The volume presents Avenzoar's Regimen of Health (from twelfth-century Spain) in its medieval Latin and Hebrew translations from Arabic, together with an English version, and demonstrates in detail ...how the translation team--one Jew, one Christian--negotiated its collaborative result.
Science Translated Goyens, Michèle; De Leemans, Pieter; Smets, An
2013, 20081101, 2008, 2013-03-20, Letnik:
40
eBook
Medieval translators played an important role in the development and evolution of a scientific lexicon. At a time when most scholars deferred to authority, the translations of canonical texts assumed ...great importance. Moreover, translation occurred at two levels in the Middle Ages. First, Greek or Arabic texts were translated into the learned language, Latin. Second, Latin texts became source-texts themselves, to be translated into the vernaculars as their importance across Europe started to increase. The situation of the respective translators at these two levels was fundamentally different: whereas the former could rely on a long tradition of scientific discourse, the latter had the enormous responsibility of actually developing a scientific vocabulary. The contributions in the present volume investigate both levels, greatly illuminating the emergence of the scientific terminology and concepts that became so fundamental in early modern intellectual discourse. The scientific disciplines covered in the book include, among others, medicine, biology, astronomy, and physics.
Exceptional as a medieval pediatric handbook, De curis puerorum is edited here in Latin and Hebrew translations of al-Rāzī's lost Arabic original; an English version and commentary reveal ...contemporary beliefs about the causes, symptoms, and treatments of many children's diseases.
Erasmus was concerned not only with the mechanics of conveying the factual contents and literary qualities of the original, but also with the applicability of its moral content to Christian ...philosophy.
The ongoing work on a critical edition of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in its medieval Latin translation, and the recently published detailed studies of the Latin manuscripts provide us with a ...unique opportunity to reconsider a field of study which, after more than 150 years of intensive scholarly engagement, still presents us with some remarkable lacunae. In confronting the new material evidence, this paper raises some basic questions regarding the unique nature of Maimonides’ work itself and the way it is reflected through its reception among European readers, Jews and Christians alike. My two main goals here are, first, to emphasize the unique character of the early Latin reception of the Guide, which was less philosophically oriented and more Hebraistic in nature, and, second, to emphasize its close ties to a set of persecutional acts that took place in the very same period.
Johannes Buxtorf the Younger’s Latin translation of the Guide of the Perplexed (1629) is studied in its bibliographical, linguistic and paratextual features. The translator’s preface is analyzed ...in detail highlighting the peculiar intentions of Buxtorf in editing this medieval philosophical work. Its main function is identified by the translator as a mean towards learning Hebrew, although he was well aware that the original language of the Guide was rather Arabic. A specific ideological bias as to the function of the Guide in designing and promoting a “rational” Judaism, compatible with Protestant ideals is detected among the most interesting motives of this translation, one which would be destined to a long fortune among Christian Hebraists of the subsequent epochs.
The question of the Dux neutrorum’s origin has been lengthily debated. To disclose part its “mystery” it would be useful to understand the cultural project behind such an enterprise: Why was this ...text translated and who was the public addressed? A closer examination of the translation technique can reveal important information concerning the historical and methodological circumstances of the Dux neutrorum’s composition: is it to be considered as a literal translation or as a paraphrase? Are some original passages omitted, and if yes, which ones? The answer to these questions could reveal the aim that moved the translator, by indicating his interest with regard to some sections and disinterest with regard to omitted passages. Secondly, it provides information that can be compared to similar methods applied within the context of the thirteenth-century translation movement.
In 1581, Yedidya ben Moshe Recanati—who lived in San Marino and Pesaro, in the North‑eastern regions of Italy—wrote an Italian translation (in Hebrew characters) of the Guide of the Perplexed, based ...on the Hebrew version by Samuel Ibn Tibbon. According to his words in the introduction, this work was destined for Jewish students who, thanks to the translation of difficult words and expressions of Maimonides’ book, could address Jewish and especially non‑Jewish scholars, in order to have further explanations, in particular on scientific matters. Yedidya Recanati was a brilliant and prolific scholar, though almost completely unknown; actually, his rich literary production—biblical exegesis, epistolography, lexicography and translations from and into Hebrew, besides scattered Halakhic response has never been printed. The translation of the Guide, whose title is Erudizione de’ confusi, is the evidence of the persistent importance of Maimonides’ work within Italian Judaism, even in a period of growing defiance toward rationalistic philosophy.
Written between 1269 and 1284 in the Convent of Saint Catherine in Barcelona, Ramon Martí’s Pugio fidei (“The Dagger of Faith”) is a lengthy handbook intended for Mendicants engaged in preaching to ...the Jews (and the Muslims). The argumentation is founded on passages drawn from multiple sources, including Arabic and Jewish ones, reproduced in the original language (in Hebrew characters, when it comes to Arabic), translated and commented by the author himself. Among these passages, fourteen citations/mentions of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. They display two particularities that may prove to be very significant for the study of the Guide’s reception: on the one hand, the passages cited correspond to the original Arabic, Ibn Tibbon’s or Al‑Ḥarizi’s translations, and, on the other hand, Ramon Martí chose to provide his own translation for all of them, even though it appears that a complete Latin translation had been circulating since the beginning of the 13th century (particularly in Dominican circles). The article is followed by several appendices, including the complete and comparative citation, on three columns, of each passage according to: 1) the 17th century editor, who uses several manuscript copies of the Pugio fidei, some of which are lost today; 2) Ibn Shmuel’s edition for Ibn Tibbon’s version; 3) the Paris manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Héb. 682) and Schlossberg’s edition for Al‑Ḥarizi’s version. For each of the passages, the critical apparatus also gives the alternative readings in the autograph manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève 1405), unknown by the editor, which is the most complete witness of the Pugio fidei’s textual tradition.
Recent research on the textual tradition of Latin versions of the Testimonium Flayianum prompts another enquiry into the original text and the transmission of the famous passage. It is suggested here ...that the Greek/Latin versions highlight a western/eastern early history of the Testimonium and that in turn directs our attention back to the original circumstances of its composition and publication in the city of Rome in the later years of the first century. Restored to its original historical context, the Testimonium emerges as a carefully crafted attack upon the post-Pauline community of Christfollowers in the city.
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