Latin-Into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies

This two-volume work, Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies sheds new light on an under-investigated phenomenon of European medieval intellectual history: the transmission of knowledge and texts from Latin into Hebrew between the twelfth and the fifteenth century. Because medieval Jewish philosophy and science in Christian Europe drew mostly on Hebrew translations from Arabic, the significance of the input from the Christian majority culture has been neglected. Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies redresses the balance. It highlights the various phases of Latin-into-Hebrew translations and considers their disparity in time, place, and motivations. Special emphasis is put on the singular role of the translations of Latin medical and philosophical literature. Volume One: Studies, offers 18 studies and Volume Two: Texts in Contexts, includes editions and analyses of hitherto unpublished texts of medieval Latin-into-Hebrew translations. Both volumes are available separately or together as a set. This groundbreaking work is indispensable for any scholar interested in the history of medieval philosophic and scientific thought in Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic in relationship to the vicissitudes of Jewish-Christian relations.

Alexander Fidora is an ICREA-Research Professor in the Department of Ancient and Medieval Studies of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His recent publications include: Vincent Ferrer, De unitate universalis – Ma’amar nikhbad ba-kolel, ed. with M. Zonta (Barcelona 2010); and Domingo Gundisalvo y la teoría arábigo-aristotélica de la ciencia (Pamplona 2009).

Resianne Fontaine is University Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Her field of research is Jewish philosophy and the history of science in the Middle Ages. She has published Samuel ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew version of Aristotle’s Meteorology (,1995) and co-edited the volume Studies in the History of Culture and Science. A tribute to Gad Freudenthal, ed. with R. Glasner, R. Leicht and G. Veltri (Leiden, 2011)

Gad Freudenthal is Senior Research Fellow Emeritus with the CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) in Paris, and Professor at the University of Geneva. He has written on the history of science in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, especially in Jewish cultures. His last edited volume is Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures (Cambridge, 2011). He also is the editor of Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism.

Harvey Hames is Professor of Medieval History in the General History Department at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Among his publications: Like Angels on Jacob’s Ladder: Abraham Abulafia, the Franciscans and Joachimism (New York 2007); and Ha-Melacha ha-Ketzara. Ramon Llull’s ‘Ars brevis’ in Hebrew (Turnhout 2012).

Yossef Schwartz is Professor for medieval intellectual history at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University. Among his publications: Religious Apologetics – Philosophical Argumentation, ed. with V. Krech (Tübingen 2004); Hillel of Verona, Über die Vollendung der Seele, trans. and ed. (Freiburg 2009).