מלחמות ה’, מאמר ה, חלק א, ספר התכונה של רבינו לוי בן גרשום (רלב”ג)

Milchamot Hashem (Milchamot Adonai) – The Wars of the Lord is a classic Jewish work of philosophy written by Rabeinu Levi Ben Gershom (Ralbag), otherwise known as Gersonides. He lived in Provence in the town of Bagnols in Languedoc, France, in 1288-1344. In the secular world he was known by his Provencal name, Leo de Balneolis. Until now, his book, Milchamot Hashem has been published twice. First, in Riva Di Trento in 1560 (#128 in our database) and then again in Berlin in 1923 (#148 in our database). An English translation was published by JPS in three volumes and can be purchased below.

The Wars of the Lord

The Wars of the Lord

The Wars of the Lord

However, a key part of the work has been omitted in both editions. Book V Part 1, otherwise known by a separate name as Sefer HaTechunah (Book of Astronomy), remained in manuscript, until now.

Levi’s most important scientific achievements are contained in Sefer Tekhunah (Book of Astronomy), in fact, part 1 of the fifth book of his main philosophical work, Milhamot Adonai (Wars of the Lord). Preserved in Hebrew and Latin version, it is a lengthy work, divided into 136 chapters, which contain planetary observations and research from 1321- 1340, and is based on a profound understanding of the astronomical tradition as well as on a sound criticism of some of his predecessors, mainly Prolemy and al-Bitruji. 

Helaine Selin, Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, Springer Science & Business Media, 2013, entry Levi Ben Gerson, p. 509.

There are a few extant manuscripts of Sefer HaTechunah and many of them have been posted online.

The best preserved and complete manuscripts are from the National Library of France (Bibliothèque Nationale de France), in Paris, Hebreu 724 and Hebreu 725. In addition, there is a partial manuscript Hebreu 696.

#454) Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Hébreu 724. Dated 1397. Title: Lévi ben Gerson. מלחמות השם.

 

#455) Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Hébreu 725. Dated 1510. Title: Lévi ben Gerson. מלחמות השם.

 

#456) Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Hébreu 696. Dated 1401-1500. Title: Recueil de textes philosophiques.

 

Besides, these three, there are two more partial manuscripts, one in the British Library in London, Ms. British Museum hebr., Add 26921, and in the National Library of Naples in Italy, Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, hebr., III F.9. The Naples manuscript is not online yet, however the British Museum Manuscript hebr., Add 26921 is online and can be read on the British Library website.

a) British Library, hebr., Add 26921. Dated 1400-1499. Title: Collection of Astronomical works. Folios 12r-45r: Levi ben Gershom (לוי בן גרשום), Luḥot astronomiyim (לוחות אסטרונומיים), The astronomical tables (folios 20v-45r) follow a short exposition, which begins on folio 14r. See further Goldstein, B.R., The Astronomical Tables of Levi ben Gerson (New Haven 1974), p. 77.

 

b) Naples biblioteca Nazionale, hebr., III F.9, 375 folios. It includes table of contents and chapters 1-95 only. There are no tables.

The Italian libraries manuscripts get posted onto the InternetCulturale.it website, so eventually the Naples manuscript will show up there as well.

There are 2 manuscripts of the Latin translation of Sefer HaTechunah, both in the Vatican Library, Mss. Vatican 3380 and Mss Vatican 3098. So far, neither of them are online, but should be posted soon in the Latin section of the Vatican Library.

c) Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Mss. Vatican 3380.

d) Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Mss Vatican 3098.

Finally, there is a complete manuscript of Milchamot Hashem in the Berlin library, in Germany (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), Ms. or. fol. 4057, dated 1553, from Rovigo, Italy, which includes Book V, Part 1 starting on folio 53r.

#457) Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Ms. or. fol. 4057. Dated 1553. Title: Milhamot ha-shem.

The first 20 chapters of the The Book of Astronomy have been published in English by Bernard Goldstein and can be purchased below.

