Steinschneider's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters.

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Author(s): Charles H. Manekin
Source: Jewish Studies Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2000), pp. 141-159
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 Steinschneider's Die hebraeischen
Übersetzungen des Mittelalters
From Reference Work to Digitalized Database
Charles H. Manekin

Over a long and extraordinarily fruitful scholarly career, the German-

Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider (1816-1907) produced severa
works that became instant classics in their respective fields.1 But h
Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dol-
metscher ("The Hebrew Translations of the Middle Ages and the Jews a
Interpreters"; hereafter, HÜ), published in 1893, was, and remains t
this day, his maximum opus. It is a work of gargantuan proportions
accurately described by one reviewer as "colossal" and "gigantesque,"
spanning over a thousand pages of closely-set type, and including ap
proximately seven thousand footnotes. Even the long title fails to de-
scribe adequately the work's contents. For Steinschneider expanded the
story of the medieval Hebrew translations and their authors to include
information about all types of Hebrew "Bearbeitungen"3 - adaptations,
versions, commentaries, supercommentaries, etc. - that pertain to philo-
sophy, science, medicine, and belles-lettres, as well as bio-bibliographica
information about their authors. For this reason HÜ has been for over
century the authoritative account of the transmission and development

1 A biography of Steinschneider has been a scholarly desideratum for close to a

century. Bibliographical details are summed up in the Encyclopedia Judaica and th
Jewish Encyclopedia, both s. v. Steinschneider, Moritz. The longest biographical treat-
ment is still Alexander Marx, "Moritz Steinschneider," in his Essays in Jewish Biogra-
phy (Philadelphia, 1947), 1 12-184. Marx has a very useful bibliography on pp. 294-95.
For a list of Steinschneider's writings, see George Alexander Kohut, "Bibliography of
the Writings of Professor Dr. Moritz Steinschneider," in Festschrift zum Achtzigsten
Geburtstage Moritz Steinschneider's (Leipzig, 1896), v-xxxix. Steinschneider's secretary
Adeline Goldberg, published additions to the bibliography in Zeitschrift für hebräische
Bibliographie 5 (1901): 189-91. 9 (1905): 90-92. 13 (1909): 94-95.
2 See I. Loeb's review in Revue des Etudes Juives 28 (1894): 309-1 1.
Steinschneider liked to use the word "Bearbeitungen" to refer to a certain genre of
writing, in contrast to "selbständige Schriften."

Jewish Studies Quarterly, Volume 7 (2000) pp. 141-159

© Mohr Siebeck - ISSN 0944-5706

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 142 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 7

of Western culture, especially science, to

and the Renaissance. To paraphrase its a
read continuously but rather to be consult
Indeed, HÏTs authoritativeness may have
ing for the field, deterring, rather than e
and progress. After all, once the maste
authority and comprehensiveness, what m
cades after its completion there was relativ
of medieval Hebrew science and the Hebrew translation literature. Al-
most everything written in these areas was based on HÜ, or on Stein-
schneider's studies preceding it. George Sarton referred to Steinschnei-
der's works so many times in his Introduction to the History of Science
that he considered it pointless to list his name in the index.5 Two lengthy
articles in English on medieval Hebrew translations, one published as
late as 1973, were essentially abridgements of Steinschneider.6 Writing
sixty years after H&s appearance, F. Bodenheimer could sound this
pessimistic note:
Unfortunately, the actual state of our knowledge of Hebrew mediaeval
science has scarcely advanced since Moritz Steinschneider compiled authen-
tically the wealth of Hebrew manuscripts, and accompanied this biblio-
graphical work by an abundance of bibliographical, historical, and critical
notes, including source analyses of the most important manuscripts. No-
body living now has inherited his universal critical knowledge. Many are still
competent in certain branches of this literary tradition, yet nobody em-
braces the entire field as Steinschneider did.7

The inference to be drawn from this, presumably, is that for there to be

progress in medieval Hebrew science, one has to possess the breadth of a
Steinschneider - such was the awe the man inspired! (The situation in
Hebrew philosophy, including works translated from Arabic, was no-
tably better, thanks to the labors of H. Wolfson, his students, and other
scholars.) Had Steinschneider decided not to include the fruits of fifty
years of manuscript research in the book, or had he not been able, dur-
ing those fifty years, to learn about so many Hebrew manuscripts - in
short, had HÜ been less the comprehensive masterpiece than it was,

4 HÜ, xxiv.
5 G. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore, 1927) 1:785. Sarton
treated Tannery, Cantor, and Duhem in the same category.
6 See E. Bevan and Charles Singer, eds., The Legacy of Israel (Oxford, 1927), 173-
314, and A. Halkin's article in the Encyclopedia Judaica, s. v. "Translators and Transla-
tions."
See F. Bodenheimer (trans.), Rabbi Gerson ben Shlomoh d'Arles: The Gate of Heav-
en fShaar ha-Shamayim] (Jerusalem, 1953), vii.

