Gersonides – Translating Divinity Within the Limits of Knowledge

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Beyond Babel: Religion and Linguistic Pluralism

Abstract

Gersonides (1288–1344), who is central to this chapter, lived in Orange, a small town in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region which today finds itself part of France. He wrote exclusively in Hebrew, and even now most of his scientific work hasn’t been translated to modern European languages. Although his major contributions to theology and Judaism were often seen as contrary to the majority views, and sometimes even undesirable, his mathematical works remained largely unknown, partially because he wrote exclusively in Hebrew. In this regard we will investigate briefly his world-view, his epistemological method, and finally mention some of his contributions to mathematics. Gersonides’ opus is situated within the intersections of the original language in which he wrote and our changing interpretations of this work as well as between his philosophical theology and mathematics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
EUR 29.95
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
EUR 106.99
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
EUR 139.09
Price includes VAT (Germany)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free ship** worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Bibliography

  • Bacon, F. (1609). De sapientia veterum, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ben Gerson, L. (1325). Commentary on song of songs (M. Kellner, Trans. (1998)). Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ben Gerson, L. (1329). Wars of the Lord (S. Feldman, Trans. (1987)). The Jewish Publication Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berti, E. (Ed.). (1981). Aristotle on science. Antenore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brams, S. J. (2018). Divine games: Game theory and the undecidability of a superior being. MIT Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Carlebach, S. (1910). Levi Ben Gerson Als Mathematiker, Berlin: J. Lamm

    Google Scholar 

  • Cajori, F. (1918). Origin of the name mathematical induction. American Mathematical Monthly, 25, 197–201.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Young, G. (1984). The Arabic textual traditions of Euclid’s Elements. Historia Mathematica, 11, 147–160.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freudenthal, H. (1953). Zur Geschichte der vollständigen Induktion. Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences, 6, 17–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaisner, R. (2002). Gersonides: A Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Philosopher-Scientist. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glasner, R. (2002)a. Gersonides’ knowledge of languages. Aleph, 2, 235–257.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, B. R. (1977). Levi ben Gerson: On instrumental errors and the transversal scale. Journal for the History of Astronomy, 8, 102–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gottlieb, P. (2019). Aristotle on non-contradiction. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2019 ed.) https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/aristotle-noncontradiction/. Accessed 19 Apr 2023

    Google Scholar 

  • Halper, Y. (2018). The sex life of a metaphysical sceptic: Platonic themes in Gersonides’ commentary on song of songs. In R. Haliva (Ed.), Scepticism and anti-scepticism in mediaeval Jewish philosophy and thought. De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Itard, J., & Dedron, P. (1959) Mathématiques et mathématiciens, Paris: Magnard.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heath, T. L. (1956). The thirteen books of Euclid’s elements. Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Katz, V. J. (2013). Jewish Combinatorics. In R. Wilson & J. J. Watkins (Eds.), Combinatorics: Ancient and modern. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kellner, M. (1979). A bibliographical essay. Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, 12, 13–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kellner, M. (1989). “Introduction to the commentary on song of songs composed by the Sage R. Levi ben Gerson: An annotated translation”. In Jacob Neusner, Ed., from ancienct to modern judaism: Essays in honour of marvin fox, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2, 187–205.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kellner, M. (1994). Politics and perfection – Gersonides vs Maimonides. Jewish Political Studies Review, 6(1-2), 49–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kellner, M. (1995). Gersonides on Imitatio Dei and the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Jewish Quarterly Review, 85(3-4), 275–296.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kellner, M. (1998). Translator’s introduction. In L. Ben Gerson (Ed.), Commentary on song of songs. Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein-Braslavy, S. (2011). Without any doubt – Gersonides on method and knowledge. Brill.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Langermann, T. Y., & Simonson, S. (2000). The Hebrew mathematical tradition. In U. D. Ambrosio (Ed.), Mathematics across cultures: The history of non-western mathematics (pp. 167–188). Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence, S. (2019). A new year’s present from a mathematician. CRC Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence, S., & McCartney, M. (2015). Mathematicians and their gods: Interactions between mathematics and religious beliefs. Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lévy, T. (1992). Gersonide, commentateur d’Euclide. In G. Freudenthal (Ed.), Studies on Gersonides: A fourteenth-century Jewish philosopher-scientist (pp. 83–147). Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manekin, C. H. (1990). Logic and science in Gersonides. In S. Knuuttila et al. (Eds.), Knowledge and the sciences in medieval philosophy (pp. 565–573). Helsinki.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manekin, C. (1991). The Logic of Gersonides, Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marenbon, J. (2016). Medieval philosophy, a very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Melamed, Y. (forthcoming). Gersonides and Spinoza on God’s knowledge of universals and particulars. In O. Elior, G. Freudenthal, & D. Wirmer (Eds.), Gersonides through the ages.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norris, R. A. (2003). The song of songs: Interpreted by early Christian and medieval commentators. Eerdmans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rabinovitch, N. L. (1970). Rabbi Levi Ben Gershon and the origins of mathematical induction. Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 6(3), 237–248.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rudavsky, T. (2020). Gersonides. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2020 ed.) https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/gersonides/. Accessed 19 Apr 2023

  • Silver, D. J. (1965). Maimonidean criticism and the Maimonidean controversy 1180–1240. Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sweeney, M. A. (2011). Tanak: A theological and critical introduction to the Jewish Bible. Fortress Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Maser, Y. (2016). Les rabbins du Sud de la France au Moyen Age et leurs écrits. Les Sages de Provincia. Editions Bakish.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zetterberg, P. J. (1982). Echoes of nature in Salomon’s house. Journal of the History of Ideas, 43(2), 179–193.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Snezana Lawrence .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Lawrence, S. (2023). Gersonides – Translating Divinity Within the Limits of Knowledge. In: Vestrucci, A. (eds) Beyond Babel: Religion and Linguistic Pluralism. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 43. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42127-3_15

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Navigation