The Great Introduction to Astrology by Abū Maʿšar (2 vols.)
The Great Introduction to Astrology by Abū Maʿšar (2 vols.)

Author: Keiji Yamamoto †

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-19

Total Pages: 1435

ISBN-13: 9004381236

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Abū Ma’͑šar’s Great Introduction to Astrology (mid-ninth century) is the most comprehensive and influential text on astrology in the Middle Ages. In addition to presenting astrological doctrine, it provides a detailed justification for the validity of astrology and establishes its basis within the natural sciences of the philosophers. These two volumes provide a critical edition of the Arabic text; a facing English translation, which includes references to the divergences in the twelfth-century Latin translations of John of Seville and Hermann of Carinthia (Volume 1); and the large fragment of a Greek translation (edited by David Pingree). Comprehensive Arabic, English, Greek and Latin glossaries enable one to trace changes in vocabulary and terminology as the text passed from one culture to another. (Volume 2.)

Abraham Ibn Ezra The Book of Reasons
Abraham Ibn Ezra The Book of Reasons

Author: Shlomo Sela

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007-08-30

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 9047421574

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From the Middle Ages until the present, the development of astrology among Jews was associated mainly with the name of Abraham Ibn Ezra (1089–1167). His scientific corpus deals with mathematics, astronomy, scientific instruments and tools, and the Jewish calendar; but especially with astrology. This volume is the first product of a larger enterprise—a scientific edition of all twelve Ibn Ezra’s astrological treatises—and offers a critical Hebrew text of the two versions of Ibn Ezra’s Sefer ha-Te'amim, the Book of Reasons, accompanied by an annotated translation and commentary. The two treatises presented here were designed by Ibn Ezra to offer “reasons”, “explanations”, or “meanings” of the raw astrological concepts formulated in the introduction to astrology that Ibn Ezra entitled Reshit Hokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom).

Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introductions to Astrology
Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introductions to Astrology

Author: Shlomo Sela

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-05-22

Total Pages: 836

ISBN-13: 9004342281

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The present volume offers a critical edition of the Hebrew texts, accompanied by English translation and commentary of Reshit Ḥokhmah (Beginning of Wisdom) and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot (Judgments of the Zodiacal Signs) by Abraham Ibn Ezra (ca. 1089–ca. 1161). The first, the summa and by far the longest of his astrological works, the target of the most cross-references from the rest of that corpus and the most influential, enjoyed the widest circulation among Jews in the Middle Ages and after. The second, by contrast, is the most obscure. It is never referred to elsewhere by its author and is the only work for which Ibn Ezra’s authorship must be substantiated. Reshit Ḥokhmah and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot were written in order to explain concepts common to the various branches of astrology that Ibn Ezra addressed elsewhere and to elucidate the worldview that underlies astrology. These two treatises are the richest and most varied with regard to the astrological information they present. Reshit Ḥokhmah and Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot also exemplify the close collaboration between astronomy and astrology in medieval science and are the two components of Ibn Ezra’s astrological corpus with the most extensive, comprehensive, and significant astronomical content. "A critical edition with English translation of Reshit Ḥokhmah was published in 1998 by Epstein. Sela has not only aspired to improve it but also supplied a commentary to render the text more comprehensible. Sela’s mission is successfully accomplished for both treatises. This multifarious book is another important contribution to a deeper understanding of the life and work of one of the most important medieval Jewish polymaths." - Ilana Wartenberg, Universität Bern, in: Journal for the History of Astronomy 50.1 (2019)

Abraham Ibn Ezra, the Book of the World
Abraham Ibn Ezra, the Book of the World

Author: Avraham ben Meʼir Ibn ʻEzra

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9004179143

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The present volume offers the first critical edition of the Hebrew text of the two versions of Ibn Ezra s Book of the World, accompanied by an English translation and a commentary. These twin treatises represent the first Hebrew work, unique in medieval Jewish science, to discuss the theories and techniques of historical and meteorological astrology that had accumulated from Antiquity to Ibn Ezra s time, on the basis of Greek, Hindu, Persian, and Arabic sources. This volume also incorporates the first critical edition, translated and annotated, of M sh Þall h s Book on Eclipses, a work dealing with mundane astrology whose Hebrew translation was ascribed to Ibn Ezra, as well as a study of three brief texts in which Ibn Ezra conveyed his own opinion about mundane astrology.

Abraham Ibn Ezra The Book of the World
Abraham Ibn Ezra The Book of the World

Author: Shlomo Sela

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009-11-23

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9047441494

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The present volume offers the first critical edition of the Hebrew text of the two versions of Ibn Ezra’s Book of the World, accompanied by an English translation and a commentary. These twin treatises represent the first Hebrew work, unique in medieval Jewish science, to discuss the theories and techniques of historical and meteorological astrology that had accumulated from Antiquity to Ibn Ezra’s time, on the basis of Greek, Hindu, Persian, and Arabic sources. This volume also incorporates the first critical edition, translated and annotated, of MāshāÞallāh’s Book on Eclipses, a work dealing with mundane astrology whose Hebrew translation was ascribed to Ibn Ezra, as well as a study of three brief texts in which Ibn Ezra conveyed his own opinion about mundane astrology.

Through the Eye of a Needle
Through the Eye of a Needle

Author: Peter Brown

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-09-02

Total Pages: 806

ISBN-13: 1400844533

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A sweeping intellectual history of the role of wealth in the church in the last days of the Roman Empire Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven. Through the Eye of a Needle challenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.

Abraham Ibn Ezra on Elections, Interrogations, and Medical Astrology
Abraham Ibn Ezra on Elections, Interrogations, and Medical Astrology

Author: Shlomo Sela

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-09-09

Total Pages: 669

ISBN-13: 9004214453

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This volume offers the first critical edition of the Hebrew text, with English translation and commentary, of seven astrological treatises by Abraham Ibn Ezra: the Book of Elections (3 versions); the Book of Interrogations (3 versions); and the Book of the Luminaries. This volume, then, covers the astrological doctrine of elections, which is concerned with finding the best time to begin a particular activity; the doctrine of interrogations, designed to allow astrologers to reply to questions related to daily life; and the astrological theory behind the doctrine of the critical days, when marked changes take place in the symptoms of a disease. These three systems of astrology were combined in a single volume because Ibn Ezra considers them to be closely interrelated. "Despite these quibbles, Shlomo Sela is to be congratulated for making Ibn Ezra’s astrological treatises available in a modern edition of very high quality." Bernard Goldstein, University of Pittsburgh

Abraham Ibn Ezra on Nativities and Continuous Horoscopy
Abraham Ibn Ezra on Nativities and Continuous Horoscopy

Author: Shlomo Sela

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2013-09-27

Total Pages: 604

ISBN-13: 9004258523

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The present volume offers the first critical edition, accompanied with English translation and commentary, of Sefer ha-Moladot, which addresses the doctrine of nativities and the system of continuous horoscopy in nativities, and of Sefer ha-Tequfah, which is devoted exclusively to continuous horoscopy in nativities. The doctrine of nativities makes predictions about the whole of an individual’s subsequent life on the basis of the natal chart, and the system of continuous horoscopy in nativities is concerned with the interval between life and death and makes predictions based mainly on anniversary horoscopes, which are juxtaposed with the natal horoscope. To Abraham Ibn Ezra’s mind, not only are these two doctrines the core of astrology; they also epitomize the praxis of the astrological métier. “Sela...has provided explanatory appendices and very interesting notes about Jewish attitudes toward the sciences and astrology in the middle ages.” Reference & Research Book News, 2013.