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 143

then, perhaps, subsequent generations may have taken up the task where
Steinschneider left off. As it was, the task seemed to them pretty much
completed. When two leading medievalists were invited to speak before
the American Academy of Jewish Research in commemoration of the
fiftieth anniversary of Steinschneider's death, they could refer to the
progress made in the field of medieval Arabic and Latin translations,
but little was said, or could have been said then, of progress in the
Hebrew translations.8
The situation has changed markedly in the last two decades. While
there is still no scholar who embraces the entire field as did Steinschnei-
der, there may be no longer any need for one: technological advances in
manuscript research and data retrieval, progress made in cognate Arabic
and Latin areas of research, and a spirit of collaboration among a small
but growing group of scholars, has yielded, and hopefully will continue
to yield, important results in this much-neglected area of inquiry. In-
deed, if Steinschneider actually made the comment attributed to him
by Gershom Scholem to the effect that his role as a scholar was to
provide the Jewish people and their culture with a decent burial,9 he
would be surprised to witness the recent renaissance in scholarship in
the fields of the history, philology, and even sociology of medieval He-
brew science and philosophy. Scholars in Europe, Israel, and the U. S.
are studying texts which in many cases have not been touched since
Steinschneider made his notes over a century ago. The single most im-
portant advance has been made in the accessibility of the data, i. e., the
manuscripts themselves. Where once scholars had to travel throughout
Europe to inspect Hebrew manuscripts, they can now read microfilms of
those manuscripts in one central location, the Institute of Microfilmed

8 See Paul Oskar Kristeller, "Moritz Steinschneider as a Student of Medieval Eu-

rope," Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 27 (1958): 59-66;
Franz Rosenthal, "Steinschneider's Contribution to the Study of Muslim Civilization,"
Proceedings of the American Academy of Jewish Research 27 (1958): 67-72.
See Gershom Scholem, "Mi-tokh hirhurim al hokhmat Yisrael? (1944; repr. in G.
Scholem, Devarim be-Go [Tel- Aviv, 1975], 385^03; English translation by J. Chipman,
"Reflections on Modern Jewish Studies" in G. Scholem, On the Possibility of Jewish
Mysticism in Our Time and Other Essays [Philadelphia, 1997], 51-72.) Did Steinschnei-
der actually make this fabled comment? Scholem's essay appeared in the newspaper
Davar without footnotes; the only sources he gives are two articles about the Wis-
senschaft des Judenthums movement by Z. Rubaschoff (later Shazar) and S. Ucko. I
was unable to find the anecdote about Steinschneider in either of these articles. As
Scholem tells the story Steinschneider made his comment in response to a student's
enthusiastic remark about the prospects for a Jewish national revival; the alleged com-
ment, if true, should be understood in the context of Steinschneider's antipathy to-
wards Zionism.

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 144 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

Hebrew Manuscripts, at the Jewish Nation

Jerusalem. And in the not-too-distant futu
advances in data compression and storage,
to access all extant Hebrew manuscripts at
ing to travel anywhere!
The purpose of the present essay is twof
genesis of HÜ, and to suggest how this
be transformed into a digitalized bibliogra
research into premodern Hebrew philos
Both the retrospective and the prospectiv
former, because of the large amount of m
Steinschneider's scholarly correspondence,
and the latter, because of the ambitious n
posing. Both aspects are related, because
organization, HÜ is really several books, o
book of different genres - part descriptive
bibliography, part history. Any one of it
new, revised work, but certainly much of
posite nature. (While Steinschneider's othe
Catalogue of the Hebrew Printed Books of
outstanding achievement of scholarship an
sence, a catalogue and lacks HÍfs multi-fac
if this feature of HÜ, in some respects the
scholarly personality, would be lost in att
celebrated work.

In the short Vorrede to HÜ we learn that fifty years earlier the author
had drawn up a prospectus for a scholarly project that would include a
work on Hebrew translations and translators. For a description of that
project he refers us not to the prospectus itself, which apparently was
never published, but to an article that appeared in 1880 in the Magazin
für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums.u There we learn further that the
central theme of the project was to be the religious, literary, and cultur-
al-historical relations between Judaism and Islam. These would be stud-
ied in three works: one describing the Arabic literature of the Jews, a
second dealing with the Jewish translators from the Arabic, and a third
treating the religious (mostly polemical) literature between Islam and

10 Catalogus librorum hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana. Berlin, 1852-60.

"Islam und Judenthum: Kritik des Islam von Simon Duran (1423) aus dem Heb-
räischen übersetzt und erläutert," Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 7
(1880): 1-48.

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 145

Judaism. The work on Jewish translators was to be "broadened, cer-

tainly, into a work on the literary history of the Middle Ages, pursued
in all directions, which would encompass all the Jewish translators,
authors, and commentators of non-Jewish writings (about 200) of each
period."12 In broadening the work, Steinschneider was taking it beyond
the scope of the initial project - an examination of the relations between
Islam and Judaism. Was this always his intention? Or, did the decision to
broaden the work occur at some point during his lengthy career?
The prospectus was drawn up in 1849, but a similar plan had been
submitted by Steinschneider four years earlier to the Berlin Verein für
Cultur und Wissenschaft des Judenthums. Instead of a trilogy of three
works, the 1845 plan called for a single work, entitled, "Zur Literatur-
geschichte des Mittelalters," which would be composed of three parts
and modeled after Wüstenfeld's Geschichte der arabischen Aertze. The
first part, "Jüdisch-arabische Bibliothek," which dealt with the Arabic
literature of the Jews, was prepared for publication, and Steinschneider
received a subvention of 100 thaler from the Culturverein.13 Yet he de-
layed its publication for more than sixty years, and the book finally
appeared in 1902 as Die Arabische Literatur der Juden, preceded by the
publication of a series of English articles collectively entitled, "Introduc-
tion to the Arabic Literature of the Jews."14 The third part in the pro-
jected trilogy did not emerge as a single book; instead Steinschneider
published three smaller works: his Polemische und apologetische Litera-
tur in arabischer Sprache zwischen Muslimen, Christen und Juden (Leip-
zig, 1877), which included a long appendix on Jewish polemics, the
aforementioned study and German translation of Simon Duran's criti-
cism of Islam (1880), and a critical edition of Duran's text (188 1).15
Neither the first nor third part of the "Islam and Judaism" trilogy could
measure up in terms of sheer magnitude to what was eventually pub-
lished as HÜ.
It seems, then, that Steinschneider initially intended to limit the scope
of HÜ to the translations from Arabic and only later expanded the work

