1/300. 4to. XVIII. [2], 370pp. Original red-brick smyth-sewn clothbound with gold illustration on front cover and gold lettering on spine. Includes ribbon page marker and matching slipcase. Frontispiece. Second volume in the "Sephardic Classical Library" series. The only extant 15th-century Spanish translation of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed, preserved in a single manuscript at the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid, of which only very small fragments have been published during the last hundred years. Written originally by Maimonides in Judeo-Arabic, this monumental philosophical and exegetical treatise was translated into Spanish by the Jewish converso Pedro de Toledo, in the first decades of the 15th century from two different surviving Hebrew translations (by Samuel Ibn Tibbon and Yehuda Al-Harizi), while possibly also consulting the Judeo-Arabic and other texts. It was the first translation of Maimonides' work into a vernacular language and possibly the most extensive philosophical text in Spanish prose. The first 20 folios of the manuscript are densely covered with glosses of the translator and critical comments written in a mid-15th century hand by an anonymous Jewish reader. Since 1948, Americo Castro strongly advocated the need to make available the entire text, "to see how one understood and interpreted a complex book of philosophical questions at a time when nothing comparable in philosophical density had ever been attempted in the Castillan language." This work offers for the first time a complete transcription of the entire text and its glosses. Includes a selected bibliography. Preface in English; text in Spanish. Binding and interior in fine condition. R. Moses Maimonides (Rambam) was a 12th century Jewish philosopher and halachic legal scholar. A highly controversial figure, both during his lifetime and after his death, but generally acknowledged as the preeminent Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages. He was born in C�rdoba, Spain but fled as a child due to Almohad persecution of Jews. He eventually settled in Egypt where he served as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah, his only work not in Arabic, still carries canonical authority, particularly within the Yemenite Jewish community, as the codification of Talmudic law. His other work includes a commentary on the Mishnah entitled Kitab al-Siraj, Kitab al-Fara'I, a book on precepts, and the philosophical work Dalalat al-Ha'irin, known in Hebrew as the Moreh Nevukhim, The Guide to the Perplexed. The major premise is an attempted philosophical/theological reconciliation of the Hebrew Bible and Greek knowledge and explaining away anthropomorphic and antropopathic terms in the Bible. This work came to play a central role in all subsequent major controversies over philosophy within the Jewish community during the Middle Ages.

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Bibliographic Details

Title

Maimonides. Guide For The Perplexed. A 15th Century Spanish Translation by Pedro de Toledo (Ms. 10289, B. N. Madrid)

Publisher

Labyrinthos, Culver City, CA

Publication Date

1989

Language

Spanish

ISBN 10

0911437487

ISBN 13

9780911437485

Binding

Hardcover

Edition

Deluxe Limited Edition.

Condition

Seller catalogs

Judaica

About this title

Synopsis

Spanish (translation)Original Arabic

Language Notes

Text: Spanish (translation)
Original Language: Arabic

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

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Since 1985 we offer individual books for sale from our inventory of 150,000 rare, out-of-print and antiquarian volumes on many topics, with an emphasis on Judaica, Hebraica, Bibles and rabbinics, the fine and decorative arts, architecture, photography, textile and wallpaper sample books, Bauhaus and the avant garde, expressionist dance, Olympic Games and sport, the ancient near-east and archeology, erotica, illustrated and foreign-language books, especially German, Yiddish, Polish and Hebrew, as well as books from the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich, plus Russian constructivist materials. We create book collections, both large and small, for individuals, decorators, archives and libraries�currently available: a 10,000-volume research collection on Judaica in the German language. In addition, we maintain a beguiling selection of original works of art and photography. Eric Chaim Kline provides appraisal services for estate, insurance and tax purposes, often helping to match book donors with libraries and museums. We purchase books of merit and entire collections; we also take books on consignment with favorable terms. We are a rental source for movie and tv production, occasionally providing the prop on which the plot turns. Traveling throughout the U.S. and Europe, Eric Chaim Kline has been buying and selling old and rare books since the 1980�s, when in graduate school at Brandeis University. Proprietor of bookshops in several Los Angeles locations since 1985, he hosts visitors by appointment in our lively bookstore and ships books to collectors, libraries and museums worldwide. Kline occasionally lectures on topics in book collecting and Jewish studies. He sponsors the annual Bibliography Award granted by the Association of Jewish Libraries and serves on the national board of the Antiquarian Booksellers� Association of America. We welcome your inquiries.

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