The Astronomy of Levi Ben Gerson

The Astronomy of Levi Ben Gerson

Babylonian Talmud Manuscript Munich Codex Hebraicus 95 has been posted in the database. The description has been quoted from the World Digital Library and linked to their website:

# 452) Babylonian Talmud Manuscript Munich Codex Hebraicus 95

Located at: Bavarian State Library, BSB shelfmark: Cod.hebr. 95

Munich Codex Hebraicus 95 is the only surviving manuscript in the world that contains, with the exception of two missing leaves, the complete text of the Babylonian Talmud including some extra-canonical tracts: Derekh Eretz zuta, Pirkei Azzai, Kallā, Sôferîm, and Gērîm. In addition, the manuscript contains some texts that do not relate directly to the Talmud. Numerous entries of the names of owners make it possible to trace the history of the manuscript, which was written in France in 1342. According to an entry in a manuscript of a Bible now preserved at the State and University Library of Hamburg, this Talmud was in the possession of the Jewish merchant family Ulma in Pfersee near Augsburg in the year 1772. Some time later it was sold to the Augustinian priory of Polling (Upper Bavaria). After the dissolution of the monastery in 1803, the manuscript was transferred together with other valuable books to the Munich Court Library, which became the Bavarian State Library, where it is now preserved.

It can also be viewed on the Bavarian State Library website here.

We have added a few very rare and significant manuscripts to the database. Here is a list and their descriptions. The descriptions have been quoted from the World Digital Library and linked to their website:

# 439) Damascus Pentateuch Masoretic Manuscript – Keter Damesek – כתר דמשק

Located at: National Library of Israel

The Damascus Pentateuch, from around the year 1000, is one of the oldest extant Hebrew biblical manuscripts. It includes full vocalization, accentuation, and Masoretic annotation. The manuscript is defective in its beginning, as it starts with Genesis 9:26; Exodus 18:1–23 is also missing. Written on parchment in oriental square script, the text is in three columns per page, 20 lines per column. The manuscript belonged to the Jewish community of Damascus (hence its name) until 1915, when it was acquired by the collector and bibliophile D.S. Sassoon. In 1975 it was acquired by the Jewish National and University Library (what later became the National Library of Israel). Pentateuch is a term for the first five books of the Hebrew Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Masoretic annotations are the collection of critical notes, compiled in the 7th–10th centuries by Jewish scribes and scholars known as the Masoretes and accepted as the authoritative regulator of the written and vocalized transmission of the Hebrew Bible.

# 440) Partial Hebrew Tanach (Prophets, Psalms, Chronicles) Masoretic Manuscript

Located at: National Library of Israel

This manuscript, possibly a remnant of a complete Hebrew Bible, includes books from the Nevi’im (Prophets) as well as the books of Chronicles and Psalms from the Ketuvim(Hagiographa or writings) section of the Bible. (The tripartite division of the Hebrew Bible includes the Torah, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa.) It includes full vocalization and accentuation, as well as some Masorah Parva notes. The latter are very brief notes on the side margins or between columns, which are part of the Masorah, the collection of critical notes, compiled in the 7th–10th centuries by Jewish scribes and scholars known as the Masoretes and accepted as the authoritative regulator of the written and vocalized transmission of the Hebrew Bible. The manuscript is on parchment, in Ashkenazi square script, with two columns per page and 28–30 lines per column. The leather binding was added by an apparently Christian owner of the manuscript in France in the beginning of the 18th century.