12 Ibid., 2.
13 See M. Steinschneider, Die arabische Literatur der Juden (Frankfurt, 1902), xlvii.
The figure "200" refers to the non-Jewish writings.
The articles were composed of two main parts: an annotated list of Arabic names
of Jews, and Steinschneider's lectures on the Arabic literature of the Jews, translated by
his secretary, Adeline Goldberg. The work was published in the Jewish Quarterly Re-
view 9 (1897): 224-239, 604-630; 10 (1898): 119-138, 512-540, 585-625, 602-617; 12
(1900): 114-132, 195-212, 481-501, 602-617; 13 (1901): 92-111, 296-320, 446-^87.
In Osar Τον 7, 1-36, the Hebrew supplement to the Magazin für die Wissenschaft
des Judenthums.

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 146 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

to include those translations from Latin

sion to expand came early in his career
gives in 1868 of his then twenty-year o
works but to two, partly complementar
literature of the Jews, the other dealing
section of the latter would include information on the Arabic authors
who had somehow become accessible or known to the Jews, and an
evaluation of their importance. This would provide, he continued, a va-
luable contribution to Arabic literary history from the Hebrew sources,
and other sources rarely utilized by Orientalists, and, at the same time, a
clarification of the influence of oriental literature on the occidental.
Note that this was to be contained in one section of the book. It appears
that by 1868 Steinschneiders work on Jewish translations had already
grown out of the confines of the planned "Islam and Judaism" trilogy.
The decision to broaden the scope of the proposed book on Hebrew
translations was probably made even earlier. For shortly after he sub-
mitted his proposal to the Culturverein Steinschneider was actively en-
gaged in writing his lengthy article on Jewish literature for the Ersch und
Gruber Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste (1845-
1847).18 This was the earliest piece that had been written on the entire
corpus of post-Biblical Jewish literature, and the article that made him
famous.19 For the first time in his brief scholarly career, the scholar had
gone well beyond the borders of his orientalist interests, and had taken
in the grand sweep of Jewish literature from the Talmud until the time of
Mendelssohn. In preparing for that article, he reports a half-century
later, he was struck by the lack of sources on the influence of foreign
literature on Jewish literature. While scholars were generally aware of
Arabic influence on the Jews of Arab lands, and of the Jewish participa-

16 This is the judgment of Steinschneiders student, the bibliographer and historian

Alexander Marx. See his obituary tribute to Steinschneider in the American Hebrew,
February 1, 1907, reprinted in his Studies in Jewish History and Booklore (New York,
1944), 364-68.
See Steinschneider, Al-Farabi (Alpharabius): des arabischen Philosophen Leben
und Schriften mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Geschichte der griechischen Wissenschaft
unter den Arabern (St. Petersbure, 1869: repr. Amsterdam, 1966), i.
18 Section 2, vol. 27, 357-471 (The volume appeared in 1850). An English version
appeared in 1857 as Jewish Literature from the Eighth to the Eighteenth century; with an
Introduction on Talmud and Midrash: A Historical Essay from the German of Moritz
Steinschneider... revised throughout by the Author. Steinschneider's revisions are exten-
sive and significant, making this an important source of information on his develop-
ment in the ten-year period between his work on the German article and the English
translation.
19 "Moritz Steinschneider," 149.

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 147

tion in the transmission of culture from the Arabs to the Christian West,
they were scarcely cognizant of the Jewish participation in Christian
literature in the areas of philosophy, medicine, mathematics, and folk-
literature.20 Probably Steinschneider himself was a bit surprised by the
results of his manuscript research, which included a number of Hebrew
translations of Latin scholastic writings that had been hitherto un-
known.21 If in 1845 Steinschneider had thought mainly of the relations
between Judaism and Islam, his subsequent research was conducted
"nach allen Richtungen." Two years before the publication of HÜ he
wrote that the central point of all his scholarly investigations was the
relation of Jewish literature to other religious literatures, especially in
the field of sciences.22 The relation of Jewish literature to Islamic litera-
ture had not been his sole scholarly preoccupation for years.
Steinschneider postponed writing the first two books of the proposed
"Islam and Judaism" trilogy, although he was gathering material for
them all the while. Then in 1880 the French Académie des Inscriptions
et Belles-Lettres announced a prix ordinaire to be awarded in 1883 for a
complete and systematic enumeration of the Hebrew translations made
from Greek, Arab, and even Latin science and philosophy. When noth-
ing was submitted by the end of 1882, an extension of two years was
declared. In 1884 an aging Steinschneider submitted a French Mémoire
with the motto Dies diem docet, which treated not only the Hebrew
translations, but virtually all the medieval Hebrew "Bearbeitungen" in
philosophy (including the physical sciences), mathematics (including as-
tronomy), and medicine, that were connected, through translation or
through general influence, to Greek, Arabic and Latin literature. An
overview of miscellaneous writings (including belles-lettres and folk lit-
erature) was also provided. Numbering 1,599 pages in manuscript, the
Mémoire was awarded the prize in 1885,23 and it served as the basis for
most of HÜ. It did not include the short appendix on translators from
the Hebrew that is found in the fifth section of HÜ. Steinschneider in-
corporated much of that material in his work on the European transla-
tions from Arabic.

