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Medieval Period
Abraham Ibn Ezra is the man by whom astrology entered Judaism through the main door: he integrated it into his very influential Bible commentaries and wrote a series of works expounding its fundamentals. Of the latter, only one more or less scientific edition has appeared until now (Reshit Ḥokhmah, ed. Raphael Levy and Francisco Cantera [Baltimore, 1939]). With the present volume, Shlomo Sela begins the publication of Ibn Ezra's complete works on astrology. The volume contains Ibn Ezra's Sefer (Book of Reasons), a commentary on his Rešit. There in fact are two versions, or redactions, of this book (commenting on two versions of Rešit), and both are published here. The Hebrew text is given with a facing English translation. Keyed to the latter are Sela's very extensive, erudite, and helpful notes. The study of astrology is very technical and Sela is to be commended for his work. [End Page 141]
Astrology absorbed many of the best human geniuses in the Middle Ages (and later), interacted with other disciplines, and provided the ground for widespread social practices. Its study is therefore of great significance for the history of science and for cultural history more generally. Sela's book is a major contribution to this study, providing access to Ibn Ezra's astrology, which was the main fountainhead of medieval Hebrew astrology and strongly influenced Latin astrology too. One looks forward to the following volumes.
This fine selection of poems by Solomon Ibn Gabirol is intended for the educated layman. The editor provides a short general introduction to medieval Hebrew poetry written on Spanish soil and then introduces Ibn Gabirol. The anthology itself is divided into eleven parts, according to subjects. Each part has its own short introduction, making this volume a useful pedagogical tool. Although it is difficult to deduce this from the volume itself, it is the first in a series of anthologies of medieval Hebrew poetry from the Spanish Golden Age.
R. Yeḥiel b. Abraham lived in the first half of the eleventh century. As the title suggests, he seems to be remembered today mainly because of his son, R. Nathan, the author of the famous talmudic dictionary . In this volume, A. Fraenkel gathered R. Yeh. iel's 30 known piyyut. im and published them in critical texts with explanatory notes. Fraenkel also wrote a substantial introduction, which summarizes what we know of R. Yeḥiel and studies his poetry in context. One seliḥah (pp. 177–80) is of immediate scientific relevance. Written on the occasion of an eclipse (in late 1044, according to Fraenkel), it uses this phenomenon [End Page 142] (which apparently scared the population) to buttress the idea of God's omnipotence and at the same time call on the Jews to cling to Him and reject Christianity.
Many years ago Dov Schwartz identified a "circle" of commentators on the Kuzari, who were active in Provence in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. He now offers a critical edition of one of the commentaries it produced: Ḥešeq Šelomo, by R. Solomon ben Judah of Lunel. In his informative and concise introduction, Schwartz describes the circle and characterizes its intellectual choices. He particularly addresses the question of why members of a circle whose inclinations were decidedly rationalistic chose to comment on a book whose thrust is the criticism of philosophy.
The edition itself reproduces the text of the Kuzari in Judah Ibn Tibbon's translation (according to...
