical moral texts written by Judeo-Arabic intellectuals, possibly Maimonides and his Mishneh Torah. A comparison of Maimonides' ideas of charity helps us understand Berechiah's aggressive and controversial tone about this topic. In the second chapter, Cyril Aslanov suggests that Berechiah, who spent most of his life in Normandy within the Ashkenazi tradition, was exposed to literary influences from Sephardic Jews or even from the Orient. Berechiah’s collection of fables contains rhetoric and poetic techniques of Al-Andalus, and, thus, it opens up the question about Berechiah’s geographical origin and cultural background. Berechiah, who is usually associated with Northern French or Anglo-Norman Jewry, seems to be influenced by Arabic-speaking Jewries or Jewries outside the cultural area of Al-Andalus, specifically Babylonia.
The following part of the book is devoted to Berechiah’s scientific works. The third chapter, by Tamás Visi, deals with Jewish as well as Christian sources and predecessors of Berechiah’s scientific writings. Although the dominant rabbinic tradition of Northern French Jews did not value the study of natural sciences and learning from Christians, Berechiah draws from Latin scientific text, namely Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature. Berechiah was probably encouraged by earlier Hebrew scientific literature: the Hebrew medical encyclopaedia Book of Remedies, attributed to Asaf, the Sefer Hakhmoni by Shabbatai Donnolo, and the work of Abraham Ibn Ezra. These works prepared the local Jewish audience to take an interest in scientific themes and texts. Moreover, a new interest in natural history emerged within the context of rabbinic culture itself during the twelfth century. In the fourth chapter, Hagar Kahana-Smilansky continues with the exploration of Berechiah’s sources and shows that Berechiah’s Book of Questions, popularly known by the title Dodi ve-Nekhdi, was inspired by Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature, and that Berechiah had better knowledge of Aristotelian zoological ideas than Adelard himself in some respects. This chapter, exploring the discrepancies between the three extant manuscript versions of Dodi ve-Nekhdi, focuses on two Questions, examining their indebtedness to certain works, including the collections of Latin Salernitan questions.
The impact Berechiah’s works had on medieval readers is the topic of the third part. In the fifth chapter, Rella Kuschelevsky describes the imprint Mishlei Shu'alim had on Hebrew prose in the Middle Ages. The more general socio-literary issue of its reception is illustrated by Sefer ha-ma’asim, a remarkable collection of tales in northern France in the 13th century. The chapter examines two of its tales, which are relevant to a comparative study. Read against the broader background of the general editorial strategies in Sefer ha-ma'asim, and in the socio-literary context of the Jews' response to the French literature that flourished in their surroundings, the small sample of these two tales acquires significance and is revealed as indicative and promising for further studies on the poetics of reception of Berechiah's fox fables and its function to mediate Marie de France' fables to his Jewish audience. The sixth chapter, by Andreas Lenhardt, introduces an unknown poetical composition, which is, in fact, a typical maqama, written on a recently discovered Askenazi Hebrew binding fragment preserved in the Cathedral Library of Freising. Some stylistic features are reminiscent of compositions from Berechiah, but none of his texts are identical. The moral of the four meshalim seems to be best understood on the background of the situation of Jewish communities in Ashkenaz at the beginning of the 15th century. Perhaps the author of this unique composition was a certain Avraham ben Ya‛aqov from Regensburg, who might have been inspired by Berechiah.