20 HÜ, ix.
A comparison of the German and English versions of the Ersch und Gruber
article (see note 18 above) shows that in the space of less than a decade he had become
familiar with more Latin works translated into Hebrew.
11 P. xlix
See D. Bourel, "Les traductions hébraïques du Moyen Age: un texte de Moritz
Steinschneider présenté par Dominique Bourel," Pardes 5 (1987): 117-128 and espe-
cially p. 122, n. 20. Bourel presents an introduction and edition of Steinschneider's
Avant-Propos of the Mémoire. I am indebted to Tony Levy for referring me to Dr.

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 148 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

Steinschneider's Avant-Propos to the Mém

intentions and goals at this stage of the w
val Hebrew translations are important, he
serve works no longer extant in the origin
scripts when the originals have survived;
the amount and nature of scientific know
serve as a source for technical scientific terms in medieval Hebrew and
in the various vernaculars. The scientific translations, termed here the
"international studies" of the Jews, as opposed to the "national or re-
ligious studies," have hitherto been neglected or considered a curiosity,
whereas in fact they ought to be a principal source for Jewish cultural
history. "Le fait est que l'on pouvait tout défendre aux Juifs excepté la
science."24 Following the example of Wenrich, Flügel and others, the
author decided to include commentaries in addition to translations,
which considerably enlarged the scope of the work.25
From the Mémoire we also learn of plans not carried out and inten-
tions left unfulfilled in HÜ. For example, the author expresses the hope
that the Académie's approbation will enable him to produce the best
work possible, by personally studying the manuscript collections of sev-
eral libraries, rather than having to rely on the testimony of other scho-
lars. In fact, Steinschneider did not travel further to manuscript collec-
tions during this period, but relied instead upon the answers he received
from other scholars to his queries, a practice which did not always pro-
duce accurate results. He also promises in the Mémoire to publish his
principal sources, e. g., the prefaces of the translators, some epigraphs,
and specimens of translations, with the original text, in a series of ap-
pendices. That idea was apparently abandoned, because no such appen-
dices appear in HÜ. Some of the relevant material is contained in the
body of the text or relegated to the footnotes and endnotes; others were
published separately. And finally, in making apologies for his French,
the author writes of himself, "II sait qu'avant d'être imprimé, son livre
devrait être soumis à une révision stylistique."26 This raises a tantalizing
Bourel, and to the latter for referring me to his article on the Mémoire; I have not yet
seen the Mémoire myself.
^ Ibid., 125.
25 In HÜ translations are said to lead necessarily to further "Bearbeitungen," in-
cluding compendia, commentaries, etc. No mention is made by Steinschneider of the
precedents of G. FlügePs "Dissertatio de arabicis scriptorum graecorum interpretibus,"
in Memoriam anniversariam. . .Scholae Regiae Afranae . . .celebrandam indicit . . .Baumgar-
ten-Crusius... Rector et Professor I. (Meissen, 1841), 3-38 or J. G. Wenrich's De auctor-
um graecorum versionibus et commentariis...commentatio (Leipzig, 1842) in this regard.
Note that neither of these works has the word 'translations' in its title.
"" Bourel, 128.

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 149

question: did Steinschneider, at this point, intend to publish the final

version of HÜ in French? Or had he already decided to publish it in
German, because, as he writes in the Vorrede to HÜ, "Man schreibt
aber genau so, wie man denkt, nur in der Muttersprache."27
In the same year that Steinschneider submitted the Mémoire, the
French Académie offered a second prize, the Prix Brunet, for the best
work on the Arabic translations from Greek, according to the Fihrist of
Ibn an-Nadîm, the tenth-century index of Arabic literature. This prize
was won by Steinschneider in 1887, who adapted the second Mémoire
into German as Die arabischen Übersetzungen aus dem Griechischen,
and published parts of it in different periodicals (1889-1896). In report-
ing to the Académie of the publication of HÜ'm 1893, the French orien-
talist Joseph Derenbourg mistakenly considered the work to be a Ger-
man translation of both Mémoires.28 This may be because of Stein-
schneider's practice in HÜ to include information about the Arabic
translation from Greek before he considers the Hebrew translation
made from Arabic.
In any event, after Steinschneider completed the second Mémoire, he
turned in earnest to the preparation of both for publication in German.
A "Bearbeitung" of the first three sections of the first Mémoire was
made "auf Grundlage einer wörtlichen Uebersetzung."29 The fourth
and fifth sections were composed more or less directly for HÜ. Steinsch-
neiders completion dates for the various sections of HÜ are as follows.
Section One (Philosophy, preceded by Encyclopedias, Classifications of
the Sciences, and Primers): Greeks: January 1889, Arabs, Jews and
Christians: July 1889; Section Two (Mathematics): January 1890. Sec-
tion Three (Medicine): July 1891, through p. 836; Sections Four and
Five (Miscellaneous and Jewish Translators): October 1892; Preface:
November 1892; Additions and Corrigenda: May 1893. Endnotes and
(nine!) Indices: May 1893. The work was published by the Kommisions-
verlag des Bibliographischen Bureaus in Berlin in 1893, and printed by
H. Jtzkowski in three hundred copies, at the author's expense.30
Steinschneider's own copy, which contains many marginal glosses and

27 hü, χ.
Joseph Derenbourg's unpublished report to the Académie (February 5, 1984),
printed in G. Kohut, "Steinschneideriana," in Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Re-
lated Subjects in Memory of Abraham Solomon Freidus (1867-1923) (New York, 1929),
119
29 Ibid.
This information was provided by Steinschneider himself. The author received
2,000 francs prize money from the Académie. See Bourel, "Les traductions hébraïques
du Moyen Age," 119.

