The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (review)

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 636-638 Steven Harvey, ed. The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought 7. Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000. Pp. xi + 547. In the Middle Ages, individuals could write an encyclopedia all by themselves . By the 19th century, encyclopedias had become the works of committees , with multiple contributors, but at least individuals could still write histories of encyclopedias by themselves, as Moritz Steinschneider did for Hebrew encyclopedias in his Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters . By the late 20th century, our knowledge had expanded such that it had even become difficult for one person to write a history of encyclopedias . In that light, the present book, which is the product of the collaboration of leading experts in the history of Jewish expositions of science who were convened for a conference on medieval Hebrew encyclopedias at BarIlan University in 1998, is particularly welcome. The common denominator of the major works discussed in this book is that they were Hebrew encyclopedias (although one was originally written in Arabic), not that they were Jewish encyclopedias. Though some references are made to the Jewish tradition, very little effort was expended by their authors to reconcile scientific knowledge with Judaism. That task was left to first-rate thinkers such as Maimonides and Gersonides. The encyclopedists, who were more summarizers of the contemporary state of science and compilers of disparate sources than innovative thinkers, concentrated on bringing scientific knowledge, largely derived from Arabic formulations of Greek science, to a popular Hebrew reading audience which was unable to read this material in the original. As demonstrated in The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias , the compilers often were forced to choose among their sources and tender their own opinions on matters of controversy, but this was not their major forte. The three great medieval Hebrew encyclopedias analyzed are Judah ben Solomon ha-Cohen's Midrash Hokhmah, 1247 (discussed by Resianne Fontaine ); Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera's De'ot ha-Filosofim, 1270s (Steven Harvey ); and Gershom ben Solomon of Aries' Sha'ar ha-Shamayim, last quarter of the 13th century (James Robinson). In addition, some pre- 13th-century compositions, which might qualify as encyclopedias, are discussed: Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah, 1180 (Jeffrey R. Woolf); Abraham bar Hiyya's Yesodei ha-Tevunah u-Migdal ha-Emunah, first quarter of the 12th century (Mercedes Rubio); Abraham Ibn Ezra's scientific corpus, 1 146-1 161 (Shlomo Sela); as well as other lesser-known encyclopedias, such as Levi ben Abraham of Villefranche's Battei ha-Nefesh ve-ha-Lehashim (a short encyclopedia HARVEY, MEDIEVAL HEBREW ENCYCLOPEDIAS—LASKER 637 in rhyme) and Livyat Hen, end of the 13th century (Warren Zev Harvey);1 Moses ben Judah Nogah's Ahavah ba-Ta'anugim, 1354-1356 (Esti Eisenmann ); and Renaissance Hebrew encyclopedias (Abraham Melamed). Each of these works is summarized, with a detailed table of contents for the three major encyclopedias, and discussion is provided concerning textual problems relating to each composition's particular manuscript situation (scribes often copied only parts of the encyclopedias, reflecting either their own, or their patron's, interests). Anyone setting out to study one of the medieval encyclopedias is well advised to begin with these summary articles. The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias is not restricted, however, to general introductions. Many of the articles are devoted to the context of the works (the Christian context by Johannes B. Voorbij and Eva Albrecht, and the Islamic context by Hans Hinrich Biesterfeldt and Charles Butterworth), as well as detailed discussions of how the encyclopedists treated individual subjects in their works. These topics include logic (Charles H. Manekin); mathematics (Tony Levy); celestial matter (Ruth Glasner); providence, astrology and astronomy (Gad Freudenthal and Y. Tzvi Langermann); psychology (Alfred I. Ivry); and metaphysics (Mauro Zonta). The volume concludes with Charles H. Manekin's translation, annotation, and updating of Moritz Steinschneider's discussion of the three major encyclopedias in his Hebraeischen Übersetzungen. Ironically, Manekin's presentation of Steinschneider is a good illustration of the type of work done by the medievals, who took their sources, such as Averroes, and updated, rearranged , and commented upon these sources in order to make them available to...