Judah Mosconi and the Byzantine Historical Context of His Fourteenth Century Supercommentary on Abraham Ibn Ezra

The talk will deal with the problem of whether Mosconi`s Byzantine background had any impact on his supercommentary on Ibn Ezra`s commentary on the Torah, and if so, in what areas. Mosconi definitely knew at least spoken Greek but it is hard to discern any influence of contemporary 13th and 14th century Greek thought on his supercommentary. This problem is tied with the larger issue of the extent that Jews were conversant with Greek theological texts of the period.