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 150 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

emendations, is now in the Steinschneider

logical Seminary of America.
It is often said that one of Steinschneid
to emphasize the contribution of the Jew
renbourg, in his aformentioned report
Steinschneiders work on the Hebrew translations was born of a desire
to demonstrate to the scholarly world how important the role of the
Jews was in transmitting knowledge from the East to the West. Solomon
Schechter even referred to Die Mathematik bei den Juden by the title
"The Contribution of the Jews to Mathematics"!31 Yet, while there is
no doubt that Steinschneider wanted to correct, or rather, to establish
the historical record, and while it is also true that scholarly ignorance of
Jewish literature, as well as anti- Jewish prejudice, irritated him greatly,
he certainly had no apologetic motives in writing HÜ. Steinschneider, an
ordained rabbi and a committed Jew, detested any nationalist or reli-
gious considerations in scholarship. He dismissed the idea that HÜ
could be placed in the service of the struggle for Jewish emancipation
and equal rights, and he upheld the cause of objective scholarship with
the memorable phrase, "Ich schreibe über Juden, aber nicht für sie, nicht
pro domo."32 Although the Jewish contribution to Western civilization
interested the scholar, the contribution of Western civilization to the
Jews and Judaism, or, to recall his more precise formulation, the influ-
ence of foreign literature on Jewish literature, interested him more. In
pointing to the fact that more translations into Hebrew were made from
Christian authors than from Arab ones he remarked, "Für den Geist,
giebt es kein Ghetto."33 The growing impact of Scholastic philosophy,
science, and medicine on Jews in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries -
at a time when Christian persecution and discrimination against Jews in
Spain and in Italy were on the rise - is but one example of the aptness of
Steinschneiders remark.
Steinschneiders interest in translation, and in cultural and literary
transmission, led him throughout his scholarly career to broaden his
researches beyond the specifically Jewish orbit.34 As we have seen, HÜ

31 "Moritz Steinschneider," in Seminary Addresses and Other Papers (New York,

1959), 119-124.
32 HÜ, xxiv. He is not, however, above making statements reflecting Jewish pride, as
this one, on xxiii., "Ein hoher Ritter durfte sich rühmen, nicht lesen und schreiben zu
können: der jüdische Illiterat gehörte zum Pöbel {am ha- ares)"
33 Ibid., xxii.
For the Latin tradition, see, e. g., "Constantinus Africanus und seine arabischen
Quellen," Archiv für pathologische Anatomie 37 (1866), 351-410, and "Occidentalische

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 1 5 1

was intended to be part of his "Islam and Judaism" trilogy, but it soon
became part of the "Translation" trilogy consisting of Die hebraeischen
Übersetzungen des Mittelalters, Die arabischen Übersetzungen aus dem
Griechischen, and Die europäischen Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen
(1905-6), which Steinschneider published as two lengthy articles. These
three works became the standards in their respective fields for decades.
As Paul O. Kristeller observed forty years ago, we may learn in any
textbook or history that the literature of ancient Greece was transmitted
to medieval and early modern Europe via Arab and Jewish intermedi-
aries. But, "if we wish to study this process in its actual development, or
to verify any particular fact related to it, we are inevitably led to consult
the three great works in which Steinschneider has assembled the relevant
data."35
How much of these works is still of value today? This question is
beyond the scope of the present article, but since it is relevant to the
question of the need to revise and update HÜ, a few words should be
said. In the last century many texts and studies have been published that
bear upon the medieval transmission of knowledge, both from Greek to
Arabic, and from Arabic to Latin. In the area of the transmission of
Greek thought into Arabic, not only have articles and monographs
appeared regularly over the years, but also extensive bibliographies of
Arabic medicine and sciences by Manfred Ullmann and Fuat Sezgin,
respectively, a book-length article on the Arabic translations, translators,
and the disciplines by Gerhard Endress, and a history of the Graeco-
Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad, with an extensive biblio-
graphic guide, by Dimitri Gutas.36 As for the European translations
from Arabic (either directly or via Hebrew) there has been considerable
activity by two overlapping groups of scholars: those working within the
Latin tradition who are interested in the reception of classical learning
among the scholastics, and those working within the Arabic tradition

Übersetzungen aus dem Arabischen in Mittelalter," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgen-

ländischen Gesellschaft 28 (1874), 453^59.
"Moritz Steinschneider as a Student of Medieval Europe," 62.
See M. Ullman, Die Medizin im Islam (Leiden, 1970), and Die Natur- und Ge-
heimwissenschaften im Islam (Leiden, 1972); F. Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen
Schrifttums, 9 vols, to date (Leiden, 1967); G. Endress, "Die wissenschaftliche Litera-
tur," in Grundriss der Arabischen Philologie, vol. 2, 400-506, and vol. 3 (Supplement),
3-152; D. Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco- Arabic Translation Move-
ment in Baghdad and Early 'Abbâsid Society (2nd -4th /8th -10th centuries) (London/New
York, 1998). According to Gutas, 195, "there is as of yet no modern bibliographical
survey of the Arabic translations of all the Greek philosophers; Steinschneider's Die
arabischen Obersetzungen aus dem Griechischen remains the only single treatment."