# 441) Cervera Bible Masoretic Manuscript

Located at: National Library of Portugal

The Cervera Bible is among the oldest and most significant Sephardi Bibles to survive the destruction of most of the Jewish communities in the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon beginning in 1391 and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1498. An extremely rare example of the Iberian Hebrew paleography of its time, this manuscript on parchment consists of 451 folios in two columns, each with 31 lines. Profusely illuminated in gold and color with Mozarabic and Jewish motifs, it includes the books of the Old Testament, the Masorah (the body of textual criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures with notes on writing, vocabulary, and variant sources, pronunciation, and other comments), and a grammatical treatise, Sefer Ha-Nikud (The book of vocalization, which is better known as Et Sofer, literally, “The writer’s pen”), written by Rabbi David Kimhi (circa 1160−circa 1235). The scribe who copied the main text, Samuel Ben Abraham ibn Nathan, is identified in the colophon at folio 434 recto. This page also states that the work was executed in Cervera (present-day Lleida Province, Catalonia, Spain); it was begun on July 30, 1299 and completed on May 19, 1300. This colophon also originally included the identity of the patron, which was later erased, probably because of a change of ownership. The identity of the illuminator, Josef Asarfati, a Jew of French origin who settled in Castile, is found in the last folio of the codex, a colophon in zoomorphic letters, making this is a rare example of a Hebrew manuscript containing an explicit signature of the artist. The identity of the Masorah scribe (Josue ben Abraham ibn Gaon) is also known, as his name is inscribed in 20 places in the Masoretic text. The illuminations are spread across many frames and display a remarkable diversity of color and forms. They include ornamental page borders, full-page illuminations representing Jewish iconography, and smaller illuminations illustrating parts of the Old Testament or symbolizing its different books or depicting objects from the Tabernacle used in worship. Some of the illuminations have a largely decorative function (e.g., the hunting scenes and the drolleries). Many of the full-page illuminations are found in the treatise on grammar, where they frame the text with architectural, animal, and human-figure motifs. The Masoretic text is developed in micrographic script, forming geometric schemes and stylized vegetable, animal, and mythic animal motifs. The binding, with cardboard folders covered in red leather and engravings in gold and marbled flyleaves, dates from the 18th century. The manuscript was acquired in 1804, in The Hague, on the initiative of António Ribeiro dos Santos (1745−1818), head librarian of the Royal Public Library of the Court in Lisbon, for the sum of 240,000 reis.

# 442) Hebrew Bible Masoretic Manuscript

Located at: Complutense University of Madrid

This manuscript of the Hebrew Bible is comprised of 340 large-format folios in parchment of excellent quality written in three columns. They present a beautiful Sephardic square letter of the biblical text, with Minor Masorah on the margins and between the columns, and Major Masorah in the upper and lower margins, in three and four lines respectively. The text has Tiberian Hebrew punctuation, which greatly resembles that in the best Eastern codices that are examples of this tradition. The parashiyyot (in singular,parashah, annual pericope) are indicated in the margin by means of the abbreviation parash or the letter peh (both decorated). The order of the books of the Bible coincides with the one prescribed in the Babylonian Talmud. In most cases, the Major Masorah is ornamental, especially in the outer margins of the first books of the Pentateuch, and forms micrographs with plant and geometric motifs that in places are reminiscent of large candelabra. This characteristic of the manuscript has given rise to some doubts about its place of origin, since candelabra-shaped micrographs are more common among Catalonian Bibles of the second half of the 14th century. It seems clear, however, that this Bible cannot be associated with the Catalonian school of the 14th century. It is dated to the 13th century, and the style of the candelabra in this manuscript is different from those in Catalonian Bibles. The manuscript reproduces a note concerning proof of purchase that until recently was thought to be the colophon. It states that the Bible was bought by brothers Isaac and Abraham ben Maimón in Toledo in 1280. The manuscript’s Toledan origin seems plausible given the sedarim (singular form, seder, triennial pericope), a typical feature of the Bibles of the Kingdom of Toledo. However, candelabra-shaped micrographs are not found in any other known Toledan manuscript. At the end of the Pentateuch, the Early Prophets, the Latter Prophets, and the Chronicles are exhaustive Masoretic notes that state the total number of the verses and pericopes, as well as the verse, the word, and the medial letter of each book of the Pentateuch, along with other lists with information about the text. The verse recount, which appears at the end of each book of the Bible, generally appears within an ornate vignette (cut off in some cases). The manuscript was part of the collection owned, used, and annotated by the convert Alfonso de Zamora (circa 1474–circa 1544), teacher of Hebrew in Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares. Evidence for his ownership is apparent in his characteristic way of numbering chapters or naming the books of the Bible, for example. The manuscript is also known to be the one used extensively for the composition of the Hebrew text of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible of 1514. It has a Complutense (of Alcalá de Henares) cloth binding from the 16th century and bears the golden coat of arms of the Complutense University of Madrid.

