Books by Joanna Weinberg
Articles & Reviews by Joanna Weinberg
Guilielmus Surenhusius wrote a letter to Antonio Magliabechi, Cosimo III de' Medici's distinguish... more Guilielmus Surenhusius wrote a letter to Antonio Magliabechi, Cosimo III de' Medici's distinguished librarian, a prominent figure in the republic of letters and bibliophile. In his opening sentence he informed Magliabechi that he had embellished one of the volumes with his portrait and a letter, and that the volume was intended for Cosimo III, the dedicatee of the second volume of the Mishnah, the Order of Moʽed (' Appointed Times').¹ Surenhusius's portrait does indeed adorn some copies of his Mishnah.² In this context, however, it is not the actual portrait that is of significance, but rather the Hebrew inscription that undergirds it. Presumably chosen by Surenhusius himself, the caption presents a key to our understanding of Surenhusius's whole endeavour-the translation and interpretation of the Jewish systema. Taken from the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 31a, the text, a mini-Midrash, encapsulates the universal significance of all the Mishnah's separate parts. It takes the form of an intricate play on Isaiah 33:6: And the stability (emunat) of your times shall be a hoard (hosen) of salvation, wisdom and knowledge, and the fear of the LORD which is His treasure. is is an especially difficult verse to construe, always a signal to the rabbis that the text is ripe for creative re inter pret ation. e Talmudic text reads: ' And there shall be trust in Your times, abundance of salvations, wisdom and knowledge and the fear of the Lord which is His treasure' (Isa. 33:6). 'Trust' refers to the Order of Seeds; 'Your times' refers to the Order of I am grateful to Anthony Gra on and my fellow editors for their careful reading of my chapter. ¹ Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze [herea er BCNF], MS Magl. VIII.1360, fol. 178r-v: 'Libros Misnicos per veredarium ad te transmisi, unus qui effigie mea et inserta epistola ornatus est, Regiae Celsitudini offeratur, alter vero qui utraque caret, Serenissimo Principi ac Cardinali de Medicis, eique officia mea humillime offeras, obnixe peto'. ² e portrait was executed by the engraver Abraham de Blois (1679-1720). Surenhusius's portrait is in the first volume of his Mishnah held by BCNF, Palat. 29.2.7.1 (currently in conservation), and in the copies held by the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana of Amsterdam (ROF 30) and Leiden University Library (841 A. 5). ere are likely to be other copies that contain the portrait. It also hangs in Amsterdam Rijksprentenkabinet, object no. RP-P-1936-748.
Christian Readers of Maimonides in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Maimonides, or rather Rabbi M... more Christian Readers of Maimonides in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Maimonides, or rather Rabbi Moyses or Moyses Aegyptius, fared well in the Christian West. His writings were avidly read and translated into Latin over the centuries. Not long after he had completed his magnum opus, the Guide of the Perplexed, it was translated in its entirety into Latin under the title Dux neutrorum (or Dux dubiorum). 1 Based mainly on Judah 'al Ḥarizi's literary Hebrew rendering of the Guide, this Latin translation circulated widely-thirteen manuscripts have been discovered to date. The great scholastics such as Albertus Magnus (d. 1280), his student Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), and Meister Eckhart (1260-1328?) regarded Maimonides as an authoritative spokesman on the major theological questions of the day, citing his Dux alongside the Church Fathers and Arabic philosophers including Avicenna and Averroes. Like Maimonides, they had to wrestle with the problems that Aristotelianism and rational philosophy in general posed to their religious faith grounded in Scripture. Yet Maimonides's opinions were not always accepted; somehow his positions on certain issues appeared too radical. Thus, for example, the 'angelic doctor,' Thomas Aquinas, who cited Maimonides 74 times throughout his writings, challenged him for claiming that the ascription of positive attributes such as merciful or kind to God compromises His perfection and unity. Maimonides concluded that the only way to refer to God is by what He is not (via negativa). Aquinas combatted this rigid position by offering a doctrine that facilitated analogy between divine and human attributes. 2 Wishing to allow for a human vision of God, Aquinas argued that human attributes may be predicated of God since these notions are ultimately derived from God in His unitary perfection. Notwithstanding such criticisms, Aquinas and his colleagues respected 'Rabbi Moyses' as a formidable authority whose opinions could not be rejected without serious engagement. One feature discernible in seven manuscripts of the Latin version of the Guide is an additional section at the end of the book in the form of a list of the positive and negative commandments. The addendum is drawn from Maimonides's Book of Commandments and their brief listing in the headings of the sections in the Mishneh Torah. Clearly, the list is seen as pertinent to part 3 of the Guide (chapters 36-50) in which Maimonides accounted for the reasons for the biblical commandments. Christian readers scrutinized these chapters of the Guide with the same verve as they did its more philosophical or exegetical sections. When Agostino Giustiniani, bishop of Nebbio (1470-1536?), undertook to produce the first printed translation of the Guide, which he renamed Dux seu Director dubitantium aut perplexorum (Paris, 1520), he too appended the list of positive and negative commandments