The concluding part of the book takes us to the early modern and modern afterlife of the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The seventh chapter, by Magdalena Jánošíková, traces early modern Jewish readership and explores the transformation of Berechiah’s fox fables as a printed medium between 1557 and 1818. In this period, the fables became the subject of adaptations and translations. Mishlei Shu’alim thus reached new audiences in their Yiddish or Latin version. Although a male Hebrew-educated Jew was no longer the book’s only target reader, Jánošíková suggests that this collection of fables remained primarily a Hebrew book read by Jewish men with a good command of Hebrew. A new circle of readers, including Christian intellectuals, is the topic of the eighth chapter, by Daniel Soukup. He focuses on contextual analysis of Parabolae vulpium (Prague 1661), the Latin translation of the Mishlei Shu’alim, introduces its editor, Jesuit Melchior Hanel, and presents his work as a minor but integral part of an early modern network, the so-called Republic of letters. Hanel’s mentor and teacher of Hebrew, the famous polymath Athanasius Kircher, encouraged him to translate Mishlei Shu’alim into Latin and publish this book as a pedagogical tool for young Jesuits studying biblical languages. Ellen Frankel, in the last chapter, focuses on modern translations of Misheli Shu’alim. When the Jewish American scholar Moses Hadas translated Berechiah’s fables into English in his 1967 book, Fables of a Jewish Aesop, he chose to render them in an archaic style, characterised by outmoded verb endings, mannered vocabulary, inverted syntax and overly formal diction. The result, though quaint and maybe even true to Berechiah’s aesthetic sensibility, is almost unreadable today. On the other hand, Frankel, who translated some of the tales, chose to emphasise their orality over their literariness, sacrificing rhyme, wordiness and archaism in favour of felicitous storytelling and a concise ethical message. The chapter discusses this method of translation on the example of a specific fable and its interpretation.
Papers
utilized earlier sources when they interpreted the biblical creation
narrative. Some of their exegetical solutions, including the idea
that the “firmament” and the “waters above the firmament”
referred to regions of the atmosphere, can be traced back to
earlier Judeo-Arabic commentaries. The latter were based on
early medieval miaphysite Syriac sources, particularly Jacob of
Edessa’s Hexaemeron, and the exegetical tradition can be traced
back ultimately to John Philoponus’ treatise on the creation of
the world. Philoponus’ work was never translated to Syriac or
Arabic as far as we know, but Philoponian ideas were transmitted
in miaphysite Syriac exegetical literature. Nevertheless, we do
find Philoponian exegetical solutions in Maimonides’ work which
are absent in the presently known intermediary sources. It is
possible that Maimonides “reinvented” these Philoponian ideas
through a systematic and creative re-reading of the transmitted
material. However, despite his reputation as a major initiator of the
“meteorological” exegesis in Jewish tradition, Maimonides was less
innovative than Ibn Ezra in applying meteorological theories to
biblical exegesis.
meteorological interpretation of the biblical creation narrative that
we encounter in the works of medieval Jewish philosophers can be
traced back to Syriac sources and ultimately to John Philoponus’
treatise on the creation of the world. Philoponus argued that the
words “water,” “firmament,” and “heavens” were used equivocally
in the biblical text and that the creation narrative can be understood
in terms of meteorological processes. Philoponus’ tract was utilized
by Jacob of Edessa, whose Syriac work on creation was probably
one of the sources of Da’ūd al-Muqammaṣ’s Judeo-Arabic
commentary on the creation narrative. Saadia Gaon and Jacob
al-Qirqisānī drew Philoponian ideas from al-Muqammaṣ’s work
and transmitted them to later generations of Jewish exegetes.
Mordecai Benet, the chief rabbi of Moravia, was remarkably flexible concerning those innovations that did not threaten the prestige of rabbinic literature. However, he was a rigid opponent of any changes that could have restructured the inner hierarchy of the literary system.
https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-2019003.xml
Publishing date: 2019 November
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_1365.ahtml
Summary
Medical writings written by Jews in late medieval Western and Central Europe demonstrate that although Jews were excluded from universities, the medical world outside of the universities was open to them. Jewish medical writers relied on Latin and vernacular sources and often they wrote in German. Emphasising the importance of knowledge of authoritative books, they attempted to secure their social standing by demonstrating that they confirmed to the generally accepted social norm that required physicians and surgeons to rely on learned medicine. Nevertheless, only a few Jewish medical practitioners wrote books.
https://academic.oup.com//shm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/shm/hky110/5272709?guestAccessKey=2b1e77a2-63fc-4a51-a979-7fd39c12b057
The second introduction by Tovi Bibring highlights the relationship between Berechiah and medieval Christian fable writers and offers a profound literary analysis of his masterpiece, the Mishlei Shuʻalim (Fox Fables). Through a thematic and linguistic comparative reading of Aesopic fable “The Mouse and the Frog”, Bibring shows universal common places which connect the works of Berechiah with Marie de France. Simultaneously, she points out culturally conditioned details which are characteristic for either Christian or Jewish communities. The translations and adaptations into different languages and the diffusion (written and oral) of different versions of the fables attest to the vigour of the exchanges that took place in medieval literature.