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 152 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

who are interested in its transmission to the Christian West. Recent

articles summarizing progress in these fields by Bernard Dod and
Charles Burnett, and collections by Charles Butterworth and Blake Kes-
sell, and by Jacqueline Hamesse and Marta Fattori, are good places to
begin, especially for the transmission of the Aristotelian tradition to the
scholastic philosophers.37
Because the pool of Hebrew manuscripts is considerably smaller than
its Arabic and Latin counterparts, HÜ is more comprehensive than
Steinschneider' s other two works on medieval translations. This may
partly explain why scholars of medieval Hebrew science have not often
experienced the need to review the Hebrew scientific tradition in manu-
scripts. In recent decades, however, increased activity in the study of
Hebrew philosophy, science, and medicine, and a few lengthy studies
devoted to the Hebrew translation movement, with up-to-date biblio-
graphies, have appeared.38 HLTs comprehensiveness, and the slow but
steady progress in the field, suggests that the best way to deal with on-
going research is not by replacing Steinschneiders masterpiece, but by
reworking and updating it. HÜ has held up for a century; it needs now
to be revised and transformed to meet the needs of researchers in the
twenty-first century.

My proposal as outlined here is to transform HÜ into a digitalized

bibliographical database that will aid the study of premodern Hebrew
science, philosophy, and medicine. The database will be based on a

37 See B. Dod, "Aristoteles Latinus," in J. Pinborg, N. Kretzmann, and A. Kenny

Pinborg, The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: from the Rediscovery of
Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600 Cambridge/New York, 1982,
45-79; C. Burnett in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. C. Craig (London/New
York, 1998), s. v. Islamic Philosophy, Transmission; C. Butterworth and B. Kessell, The
Introduction of Arabic Philosophy into Europe (Leiden, 1994); J. Hamesse and M. Fat-
tori, Rencontres de cultures, dans la philosophie médiévale: traductions et traducteurs de
l'antiquité tardive au XI Ve siècle: actes du Colloque internationale de Cassino, 15-17 juin
1989 (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1990). One should mention, of course, the Aristoteles Latinus
series (1957-), as well as the Avicenna Latinus series, and the Latin translations of
Averroes; also, the bibliographical work of C. H. Lohr on Latin commentators of Aris-
totle. See his "Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries" in Traditio 20-30 (1967-74),
and Commentateurs d'Aristôte au moyen-âge latin: bibliographie de la littérature secon-
daire récente (Fribourg, 1988).
See, for example, M. Zonta, La filosofia antica nel Medioevo ebraico (Brescia,
1996) and G. Freudenthal, "Les sciences dans les communautés juives médiévales de
Provence; leur appropriation, leur rôle," Revue des études juives 152 (1993): 29-136. The
volume on Medieval Hebrew encyclopedias edited by Steven Harvey constitutes the
single most important advance in that area since Steinschneider; see note 39 below.

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 153

translation and revision oï HÜ, but its scope will eventually be expanded
to cover works that are not closely related to translations, though they
contain philosophy, e. g., works of philosophical theology, philosophical
exegesis of scripture, etc. It would be convenient for the database to
appear in book form, but as an ongoing bibliographical project, the
easiest and most useful efficient mode of distribution would be in a
computer- readable format (e. g., CD-ROM) and via the internet.
There are several reasons why such a database would be useful, not
only for specialists in the aforementioned fields, but for scholars in cog-
nate areas:

First, as already noted, there has been increased interest in these field
in recent years. More studies, editions, and translations, have been pub
lished in the last two decades than in the previous ninety years since th
publication of HÜ. Scarcely a year goes by without at least one or two
conferences on "Science and Judaism," in which premodern texts a
discussed. Experts in medieval Hebrew science and philosophy are reg-
ularly invited to international conferences in cognate fields.
Yet while research proceeds apace, most of it is not known beyond a
handful of specialists in Hebrew. Few people outside the fields of me-
dieval Hebrew science, philosophy, and medicine consult Steinschneider
especially those working in the Latin tradition, and when they do, the
rely on a text that is over a century old. Those who cannot read Hebre
cannot keep up with the research being conducted in Israel, nor, o
viously, can they understand the primary sources themselves. Because
of the lack of a central bibliographical reference work, there is no eas
way to disseminate research to a broader audience. While it may not b
reasonable (or realistic) to expect historians of Arab and Latin philoso-
phy to master Hebrew, it is not unreasonable for them to utilize up-t
date bibliographical resources for the primary and secondary literatur
when they are writing on relevant topics. Yet the sad fact is that even
today, a century after Steinschneider, scholars are often surprised to
learn that a tradition of "pure" science and philosophy exists in Hebre
Of course, the significance of the proposed bibliographical database
lies chiefly in the light it will shed on the Hebrew tradition itself, on h
medieval Jewish scholars appropriated and transmitted into their own
culture the classical traditions of philosophy, science, and literatur
What linguistic modifications did they have to make to the texts tran
lated? How did they, for example, cope with rendering Scholastic logic
which is closely related to the syntax and semantics of medieval Latin
into Hebrew? How can their commentaries on Averroes increase our
understanding of the great commentator of Aristotle, or for that matter,

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 154 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

of Aristotle himself? What was the statu

observation among the medieval Jewish a
history, part bibliography, part manuscrip
database based on HÜ will be an indispens
The Steinschneider Bibliographical Datab
posed here, will contain the following com