# 443) Hebrew Bible Masoretic Manuscript

Located at: National Library of Israel

This manuscript Hebrew Bible with full vocalization, accentuation, and Masorah annotation was created in Spain in around 1300. The Bible is illustrated and decorated in color, silver, and gold. The books of the Bible are arranged in the conventional order later adopted in Hebrew printed editions, with the exception that Ecclesiastes precedes Lamentations. Written on parchment in Sephardi square script, the manuscript has three columns per page, with 35 lines per column. The Masorah Magna notes are written in micrography. Masorah refers to the collection of critical notes, compiled in the 7th–10th centuries by Jewish scribes and scholars known as the Masoretes, and accepted as the authoritative regulator of the written and vocalized transmission of the Hebrew Bible, especially in matters of spelling, vocalization and accentuation. The Masora Magna refers to the relatively long notes on the upper and lower margins of a Bible manuscript, as distinguished from the notes surrounding the first letter of each book (the Initial Masorah) and on the side margins or between columns (the Masorah Parva). The Jewish National and University Library (what later became the National Library of Israel) received the manuscript as a gift in 1969.

# 444) Torah with Haftarah Selections Masoretic Manuscript

Located at: National Library of Israel

This Hebrew Pentateuch with Haftarot (portions from the Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible, read in synagogue on Sabbaths and holidays following the Torah portion) added at the end was created in Sana’a, Yemen, in 1485. The manuscript includes full vocalization, accentuation, and Masorah annotation. The Haftarot include the Targum, or Aramaic translation, following each verse. Preceding the Torah text itself are two grammatical treatises (comprising 15 leaves in total) common in Yemen. The manuscript is written on paper in Yemenite square script, in two columns per page, with 25 lines per column. Created by David ben Benayah ben Saadiah ben Zekhariah, a member of a well-known family of Yemeni scribes, the manuscript has been owned by the Hibshoosh family since 1910. The three divisions of the Hebrew Bible are the Torah (Pentateuch), the Prophets, and Writings or Hagiographa. The Masorah annotations are the collection of critical notes, compiled in the 7th–10th centuries by Jewish scribes and scholars known as the Masoretes, and accepted as the authoritative regulator of the written and vocalized transmission of the Hebrew Bible.

# 445) Mishneh Torah of the Rambam Manuscript from 1300-1350

Located at: National Library of Israel

This document is widely considered the most splendid of the extant manuscripts of the Mishneh Torah, the systematic code of Jewish law produced by the 12th-century Jewish philosopher, theologian, and physician, Moses ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides. The manuscript was made by a copyist from Spain, who commissioned an artist to illustrate the work and left space in the margins for drawings, decorative panels, and illuminations. The artwork was done in Italy, possibly in the workshop of Mateo De Ser Cambio in Perugia, circa 1400. A few ornamental headings and signs of textual divisions were done in Spain. Many important textual changes in the margins of the manuscript correspond to those found in the version of this work proofread by Maimonides himself. Maimonides was born in Córdoba, Spain, in 1135. In 1160 he moved with his family to Fez, Morocco, to escape religious persecution, and eventually settled in Cairo, where he became the personal physician to the sultan and his family. He also served as the head of the Jewish community of Cairo, where he died in 1204. His works on theology, law, philosophy, and medicine, mostly written in Arabic and translated into Hebrew, Latin, and other languages, were widely influential in both the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds.