The first part of the book continues with a discussion concerning the milestones in Berechiah’s life and focuses on the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The first chapter by Revital Refael-Vivante discusses the value of charity in the Mishlei Shu’alim and asks whether there a situation could arise in which a poor person would be denied charity and how far the giving of charity is dependent upon the circumstances of the beggar’s poverty. These questions are answered through the analysis of the fable “The Wasp and the Ant”, where Berechiah condemned the pretenders who exploit the institution of charity. Mishlei Shu’alim seems to have been influenced by philosophical moral texts written by Judeo-Arabic intellectuals, possibly Maimonides and his Mishneh Torah. A comparison of Maimonides' ideas of charity helps us understand Berechiah's aggressive and controversial tone about this topic. In the second chapter, Cyril Aslanov suggests that Berechiah, who spent most of his life in Normandy within the Ashkenazi tradition, was exposed to literary influences from Sephardic Jews or even from the Orient. Berechiah’s collection of fables contains rhetoric and poetic techniques of Al-Andalus, and, thus, it opens up the question about Berechiah’s geographical origin and cultural background. Berechiah, who is usually associated with Northern French or Anglo-Norman Jewry, seems to be influenced by Arabic-speaking Jewries or Jewries outside the cultural area of Al-Andalus, specifically Babylonia.
The following part of the book is devoted to Berechiah’s scientific works. The third chapter, by Tamás Visi, deals with Jewish as well as Christian sources and predecessors of Berechiah’s scientific writings. Although the dominant rabbinic tradition of Northern French Jews did not value the study of natural sciences and learning from Christians, Berechiah draws from Latin scientific text, namely Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature. Berechiah was probably encouraged by earlier Hebrew scientific literature: the Hebrew medical encyclopaedia Book of Remedies, attributed to Asaf, the Sefer Hakhmoni by Shabbatai Donnolo, and the work of Abraham Ibn Ezra. These works prepared the local Jewish audience to take an interest in scientific themes and texts. Moreover, a new interest in natural history emerged within the context of rabbinic culture itself during the twelfth century. In the fourth chapter, Hagar Kahana-Smilansky continues with the exploration of Berechiah’s sources and shows that Berechiah’s Book of Questions, popularly known by the title Dodi ve-Nekhdi, was inspired by Adelard of Bath’s Questions on Nature, and that Berechiah had better knowledge of Aristotelian zoological ideas than Adelard himself in some respects. This chapter, exploring the discrepancies between the three extant manuscript versions of Dodi ve-Nekhdi, focuses on two Questions, examining their indebtedness to certain works, including the collections of Latin Salernitan questions.
The impact Berechiah’s works had on medieval readers is the topic of the third part. In the fifth chapter, Rella Kuschelevsky describes the imprint Mishlei Shu'alim had on Hebrew prose in the Middle Ages. The more general socio-literary issue of its reception is illustrated by Sefer ha-ma’asim, a remarkable collection of tales in northern France in the 13th century. The chapter examines two of its tales, which are relevant to a comparative study. Read against the broader background of the general editorial strategies in Sefer ha-ma'asim, and in the socio-literary context of the Jews' response to the French literature that flourished in their surroundings, the small sample of these two tales acquires significance and is revealed as indicative and promising for further studies on the poetics of reception of Berechiah's fox fables and its function to mediate Marie de France' fables to his Jewish audience. The sixth chapter, by Andreas Lenhardt, introduces an unknown poetical composition, which is, in fact, a typical maqama, written on a recently discovered Askenazi Hebrew binding fragment preserved in the Cathedral Library of Freising. Some stylistic features are reminiscent of compositions from Berechiah, but none of his texts are identical. The moral of the four meshalim seems to be best understood on the background of the situation of Jewish communities in Ashkenaz at the beginning of the 15th century. Perhaps the author of this unique composition was a certain Avraham ben Ya‛aqov from Regensburg, who might have been inspired by Berechiah.
