Shabbatai Donnolo's Sefer Hakhmoni: Introduction, Critical Text, and Annotated English Translation

by Piergabriele Mancuso

Overview

Sefer Hakhmoni by the 10th-century Jewish polymath Shabbatai Donnolo is one of the first texts written in Hebrew in medieval Europe and one of the most important documents of the “Hebrew Renaissance” of Byzantine Jewry in southern Italy between the 9th and the 11th centuries. Written as a commentary on Sefer Yeîirah (Book of Formation, an anonymous text probably written in Palestine between the 3rd and the 6th centuries), Sefer Hakhmoni is in fact a much more complex work, consisting of biblical exegesis, astrology, medicine, a detailed analysis of the neo-Platonic idea of melothesia, and the correspondence between the elements of the microcosm and macrocosm. This volume offers the critical text, an annotated English translation, and a comprehensive introduction to Donnolo and his works.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004167629
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/06/2010
Series:	Studies in Jewish History and Culture Series , #27
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Piergabriele Mancuso, Phd (2009) in Jewish Studies, University College London, taught at Boston University – Center for Italian and European Studies, and he is now a post-doctoral research fellow at Insubria University, Como. He has published several articles on early medieval Italian Jewry and on Shabbatai Donnolo’s writings.

Table of Contents

Preface VII

Acknowledgments IX

Transliterations and Abbreviations XI

Part 1

Historical Introduction 3

Apulian Jewry 3

Shabbatai Donnolo: Biographical Details 12

Shabbatai Donnolo's Works 22

Donnolo's “Library” 35

Shabbatai Donnolo and Sefer Yeîirah 41

The Earliest Commentaries on Sefer Yeîirah 47

Sa'adiah Gaon 47

Dunash ibn Tamim 50

Donnolo's Sefer Hakhmoni: A Neoplatonic Interpretation of Sefer Yeîirah 57

The Commentary on Genesis 1:26 58

The Introduction to the Commentary on Sefer Yeîirah 64

The Commentary on Sefer Yeîirah 66

Part 2

The Manuscripts 79

Conjectural Reconstruction of the Original Codex 84

The Attestation of the Text in the Manuscripts 102

The Manuscript Tradition 105

Stemma Codicum 123

Part 3

Principles of Edition: Organisation of the Text and the Apparatus Criticus 127

Abbreviations and Preliminary Notes 127

Normalisation of Orthography 128

The Title 130

Hebrew text

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Notes to the Critical Text 209

English Translation

Commentary on the Book of Formation called Sefer Hakhmoni 221

Commentary on Let Us Make Man in Our Image after Our Likeness (Genesis 1:26) 249

Introduction to the Commentary on the Book of Formation 279

Book 1 285

Book 2 306

Book 3 334

Part 4

Bibliography 361

Manuscripts 361

Primary Sources 363

Studies and Reference Works 370

Index of Names 399

Index of Names of Places 409

Index of Books and Works Titles 411