# 446) Guide to the Perplexed (Moreh Nevuchim) of the Rambam Manuscript in Judeo-Yemeni Arabic

Located at: National Library of Israel

This work is an Arabic original of Moreh Nevukhim, Maimonides’ masterful synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and traditional Jewish belief. Known in English as The Guide to the Perplexed, the work was originally composed in Arabic and translated into Hebrew by Samuel ibn Tibbon in 1204.

# 447) Commentary on Tractate Avot with an Introduction (Shemona Perakim) of the Rambam Manuscript in Hebrew

Located at: National Library of Israel

This manuscript contains one of Maimonides’ commentaries on the Mishnah, the first major work of Rabbinic Judaism. The commentary is on the tractate Avot (Ethics of the fathers), in which Maimonides expounded on morality and the nature of man’s soul, with an introduction (Shemonah perakim) (Eight chapters). Also included are the thirteen principles of belief or articles of faith, a credo of Judaism formulated by Maimonides, a version of which is still used in most Jewish prayer books. Among the principles affirmed in the credo are the oneness of God, the divine origins of the Torah, the afterlife, and the coming of the Messiah.

# 448) Collection of Several Works of the Rambam (Iggeret Techiyat Hameitim and Medical Writings) in Hebrew

Located at: National Library of Israel

This manuscript contains a collection of several works by Maimonides, includingIgeret teḥiyat ha-metim (Letter on resurrection) (translated by Judah Alharizi) and a collection of various medical writings. The Igeret has an introduction by Joseph ben Joel, of which only the last part is extant. The medical writings, by an anonymous translator, include Sefer ha-katseret (Treatise on asthma), from the original, Maqalah fi al-rabw; Maamar ha-mishgal (Treatise on sexual intercourse), from the original, Fi al-jama; Maamar shemirat ha-beriut (Guide to good health), from the original, Fi tadbir al-sihhah; and Maamar ha-hakhraah (Explanation of coincidences), from the original, Maqalah fi bayan bad al-arad wa-al-jawab anha. There are no other known copies of the treatises in this translation.

# 449) Collection of Various Works by Maimonides (Moreh Nevuchim, Perush Hamilim Zarot, Maamar Techiyat Hameitim, Beur Milot Hahigayon, Perush Perek Chelek, Epistle to Joseph ibn Jabbar of Baghdad)

Located at: National Library of Israel

This manuscript contains translations into Hebrew of various works by Maimonides from the original Arabic. Included are: Moreh nevukhim, known in English as The Guide to the Perplexed, Perush ha-milim ha-zarot, and Maamar teḥiyat ha-metim, all translated by Samuel ibn Tibbon; Beur milot ha-higayon, translated by Moses ibn Tibbon; Perush perek helek, a commentary on the Mishnah; the tractate Sanhedrin, in a translation variously attributed to Judah Alharizi and Samuel ibn Tibbon; and the Epistle, or Igeret, to Joseph ibn Jabbar of Baghdad, in an anonymous translation. Ibn Jabbar was involved in the polemic between Maimonides and Samuel ben Ali, head of the Jewish Academy in Baghdad. Ibn Jabbar tried to defend Maimonides in this dispute, and requested that he send replies to the accusations brought against him. Only the beginning of this work survives.

 # 450 and 451) Mishnah Commentary on Seder Moed and Nashim by Maimonides in Judeo-Arabic with Rambam’s Handwriting

Located at: National Library of Israel

This manuscript contains commentaries on the Mishnah by Maimonides: on Seder Moed (from the middle of tractate Eruvin), and on Seder Nashim. The manuscript shows hand-written corrections and emendations by Maimonides himself, as well as notes added in the margins by his son, Abraham he-Hasid, and by David ha-Nagid II and others. The headings are written in Sefardi square script. The manuscript was purchased in Damascus in 1908 by the Toledano brothers, who sold it to the noted bibliophile David Solomon Sassoon (Collection no. 72-73) and his descendants. It was acquired by the Jewish National and University Library in 1975.