- A clear and readable English translati

worse, the lingua franca of scholarship
century is English. While researchers in
pected to know German in addition to E
edge of German sufficient not only to n
stand its nuances and subtleties, is n
among non-European scholars. Of cou
for dispensing with a translation of HÜ
with an ongoing supplement, something
des Arabischen Schrifttums. This would
a descriptive bibliography. But in fact
scholar and historian, whose curiosity w
tical judgment was razor-sharp. Many of
vised, to be sure, but his grasp of the
invaluable
- A full and expanded version of Steinschneider 's footnotes. Here is a
further example of the advantages of a digitalized product over a
printed one. Steinschneider's footnotes are dense and abbreviated,
partly for purposes of economy, partly in order not to overwhelm
the text on the printed page. To publish them as endnotes to a printed
book would require the reader to flip back and forth continually
between over a thousand pages (and Steinschneider produced his
own set of endnotes!) In the SBD the footnotes can be linked to the
appropriate text electronically so that the interested reader can open
them in a separate window or ignore them altogether.
- A full and complete descriptive list of manuscripts. Most Hebrew
manuscripts extant have been filmed by the Institute of Microfilmed
Hebrew Manuscripts (hereafter, IMHM) of the Jewish University and
National Library, Jerusalem. Films of virtually all the manuscripts
that Steinschneider saw are attainable there. The IMHM is in the
process of computerizing and revising its catalogue. Although the
computer catalogue and the original card catalogue will be invaluable
for drawing up manuscript inventories, they do not obviate the need
for the SBD's specialized lists. The IMHM's catalogues are in Hebrew

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 155

and hence only of interest to Hebrew-reading specialists. It currently

requires the end-user to have special Hebrew fonts in order to use it
over the internet. Moreover, it will take several years for the philoso-
phical and scientific material to be catalogued adequately and entered
in the computer. Finally, like many computerized catalogues, the end-
user is required to "descend" through several screens to the level of
the individual work or manuscript before sufficient detail is provided.
It is not possible to generate lists of manuscripts pertaining to an
individual work.
- Graphic display oflncipits. It is proposed that the SBD include one or
two sample folios from each manuscript, provided, of course, that
permission is granted by the manuscript's owner. This will be an in-
valuable resource for the scholar who wishes to choose a legible
manuscript (or manuscripts) to work with. Now if one wants to
view Hebrew manuscripts, one needs either to travel to several li-
braries, view them in microfilm at the IMHM in Jerusalem, or order
them from either place.
- Links to Libraries and the IMHM. Digital links will be provided to
the libraries that own the manuscripts and the IMHM. With the SBD,
a researcher sitting anywhere in the world will be able to consult a
complete list of manuscripts for his/her work, click on a graphic im-
age of each manuscript, and then click on a link to the library (via
email) to take steps to receive a reproduction of the manuscript, either
directly from the library or through the IMHM.
- An Annotated Bibliographical Supplement to HÜ. This work, which
will be ongoing, will keep the SBD from going out of date.39 At pres-
ent there is no bibliographical resource or index for Jewish philosophy
and science. The standard Index of Articles in Jewish Studies (RAM-
ΒΓ) covers many of the relevant subjects, but it culls its material from
monographs and periodicals that pertain to Jewish studies and there-
fore often misses articles that appear in publications in the history of
science and philosophy, not to mention jubilee volumes and confer-
ence proceedings. The SBD is intended to be an accessible and com-
prehensive tool for researchers not only in the specialized fields, but in
cognate fields as well.

39 For examples, see Charles H. Manekin, "Steinschneider on Medieval Hebrew

Encyclopedias" (A translation and update of the relevant passages in M. Steinschnei-
der's Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters), Steven Harvey, ed., in: The Me-
dieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy, Amsterdam Studies in Jewish
Thought (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000), 465-519.

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 156 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 7

- Search capacities. As is typical of digi

proposed to be fully searchable, with
searches using boolean operators.
These are to be the principle features of t
sign, as well as its "look and feel" will be d
director, in coordination with technical exp
Revising HÜ will not be without its diffi
three central elements - exposition, annot
presents its own challenge in terms of tra
ing. As for the exposition, the text transl
printed version of HÜ, the 1893 edition
will also be utilized. Material from the section of Zusätze und Berichti-
gungen, added before the book was published, will be incorporated in
the body of the text and footnotes within curly brackets '{}'. Steinsch-
neiders marginal notes in his own copy of HÜ will also be part of the
final text in some manner. In order to ensure that the translation is
reliable without being stiff or overly formal, a professional translator
of scholarly German should be hired as a consultant to the project.
Steinschneider himself was extremely careful about translations of his
work;41 his own "authorized" translations can provide help for translat-
ing key terms.
Each section will be accompanied by a "Supplement" which will offer
revisions, corrections, and, most important, a bibliographical update.
This is particularly important for the student of Hebrew philosophy
who may not be familiar with the latest developments in cognate fields.
Links to other bibliographical databases, specialized webpages, and elec-
tronic journals will likewise be of great value. It is hoped that at some
point the supplement will include cross-references to other works of
Steinschneider.
At the heart of HÜ are the manuscript lists. As noted above, Steinsch-
neider personally examined many of the manuscripts; in the case of
others he relied upon the testimony of catalogues, or upon his colleagues
throughout Europe who responded to his many requests for informa-
tion.42 Since the time of Steinschneider, new manuscripts have been un-

40 The article mentioned in the previous note constitutes a "trial run" of such a
revision, implemented along the methodological principles herein stated.
See, e. g., his introduction to the English translation of his Ersch und Gruber
article on Jewish literature (see note 20 above.)
See the list of scholars whom he thanks in the Vorrede, especially Adolph Neu-
bauer, who is credited with helping him more than all the others combined. Stein-
schneider and Neubauer conducted a long and bitter literary feud until they became

