Moses Maimonides' On Coitus was composed at the request of an unknown high-ranking official who asked for a regimen that would be easy to adhere to, and that would increase his sexual potency, as he had a large number of slave girls. It is safe to assume that it was popular in Jewish and non-Jewish circles, as it survives in several manuscripts, both in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic. The present edition by Gerrit Bos contains the original Arabic text, three medieval Hebrew translations, two Latin versions from the same translation (edited by Charles Burnett), and a Slavonic translation (edited by Will Ryan and Moshe Taube).
In The Medical Works of Moses Maimonides Gerrit Bos offers new English translations of three major and six minor medical treatises by Maimonides (1138–1204), based on the original Arabic texts and collected in one volume for the first time.
Maimonides’ On the Regimen of Health was composed at an unknown date at the request of al-Malik al-Afḍal Nūr al-Dīn Alī, Saladin’s eldest son who complained of constipation, indigestion, and depression. The treatise must have enjoyed great popularity in Jewish circles, as it was translated three times into Hebrew as far as we know; by Moses ben Samuel ibn Tibbon in the year 1244, by an anonymous translator, and by Zeraḥyah ben Isaac ben She’altiel Ḥen who was active as a translator in Rome between 1277 and 1291. The present edition by Gerrit Bos contains the original Arabic text, the medieval Hebrew translations and the Latin translations, the latter edited by Michael McVaugh.
This study explores myriad traditional Jewish sources, from the Bible to recent books, on the “how-to” of conjugal intimacy, showing both stability and change in what Jews were instructed to do, or to avoid doing, in their marital bed.
The present consilium, commonly known as De causis accidentium, after the Latin translation by John de Capua, was, like the earlier consilium On the Regimen of Health, composed by Maimonides at the request of al-Malik al-Afḍal Nūr al-Dīn Alī, Saladin’s eldest son. As a result of not adopting the lifestyle and dietary recommendations in On the Regimen of Health, al-Afḍal may have continued to suffer from a number of afflictions, amongst them hemorrhoids, depression, constipation, and, possibly, a heart condition. The consilium was written after 1200, the year in which al-Afḍal was deposed and banished from Egypt permanently, but probably not long before 1204, the year in which Maimonides died.
Sanctified Sex draws on two thousand years of rabbinic debates addressing competing aspirations for loving intimacy, passionate sexual union, and sanctity in marriage. What can Judaism contribute to our struggles to nurture love relationships? What halakhic precedents are relevant, and how are rulings changing? The rabbis, of course, seldom agree. Underlying their arguments are perennial debates: What kind of marital sex qualifies as ideal--sacred self-control of sexual desire or the holiness found in emotional and erotic intimacy? Is intercourse degrading in its physicality or the highest act of spiritual/mystical union? And should women or men (or both) wield ultimate say about what transpires in bed? Noam Sachs Zion guides us chronologically and steadily through fraught terrain: seminal biblical texts and their Talmudic interpretations; Talmud tales of three unusual rabbis and their marital bedrooms; medieval codifiers and mystical commentators; ultra-Orthodox rabbis clashing with one another over radically divergent ideals; and, finally, contemporary rabbis of varied denominations wrestling with modern transformations in erotic lifestyles and values. Invited into these sanctified and often sexually explicit discussions with our ancestors and contemporaries, we encounter innovative Jewish teachings on marital intimacy, ardent lovemaking techniques, and the art of couple communication vital for matrimonial success.
The original Arabic text of Maimonides’ major medical work, Medical Aphorisms, was critically edited and translated into English by Gerrit Bos in the years 2004-2017, and published in earlier volumes of the book series The Medical Works of Moses Maimonides. The present work is the first critical edition of the medieval Hebrew translation by R. Zeraḥyah ben Isaac ben Sheʾaltiel Ḥen. Zeraḥyah, active as a translator in Rome from 1277 to 1291, was not only known for his translations of Maimonides’ medical works, but also for his translations of medical works by Galen and Ibn Sīnā, and for his philosophical works by Aristotle and Averroes. Zeraḥyah’s unique Hebrew translation adheres closely to Maimonides’ Arabic text and contains many Italian and Latin loanwords.
