Letter to the Editor

Volume 9. No.2 Winter 1991 LETTER TO THE EDITOR 1 While I do not often write concerning a book review, I must add to that given for The Book of Theodicy, by Saadiah AI-Fayyumi (Shofar, Vol. 9, No.1, pp. 110-111). The translation and commentary on this Arabic work provided by Lenn E. Goodman enriches and enhances it beyond Saadiah's actual writing. Professor Goodman not only consulted the two critical Arabic editions of the work but also the major modern commentaries on Job in English and Hebrew. His notes at the end of each chapter place Saadiah's writing in the context of the Muslim philosophical schools of his time, explain his "tafsir" or commentary (not merely a translation) in the light of both medieval and modern commentaries, and raise theological and philosophical issues in a way that invites further discussion of the substance (thus he refers both to Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel, the latter of whose influence seems to pervade both this work and Professor Goodman's earlier translation and notes to Ibn Tufayl's Havy Ibn Yaqthan). As someone who teaches both Jewish and Muslim philosophy, I find the greatest value of this work, as of the earlier one, to lie in the scholarly, informative, and provocative work of the editor. S. Daniel Breslauer Professor of Religious Studies University of Kansas CORRECTION Jay Rovner, the author of the article "The Computerized Genizah Cataloguing Project of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America," in the Summer 1990 issue of Shofar (Vol. 8, No.4), wishes to make a small correction of facts on page 47. The last sentence in the first paragraph on that page should read: "Included, as well, are the five volumes of fragments from the Krengel collection,31 and one emanating from Solomon Schechter. The Genizah collection also includes two volumes of Biblical fragments, under the designation: KE." Footnote 31 should be replaced by the following: "J. Krengel, after whom the collection is named, has described some of the approximately 150 fragments in this group in 'Einige Genisa-Fragmente,' in: Festschrift zu l~rael Lewy's siebzigstem Geburtstag, Breslau, 1911, pp. 36-46." ...