| Samuel Ibn Tibbon (c.1165--1232), the eminent Arabic-to-Hebrew translator, was particularly important for the development of Jewish thought in Christian Europe. During the period 1202--1214 he translated not only Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed and other works of the "True Sage," but also produced the first Hebrew versions of Aristotle and Averroes, thus initiating the shift in translation from Judaeo-Arabic works to those of Graeco-Arabic and Islamic provenance. The technical language he invented, continuing the work began by his father Judah, became the standard terminology used in the Middle Ages, for both translations and original compositions. So authoritative was his Arabized Hebrew that later authors, even those who did not know Arabic, wrote in a Hebrew that exaggerated the unique semantic and syntactic peculiarities of his hybrid style.;Despite some recent studies of his original writing, however, Ibn Tibbon the philosopher, exegete, and founder of medieval Maimonideanism, remains far less known. Although this is partly the result of the nature of his relationship to Maimonides---he intentionally remained in the shadow of his Master, presenting his own ideas as explications or elaborations of those in the Guide---a more important reason for his relative obscurity as an independent thinker is the unfortunate textual history of his original work. His long Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which served as the model for like-minded philosopher-exegetes throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has never before been published, while his final work, entitled Ma'amor Yiqqawu ha-Mayim, is available only in a poor and incomplete nineteenth-century edition. Focusing only on what is available in print, it is difficult to fully appreciate why his contemporaries and followers refer to him not only as "translator" but also "philosopher" and "great sage," second in importance to Maimonides for the teaching of Jewish philosophy.;The purpose of this dissertation is to shed further light on the importance of Ibn Tibbon's original work. It includes a critical edition of the Commentary on Ecclesiastes (Part Three), an annotated translation of select passages of the commentary (Part Two), and an analysis of its philosophy and method of exegesis (Part One). This analysis, which sets the commentary in historical, philosophical, and exegetical context, consists of five chapters. Chapter one discusses the Ibn Tibbon family's contribution to the translation movement in southern France, traces the developments in Ibn Tibbon's thought and identifies important influences, and briefly surveys the commentaries written on Ecclesiastes before that of Ibn Tibbon. Chapter two examines the methods and sources of his exegesis in the commentary; of special importance here is his use of grammar and midrash for philosophical purposes and his developing of a full Maimonidean hermeneutic and exegetical technique. Chapter three gives the background of his use of logic in the explication of Ecclesiastes, an innovation which derives from the peculiar relation between logic, political philosophy, and religion in the Arabic tradition. Chapter four explains the arguments against immortality in the commentary; in Ibn Tibbon's opinion, Solomon defended this religious doctrine by exposing the weaknesses of his opponents' arguments. Chapter five explains Ibn Tibbon's understanding of the story of the "poor wise child" and "great king" (Eccl 4:13--16, 9:13--18) which is in his opinion the key to understanding Solomon's true belief about immortality. |
