Chapter Headings and Chapter Summaries: Judah Al-Harizi’s Impact on the Reception and Study of the Guide of the Perplexed

• In Event: Medieval Philosophical Discourses in Historical Context

Abstract

Recent scholarship has highlighted the differences between Samuel ibn Tibbon’s and Judah Al-Harizi’s respective translations of Maimonides's Guide of the Perplexed, and how these differences reflect competing perspectives on the work’s proper meaning. In addition to his translation, Al-Harizi appended a glossary as well as a detailed summary for each chapter of the Guide. Virtually ignored by modern scholarship, the chapter summaries are extant in far more manuscripts than the translation itself and were included in every published edition of the Guide until the 19th century. This paper examines why Al-Harizi included these summaries, why they were criticized, and what their popularity indicates about the Guide’s reception and how it is studied.

Author

• Yaakov Taubes, Yeshiva University