Jewish philosophy -- Early works to 1800; Judaism -- Works to 1900; Philosophy, Medieval -- Early works to 1800
Gedaliah ibn Yahyah, in Shalshelet ha-ḳabbalah, mentions a Latin
translation of the Moreh by Jacob Monteno; but nothing is known of it,
unless it be the anonymous translation of the Munich MS., mentioned
above. Augustinus Justinianus edited this version (Paris, 1520), with
slight alterations and a great number of mistakes. Joseph Scaliger’s
opinion of this version is expressed in a letter to Casaubonus, as
follows: Qui latine vertit, Hebraica, non Arabica, convertit, et quidem
sæpe hallucinatur, neque mentem Authoris assequitur. Magna seges
mendorum est in Latino. Præter illa quæ ab inertia Interpretis peccata
sunt accessit et inertia Librariorum aut Typographorum, e.g., prophetiæ
pro philosophiæ; altitudo pro aptitudo; bonitatem pro brevitatem.
(Buxtorf, Doctor Perplexorum, Præf.)
Johannes Buxtorfius, Fil., translated the Hebrew version of Ibn Tibbon
into Latin (Basileæ, 1629, 4to). In the Præfatio ad Lectorem, the
translator discusses the life and the works of Maimonides, and dwells
especially on the merits and the fate of the Moreh-nebuchim. The
preface is followed by a Hebrew poem of Rabbi Raphael Joseph of Trèves,
in praise of an edition of the Moreh containing the Commentaries of
Efodi, Shem-tob, and Crescas.
Italian was the first living language into which the Moreh has been
translated. This translation was made by Yedidyah ben Moses (Amadeo de
Moïse di Recanati), and dedicated by him to “divotissimo e divinissimo
Signor mio il Signor Immanuel da Fano” (i.e., the Kabbalist Menaḥem
Azarriah). The translator dictated it to his brother Eliah, who wrote
it in Hebrew characters; it was finished the 8th of February, 1583. The
MS. copy is contained in the Royal Library at Berlin, MS. Or. Qu. 487
(M. Steinschneider Catal., etc.)—The Moreh has been translated into
Italian a second time, and annotated by D. J. Maroni: Guida degli
Smarriti, Firenze, 1870, fol.
The Moreh has been translated into German by R. Fürstenthal (Part I.,
Krotoschin, 1839), M. Stern (Part II., Wien, 1864), and S. Scheyer
(Part III., Frankfort-a.-M., 1838). The translation is based on Ibn
Tibbon’s Hebrew version. The chapters on the Divine Attributes have
been translated into German, and fully discussed, by Dr. Kaufmann in
his Geschichte der Attributenlehre (Gotha, 1877). An excellent French
translation, based on the Arabic original, has been supplied by the
regenerator of the Guide, S. Munk. It was published together with the
Arabic text (Paris, 1850–1866).
The Moreh has also been translated into the Hungarian language by Dr.
Klein. The translation is accompanied by notes (Budapest, 1878–80).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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