8/10/2019 Rosenblatt Saad Ya Review
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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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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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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
8/10/2019 Rosenblatt Saad Ya Review
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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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