Moses Ibn Tibbon`s Alleged Re-Translation of Sefer Ha-Yesodot: A Reassessment

In his Hebrew edition of Isaac Israeli’s Sefer ha-Yesodot, Shlomo Fried has distinguished between two Arabic-into-Hebrew translations of that work. One of the translations identified by Fried was prepared by Abraham Ibn Hasday, who also appended his translation with an introduction. The other was a later, anonymous translation, which Fried attributed to the famed medieval translator, Moses Ibn Tibbon. Yet apart from several indirect and hypothetical conjectures, Fried did not support this identification with substantial evidence. The paper thus returns to Israeli’s work and to the (alleged) two Hebrew translations. Based on a thorough analysis and comparison of the two manuscripts containing the translations, the paper will progress in three stages. First, the paper will discuss whether these were indeed two translations or rather a translation and a later, revised version. Second, the paper will attempt to determine whether the later translation/revision indeed came from under the pen of Moshe Ibn Tibbon. Lastly, the paper will draw some conclusions concerning the desired method when determining the genealogy of a medieval Hebrew philosophical text. More specifically, the paper will attempt to establish certain guidelines to assist the scholar who seeks to distinguish a revision from a re-translation, referring to Sefer ha-Yesodot as a test case