Rosenblatt Saad Ya Review

8/10/2019 Rosenblatt Saad Ya Review

1/4

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies University of Pennsylvania

Saadia's "Book of Beliefs and Opinions" in EnglishThe Book of Beliefs and Opinions by Saadia Gaon; Samuel RosenblattReview by: Israel EfrosThe Jewish Quarterly Review, New Series, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Apr., 1950), pp. 413-415Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1453124.

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2/4

SAADIA'S

BOOK OF BELIEFS

AND

OPINIONS

IN ENGLISH*

SAADIA'S

Kitab al-'Amanat

wal-I'tikadat,

in its

Hebrew

version,

under the name

of Emunot

we-deot,by Yehudah

ibn

Tibbon,

is, in all

its editions, so replete with misprints as to distort or blur the sense of

many

a passage.

This

is

because,

as

the late B. Klar

pointed

out, the

editio

princeps

of Constantinople,

tself

careless,

was the

basis of all the

later

six editions, and

the original

cropof errors

grew with

each

printing.

See

Tarbiz,

XII, 51.

A critical edition

of this

important version

by

the father

of

the

translators,

important

also philologically,

was

prepared

by

Dr. Henry Malter,

but

it still awaits

the light of

day.

Some fragmentary

renderings

have

been made into

Latin, and

more

extensive translations into German, but they are all incomplete and

mostly unsatisfactory.

See

Malter, Life and

Worksof

Saadia,

pp. 373-

376. Recently

an abridged

renderinginto English

by

Alexander

Alt-

mann appeared

in

Oxford,

1946.

It

is thereforegratifying

to

have now

a complete English

translation

by

Dr.

Samuel

Rosenblatt.

It

is

a faithful

and

elegant

rendering.

One

feels

grateful

to Dr. Rosenblatt for a

skillful

achievement

of a laborious

task, and also to the editors of the Yale Judaica Series in which this

is the

first volume.

It

begins

with a prefatory

word by

one of the editors, signed

J.

O.,

and

with a

prefaceby

the

translator,

followedby

a valuable

analytical

table of

contents. Then comes

the version, divided

into ten

treatises

and

subdivided,

as

in

the Josefow

edition of

Ibn

Tibbon's

Hebrew

version,

into

chapters,

to which

is

added as

an appendix

a translation

of the

variant

text of the seventh

treatise,

Concerning

the Resurrection

of

the Dead. It is this variant, published by Bacher, which was the

basis of

the seventh treatise

in

Ibn Tibbon's

translation.

The book

concludes

with an index

of

subjects

and names and

an

index of

passages

cited,

and

finally

with

a

short

glossary.

*

Saadia Gaon,

The

Book of Beliefs

and

Opinions,

translated

from the

Arabic

and

the

Hebrew

by

Samuel

Rosenblatt. New

Haven,

Yale

University

Press,

1948, pp.

XXXII

+496.

413

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3/4

414 THE JEWISH

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

I have examined particularly

the third

treatise

in

this version

and

wish to record the following notes as a contribution to the second

edition.

1.

I say, then, that logic

demands

that whoever does

something

goodmust be compensated,

etc. (p. 139)

The termlogic would

suggest

that of the three sources

of knowledge,

discussed by Saadia in

the intro-

duction, i. e. sensation,

intuition,

and

logical inference, it is

the

third

that gives us this

idea that

kindness

deserves reward. However,

in

an

essay

entitled

Saadia's

Theory of Knowledge

(JQR.

XXXIII,

140-141),

I tried to

show that these basic

principles

of law which

Saadia

here discusses

under the

general name

of

c:L,Jl

U}laI

c

1

were

meant by Saadiaas knowledge

of

the second

class or as immediate

cognition.

The

word

JiaJl

here and in the entire

passage

should

not

be

translated

by logic or

reason

but by

intuition, or, more

broadly,

mind.

2.

In the second class are

to be included

such

injunctions as the

one ... to describe Him with mundane attributes (p. 140). This

second

class is the

prohibition

of contempt or

insult. But

what

is

meant

here by

mundane ?

The Arabic is


4/4

SAADIAS BOOK

415

4. Although the translator

seems disinclined

to

present explanatory

notes, there are places where an explanation would be most welcome.

Thus on p. 157, we

have the expression

in

the light

of

these [three]

principles. To which principles does Saadia

here refer? There

is

disagreementamong scholars

on

this

question.

See

S.

H.

Margulies,

Magazin fur die Wissenschaft

des

Judenthums,

XV,

168.

But R.

offers

neither reference nor

comment.

5. Similar objections apply

also to all previously mentioned argu-

ments (163). One

cannot see how they would apply.

The

meaning

of this

passage

can only be that

he who advances

this seventh

argument

would also

have

to face

the objection

raised

against

some

previous arguments,

namely, that the idea of the abrogation of

law

involves

an inner

con-

tradiction.

6.

Regarding he belief that God compensates

sacrificially laughtered

animals for

the

excess

of their

pain

over that of natural

death,

Saadia,

according

to

R.,

adds.

But

this,

we

say,

applies

only

if

it

could

be

proved by means of reason, not by prophecy,that there exists such an

excess of

pain (175).

What

is

wrong

with

proving

it

by prophecy?

The idea is not that

the excess, but that the belief

in

compensation

for

animals, can

be

based

only

on

reason,

because prophecy

contains

nothing

to

that

effect.

The

proper

translation

should therefore be:

We believe

this

-

if

the

excess

is

proven

-

because

of

reason and not because

of

prophecy.

The

words

y

V

)kic

I.:,

. j

o

are parenthetical.

See Jakob

Guttmann,

Die

Religionsphilosophie

des

Saadia, p.

290.

7. Preference being thereby shown to the priests (178). The

Arabic

is

j

5r

.

R.

adds the words

to the

priests,

though

without

brackets,

as

an

explanation,

which

is

hardly satisfactory.

See

Guttmann,

ibid., p. 296,

n.

1.

ISRAEL EFROS

Dropsie College

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