e external gate includes a list of many books that were translated from the Holy Tongue into the ... more e external gate includes a list of many books that were translated from the Holy Tongue into the Latin language, that is 'leshon romi'. Some books were written in both the Holy Tongue and Latin-they are the work of non-Jews. is demonstrates the potency of the Holy Tongue-for all nations make every effort to learn and to write books in the Holy Tongue and to translate works from the Holy Tongue into other languages. e wise person will appreciate (ha-mevin yavin) the considerable utility of this section. I would have you know that I have listed the dates in which they were published according to their [i.e. Christian] era.¹ is remarkable approbation of Christian translations of Jewish literature concludes the final section of Shabbetai Bass's bibliography of Hebrew books.² Modelled on previous Christian bibliographies and published in Amsterdam in 1680, Bass's Si ei yeshenim ('Lips of ose Who Sleep') was one of the first attempts on the part of a Jew to produce a comprehensive list of Hebrew printed books with date and place of publication.³ e inclusion of non-Jewish Hebraica, admittedly at the very end of the work, suggests that Bass knew the taste of his potential readers. His use of the expression ha-mevin yavin adds to the sense that he was conveying something both unusual and worthwhile. Having displayed the ¹ Shabbetai Bass, Si ei yeshenim (Amsterdam, 1680), 107a. ² e list contains an interesting hotchpotch of works of both Protestants and Catholics. Bass included and used the bibliographies of Johann Buxtorf the elder and younger, Plantavit de la Pause,
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Joanna Weinberg, “Corpus Christi College’s ‘Trilingual Library’: A Historical Assessment,” in John Watts, ed., Renaissance College: Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in Context, 1450-1600 [=History of Universities, vol. 32, no. 1-2] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 128-142
Thomas Erpenius or Van Erpe (Gorcum 1584-Leiden 1624) was the most remarkable and talented Dutch ... more Thomas Erpenius or Van Erpe (Gorcum 1584-Leiden 1624) was the most remarkable and talented Dutch Orientalist of the early seventeenth century. He was the first incumbent of the chair of Arabic at Leiden University-no mean achievement since only two such positions existed in Western Europe at the time (Paris, 1538 and Heidelberg, 1608). On 14 May 1613 he delivered his first inaugural lecture 'on the excellence and dignity of the Arabic language' .1 On 5 November 1620, after a prolonged absence in France, Erpenius gave a second oration on the virtues of Arabic.2 A few days later he received his first, temporary appointment as professor of Hebrew and Aramaic, for which occasion he pronounced yet another discourse on the merits of the Sacred Tongue on 27 November 1620.3 Erpenius thus left at our disposal three separate official documents, two pertaining to Arabic and one to Hebrew. More than thirty years ago, Alastair Hamilton wrote: 1 Thomas Erpenius, Oratio de lingvae Arabicae praestantia & dignitate, dicta in illustri Batavorum Academia mense Maio MDCXIII, cum ejus linguae, & aliarum orientalium professionem auspicaretur (Leiden, [1615 or later]). In this article, however, we shall refer to the reprinted version, 'Oratio I de lingua Arabica, habita XIIII Maij, anno MDCXIII cum ejusdem & aliarum orientalium professionem auspicaretur' , in id., Orationes tres, de linguarum Ebraeae, atque Arabicae dignitate (Leiden, 1621), pp. 1-38 (hereafter: Erpenius, Oratio I), with added reference to the 1613 edition. 2 Thomas Erpenius, 'Oratio II de lingua Arabica, habita V. Novembris, anno MDCXX cum e secundo suo itinere Gallicano reversus, ad praelectiones suas ordinarias rediret' , in id., Orationes tres, pp. 39-96 (hereafter: Erpenius, Oratio II). This second oration has been translated by R.
The creative authors of the Midrashim treated the topic of 'the persecuted' or 'the victim' in a ... more The creative authors of the Midrashim treated the topic of 'the persecuted' or 'the victim' in a constellation of fascinating homilies on the lectionary portion for Passover. This short article will examine how the theme of persecution is elaborated in various midrashic texts, and point to similarities between rabbinic exegesis and Jewish Hellenistic and Christian Syriac discussions of the same theme.
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Books by Joanna Weinberg
Articles & Reviews by Joanna Weinberg