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 157

covered, old ones have been described more accurately, and, due to the
migrations and dislocations of world Jewry, many manuscripts have
changed hands. Rather than reproduce Steinschneiders lists of manu-
scripts, which are incomplete and outdated, the SBD will have entirely
new lists. These will be based mostly on the computer and card cata-
logues of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts of the Jew-
ish National and University Library, Jerusalem, and personal inspec-
tion. The manuscripts will be designated in the body of the translation
and the footnotes by their current call number or shelf number, which, as
is well-known, often varies from the number given by Steinschneider,
which will also appear. In the manuscript lists, numbers will be given
in the following order and with the following typographical conventions:
current call number/shelf number, (former call number/shelf number),
[catalogue number], (Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts
number)

so that any manuscript referred to by Steinschneider will be easily iden-

tifiable.
Steinschneider's annotations present the greatest challenge to transla-
tion and revision. For one thing, they are the most dated element of HÜ,
especially when they refer to the Arabic and Latin traditions, where
much progress has been made in the last century. Some of the notes
do not seem to be of great significance, and it is difficult not to agree
with I. Loeb, who already in 1893 criticized "l'excès des références oi-
seuses, qui révèlent le travers du bibliographe vidant ses cartons de
fiches."43 Moreover, Steinschneider's footnotes are highly abbreviated,
often beyond recognition. This is partly due to nineteenth-century schol-
arly conventions, and partly to the need for economy. Steinschneider
writes in the Vorrede that he composed the work first and foremost for
himself, which may explain why some of the footnotes seem to be jot-
tings that only he would understand. Although he provides a key for
over eighty of the most frequent abbreviations, many more are left un-
explained. Several examples (out of hundreds) will suffice to illustrate
the time-consuming work needed to expand the footnotes:
Footnote 151 on p. 24 reads, in part, "Schmiedl, Studien S. 141 hat
oberflächlich gelesen." This is the first time in //{/that Schmiedl and his
Studien are mentioned; a quick glance at the "Verzeichnis der häufigsten

reconciled in 1877. See Marx, "Moritz Steinschneider," 172-3. Whether or not they
indeed became "fast friends" afterwards, Steinschneider apparently did not change
his attitude towards Neubauer's scholarship; see Kohut, "Steinschneideriana," 66.
43 Loeb, "Bibliographic" 311.

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 158 Charles H. Manekin JSQ 1

Abkürzungen" on pp. iv-vi reveals only th

appear in HÜ frequently! In fact, the ref
jüdische, insonders jüdische-arabische
Schmiedl, published in Vienna in 1869, th
that out alone.
In footnote 21 on p. 4 Steinschneider mentions a description of a
Paris manuscript simply "nach dem neuen Cat." which the reader is
supposed to know refers to Zotenberg's catalogue of the Hebrew manu-
scripts in the Bibliothèque Nationale published in 1866, even though
Zotenberg's name does not appear anywhere in the neighboring vicinity
of the footnote.
Footnote 111 on p. 17 reads, "Ibn Beithar I, 210 deutsch." This is the
first reference to Ibn al-Baitar's Kitãb al-jãmf, translated into German
by J. v. Sontheimer in Grosse Zusammenstellung über die Kräfte der be-
kannten einfachen Heil- und Nahrungsmittel (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1840-
1842), 1:21o.44 A task of the editors of the SBD will be to expand the
annotations, cast them in consistent form, and check the references.
Steinschneider decided in HÜ to print Hebrew and Arabic words in
Hebrew characters. Because there is no universal standard yet for He-
brew fonts on the world wide web, and in order to facilitate the text for
scholars who do not read Hebrew, the Hebrew and Arabic text will be
transliterated into Roman characters.
Other editorial decisions will have to be made, but this, in bare skele-
tal form, is my proposal for rescuing Steinschneiders monumental work
from ossification. Will the Steinschneider Bibliographic Database share
the same fate as other projects commemorating Steinschneider that
never saw the light of day, such as the publication of his Gesammelte
Schriften, or of his collected correspondence?45 Or will it take its exam-

44 The abbreviation of the notes are sometimes taken ad absurdwn in the section of
Zusätze und Berichtigungen. Steinschneider adds to line 20 of p. 9, "Vorl. Z.: Philoso-
phie; Ph.-en?" whatever that means.
3 One of the projected volumes of the Gesammelte Schriften was published; see
Moritz Steinschneider, Gesammelte Schriften: Gelehrten-Geschichten, eds. A. Marx
and H. Malter, (Berlin, 1925; repr. New York, 1980), but the project was discontinued
for lack of funds. Publication of Steinschneider's correspondence was announced sev-
eral times. See, for example, G. Kohut, "Steinschneideriana," 86: "Whatever becomes
of the remaining volumes [of the Gesammelte Schriften], in the absence of some other
American Maecenas to finance their production, we are at least assured, through the
medium of the Alexander Kohut Memorial Foundation, of the ultimate publication of a
collection of his Letters, which we may assume, will be lovingly and reverently edited by
Adeline Goldberg, his incomparably faithful secretary and friend." George Kohut's
untimely death put an end to these and other plans. The correspondence between
Steinschneider and his then-fiancee Auguste Auerbach, was published recently by

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(2000) Steinschneider 's Die hebraeischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters 159

pie from Steinschneider himself, who was willing to wait over a half-
century until his announced work met his own exacting standards for
publication? Only time - and funding - will tell.

Steinschneiders great grand-daughter, Marie Louise Steinschneider. See M. Steinsch-

neider and A. Steinschneider, Briefwechsel mit seiner Verlobten Auguste Auerbach,
1845-1849. Ein Beitrag zur jüdischen Wissenschaft und Emanzipation, eds. Marie Louise
Steinschneider and Renate Heuer (Frankfurt o.M./New York, 1995).

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