The concluding part of the book takes us to the early modern and modern afterlife of the Mishlei Shuʻalim. The seventh chapter, by Magdalena Jánošíková, traces early modern Jewish readership and explores the transformation of Berechiah’s fox fables as a printed medium between 1557 and 1818. In this period, the fables became the subject of adaptations and translations. Mishlei Shu’alim thus reached new audiences in their Yiddish or Latin version. Although a male Hebrew-educated Jew was no longer the book’s only target reader, Jánošíková suggests that this collection of fables remained primarily a Hebrew book read by Jewish men with a good command of Hebrew. A new circle of readers, including Christian intellectuals, is the topic of the eighth chapter, by Daniel Soukup. He focuses on contextual analysis of Parabolae vulpium (Prague 1661), the Latin translation of the Mishlei Shu’alim, introduces its editor, Jesuit Melchior Hanel, and presents his work as a minor but integral part of an early modern network, the so-called Republic of letters. Hanel’s mentor and teacher of Hebrew, the famous polymath Athanasius Kircher, encouraged him to translate Mishlei Shu’alim into Latin and publish this book as a pedagogical tool for young Jesuits studying biblical languages. Ellen Frankel, in the last chapter, focuses on modern translations of Misheli Shu’alim. When the Jewish American scholar Moses Hadas translated Berechiah’s fables into English in his 1967 book, Fables of a Jewish Aesop, he chose to render them in an archaic style, characterised by outmoded verb endings, mannered vocabulary, inverted syntax and overly formal diction. The result, though quaint and maybe even true to Berechiah’s aesthetic sensibility, is almost unreadable today. On the other hand, Frankel, who translated some of the tales, chose to emphasise their orality over their literariness, sacrificing rhyme, wordiness and archaism in favour of felicitous storytelling and a concise ethical message. The chapter discusses this method of translation on the example of a specific fable and its interpretation.
utilized earlier sources when they interpreted the biblical creation
narrative. Some of their exegetical solutions, including the idea
that the “firmament” and the “waters above the firmament”
referred to regions of the atmosphere, can be traced back to
earlier Judeo-Arabic commentaries. The latter were based on
early medieval miaphysite Syriac sources, particularly Jacob of
Edessa’s Hexaemeron, and the exegetical tradition can be traced
back ultimately to John Philoponus’ treatise on the creation of
the world. Philoponus’ work was never translated to Syriac or
Arabic as far as we know, but Philoponian ideas were transmitted
in miaphysite Syriac exegetical literature. Nevertheless, we do
find Philoponian exegetical solutions in Maimonides’ work which
are absent in the presently known intermediary sources. It is
possible that Maimonides “reinvented” these Philoponian ideas
through a systematic and creative re-reading of the transmitted
material. However, despite his reputation as a major initiator of the
“meteorological” exegesis in Jewish tradition, Maimonides was less
innovative than Ibn Ezra in applying meteorological theories to
biblical exegesis.
meteorological interpretation of the biblical creation narrative that
we encounter in the works of medieval Jewish philosophers can be
traced back to Syriac sources and ultimately to John Philoponus’
treatise on the creation of the world. Philoponus argued that the
words “water,” “firmament,” and “heavens” were used equivocally
in the biblical text and that the creation narrative can be understood
in terms of meteorological processes. Philoponus’ tract was utilized
by Jacob of Edessa, whose Syriac work on creation was probably
one of the sources of Da’ūd al-Muqammaṣ’s Judeo-Arabic
commentary on the creation narrative. Saadia Gaon and Jacob
al-Qirqisānī drew Philoponian ideas from al-Muqammaṣ’s work
and transmitted them to later generations of Jewish exegetes.
Mordecai Benet, the chief rabbi of Moravia, was remarkably flexible concerning those innovations that did not threaten the prestige of rabbinic literature. However, he was a rigid opponent of any changes that could have restructured the inner hierarchy of the literary system.
https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-2019003.xml
Publishing date: 2019 November
https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_1365.ahtml
Summary
Medical writings written by Jews in late medieval Western and Central Europe demonstrate that although Jews were excluded from universities, the medical world outside of the universities was open to them. Jewish medical writers relied on Latin and vernacular sources and often they wrote in German. Emphasising the importance of knowledge of authoritative books, they attempted to secure their social standing by demonstrating that they confirmed to the generally accepted social norm that required physicians and surgeons to rely on learned medicine. Nevertheless, only a few Jewish medical practitioners wrote books.
https://academic.oup.com//shm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/shm/hky110/5272709?guestAccessKey=2b1e77a2-63fc-4a51-a979-7fd39c12b057