Rabbi Saadiah Gaon S Commentary On The Book Of Creation

"We present here a fully annotated translation of both the Gaon's Arabic rendition of the Bible from the section of 'Bereshith' to 'Vayetze' and his flowing commentary thereto"--Introd.

The book of Daniel exerted a strong influence despite its brevity and late composition. Old Jewish commentators read it as the future God planned for Israel. Modern Bible scholars trace the birth of Apocalyptic literature to its chapters. The commentary of Saadia Gaon is the first serious example of rabbinical reading and displays the multidimensional role of the Book of Daniel. In Rabbi Saadia's commentary a new style in commenting the Bible emerges. Philological consideration and historical inquiry replace the story-telling type or midrashic exegesis. The commentary is also a testimony of the vital role the Middle East played in forging today's Judaism.

Jewish Bible Translations is the first book to examine Jewish Bible translations from the third century BCE to our day. It is an overdue corrective of an important story that has been regularly omitted or downgraded in other histories of Bible translation. Examining a wide range of translations over twenty-four centuries, Leonard Greenspoon delves into the historical, cultural, linguistic, and religious contexts of versions in eleven languages: Arabic, Aramaic, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish. He profiles many Jewish translators, among them Buber, Hirsch, Kaplan, Leeser, Luzzatto, Mendelssohn, Orlinsky, and Saadiah Gaon, framing their aspirations within the Jewish and larger milieus in which they worked. Greenspoon differentiates their principles, styles, and techniques—for example, their choice to emphasize either literal reflections of the Hebrew or distinctive elements of the vernacular language—and their underlying rationales. As he highlights distinctive features of Jewish Bible translations, he offers new insights regarding their shared characteristics and their limits. Additionally, Greenspoon shows how profoundly Jewish translators and interpreters influenced the style and diction of the King James Bible. Accessible and authoritative for all from beginners to scholars, Jewish Bible Translations enables readers to make their own informed evaluations of individual translations and to holistically assess Bible translation within Judaism.

Essays explaining diverse methods and reading strategies, providing a dependable guide to understanding the Book of Genesis.

R. Saadia Gaon (882-942) was unquestionably one of the most important if not the most important medieval Jewish thinker. He dealt with biblical exegesis, philosophy, grammar, poetry, prayer, and Halakha, and in many of these fields he is considered an innovator and a trailblazer, paving new paths for his followers. Many of the sages who lived after him cited from his writings. He served as head of the Academy of Sūra, Babylon, but the impact of his works was felt in all generations who lived and followed. This study seeks to describe and analyze R. Saadia Gaon's life, his public enterprise, his works, and his influence on the generations after him.

“I didn’t think he’d do it. I really didn’t think he would. I thought he’d say, whoa, hold on, wait a minute. We made a deal, remember, the land, the blessing, the nation, the descendants as numerous as the sands on the shore and the stars in the sky.” So begins James Goodman’s original and urgent encounter with one of the most compelling and resonant stories ever told—God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. A mere nineteen lines in the book of Genesis, it rests at the heart of the history, literature, theology, and sacred rituals of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. For more than two millennia, people throughout the world have grappled with the troubling questions about sacrifice, authority, obedience, and faith to which the story gives rise. Writing from the vantage of “a reader, a son, a Jew, a father, a skeptic, a historian, a lover of stories, and a writer,” Goodman gives us an enthralling narrative history that moves from its biblical origins to its place in the cultures and faiths of our time. He introduces us to the commentary of Second Temple sages, rabbis and priests of the late antiquity, and early Islamic exegetes (some of whom imagined that Ishmael was the nearly sacrificed son). He examines Syriac hymns (in which Sarah stars), Hebrew chronicles of the First Crusade (in which Isaac often dies), and medieval English mystery plays. He looks at the art of Europe’s golden age, the philosophy of Kant and Kierkegaard, and the panoply of twentieth-century interpretation, sacred and profane, including the work of Bob Dylan, Elie Wiesel, and A. B. Yehoshua. In illuminating how so many others have understood this story, Goodman tells a gripping and provocative story of his own.

Winner of the 2020 Canadian Jewish Literary Award in the category of Jewish Thought and Culture Bal tashḥit, the Jewish prohibition against wastefulness and destruction, is considered to be an ecological ethical principle by contemporary Jewish environmentalists. Waste Not provides a comprehensive intellectual history of this concept, charting its evolution from the Bible through classical rabbinic literature, commentaries, codes of law, responsa, and the works of modern environmentalists. Tanhum S. Yoreh uses the methodology of tradition histories to identify pivotal moments in the development of the prohibition—in particular, its transition into an economic framework. He finds that bal tashḥit's earliest stages of conceptualization connect the prohibition against wastefulness with avoidance of self-harm. This connection is commonplace within contemporary environmental thought and a universalizing Jewish principle with important contributions to be made to Jewish and general societal ecological discourse. This narrative provides a foundation for understanding bal tashḥit as an environmental ethic for today and tomorrow.

Medieval Islamic Civilization examines the socio-cultural history of the regions where Islam took hold between the seventh and sixteenth century. This important two-volume work contains over 700 alphabetically arranged entries, contributed and signed by international scholars and experts in fields such as Arabic languages, Arabic literature, architecture, art history, history, history of science, Islamic arts, Islamic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Near Eastern studies, politics, religion, Semitic studies, theology, and more. This reference provides an exhaustive and vivid portrait of Islamic civilization including the many scientific, artistic, and religious developments as well as all aspects of daily life and culture. For a full list of entries, contributors, and more, visit www.routledge-ny.com/middleages/Islamic.