The present volume offers the first critical edition of the Hebrew text of the two versions of Ibn Ezra’s Book of the World, accompanied by an English translation and a commentary. These twin treatises represent the first Hebrew work, unique in medieval Jewish science, to discuss the theories and techniques of historical and meteorological astrology that had accumulated from Antiquity to Ibn Ezra’s time, on the basis of Greek, Hindu, Persian, and Arabic sources. This volume also incorporates the first critical edition, translated and annotated, of MāshāÞallāh’s Book on Eclipses, a work dealing with mundane astrology whose Hebrew translation was ascribed to Ibn Ezra, as well as a study of three brief texts in which Ibn Ezra conveyed his own opinion about mundane astrology.
Shlomo Sela is a lecturer in the Departments of Jewish Philosophy and Bible at Bar-Ilan University. His research focuses on Jewish attitudes toward the sciences, with special interest in the history of astrology in the Middle Ages. He has recently published: Abraham Ibn Ezra: The Book of Reasons, A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Two Versions of the Text, Edited, translated, and annotated by Shlomo Sela, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2007. With this volume he begins the publication of Ibn Ezra’s complete works on astrology.
Introduction
Part One: First Version of the Book of the World by Abraham Ibn
Ezra. Hebrew Text and English Translation
Part Two: Notes to the First Version of the Book of the World
Part Three: Second Version of the Book of the World by Abraham
Ibn Ezra. Hebrew Text and English Translation
Part Four: Notes to the Second Version of the Book of the World
Part Five: Related Texts
All those interested in the history of astrology, astronomy and mathematics in the Middle Ages, in Jewish philosophy and history in the Middle Ages, in Abraham Ibn Ezra’s scientific work, and biblical exegesis.