This book offers an account of a key event in Jewish intellectual history that is also an important chapter in the history of Western philosophy: the dissemination of Maimonides’ chief philosophical work, the Guide of the Perplexed, through Samuel ibn Tibbon at the beginning of the 13th century in Southern France. Whereas Maimonides interpreted Judaism as a philosophical religion, Ibn Tibbon turned this interpretation into the foundation of Jewish philosophy up to Spinoza, making it into a systematic justification for studying Greco-Arabic philosophy and science in a religious setting. If Maimonides’ work was the gate through which philosophy became an important component of Jewish culture, Ibn Tibbon built the hinge without which this gate would have remained shut.
The book examines Ibn Tibbon’s relationship to Maimonides in all its facets: how he translated Maimonides’ work from Arabic into Hebrew, explained its technical terminology, and interpreted and taught its doctrines. Due attention is also paid to Ibn Tibbon’s comprehensive criticism of Maimonides. The book includes the edition of what may be called the first commentary on the Guide: about 100 glosses attributed to Ibn Tibbon that were discovered through examining 145 manuscripts of Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation. The glosses illustrate the different aspects of Ibn Tibbon’s relationship to Maimonides and the complex transition of Maimonides’ work from one cultural context to another.
This is a delightful book. Carlos Fraenkel succeeds in two distinct although related projects. The first is to describe the philosophical agenda of Samuel Ibn Tibbon, the translator of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed (among other works). Following Aviezer Ravitzky and Resianne Fontaine, Fraenkel avers that Ibn Tibbon was not a “mere” translator, but one with an agenda of his own. Fraenkel himself views Maimonides as having set himself the goal of “making Judaism into a philosophical religion” in the spirit of al-Fārābı̄ (pp. 40–53). He thinks that Ibn Tibbon read the Master in the same way and sought to propagate that understanding of Judaism: this is why he decided to translate the Guide. As a serious and committed scholar, Ibn Tibbon studied the Guide very closely, even engaging in a correspondence (also studied here) with Maimonides about the translation. During this engagement with the Guide, Ibn Tibbon made a great number of “reading notes” on copies of his Hebrew translation, which he also revised continuously. Beginning with Steinschneider (naturally), scholars have been aware of these notes, some of which are of considerable historical importance (they not only throw light on Ibn Tibbon’s thought, but also on the Hebrew version of the Guide and several discrepancies between it and the Arabic original). Fraenkel’s second project is to provide a critical edition of all the notes that could be ascribed to Ibn Tibbon. Inasmuch as these notes reflect Ibn Tibbon’s continuous grappling with Maimonides’ thought, the two projects are obviously complementary. The methodical and organizational problems that Fraenkel had to surmount are considerable (the notes had to be identified in and gathered from 61 manuscripts, out of 145 examined). He is to be commended for his masterful success in this task. Fraenkel’s work is that rare combination, a philologically meticulous study that is also intellectually inspiring. -Aleph. Historical Studies in Science & Judaism, VOLUME 10, ISSUE 1, 2010