Самуил ибн Тиббон: Еврейский философ и переводчик XII-XIII веков.

French Orthodox rabbi

Samuel ben Judah ibn Tibbon ( 1150 – c. 1230), more commonly known as Samuel ibn Tibbon (, ابن تبّون), was a Jewish philosopher and doctor who lived and worked in Provence, later part of France. He was born about 1150 in Lunel (Languedoc), and died about 1230 in Marseilles. He is best known for his translations of Jewish rabbinic literature from Arabic to Hebrew. Samuel ibn Tibbon wrote his own philosophical works, including "Sefer ha Mikhtav" (The Book of the Letter), which dealt with ethics and spirituality. Samuel ibn Tibbon's translations and commentaries had a significant impact on Jewish thought and scholarship during the Middle Ages. They helped to disseminate the ideas of Greek philosophy and Islamic science throughout the Jewish world, and they also contributed to the development of Jewish philosophy in their own right.

He received a Jewish education in rabbinic literature from his father Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon. Other teachers in Lunel taught him about medicine, Arabic and the secular knowledge of his age. Samuel ibn Tibbon married and had children, including a son, Moses ibn Tibbon, who also translated works from Arabic to Hebrew. Later in his life, he lived in several cities of southern France (1199 in Béziers, and 1204 in Arles). He traveled to Barcelona, Toledo, and Alexandria (1210–1213). Finally he settled in Marseilles. After his death, his body was transported to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and he is buried in Tiberias.

Samuel's reputation is based not on his original writings, but on his translations, especially that of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed in 1204. (An image of his work may be seen online at the World Digital Library.) Three smaller treatises of Averroes, under the title "Sheloshah Ma'amarim" (edited by J. Herez, with German translation: "Drei Abhandlungen über die Conjunction des Separaten Intellects mit den Menschen von Averroes, aus dem Arabischen Uebersetzt von Samuel ibn Tibbon," Berlin, 1869). Samuel translated these three treatises both as an appendix to his commentary on Ecclesiastes (see above) and separately (Steinschneider, ibid p. 199). Yahya ibn al Batriq's Arabic translation of Aristotle's Meteora, under the title "Otot ha Shamayim" (also quoted under the title "Otot 'Elyonot"), translated on a voyage from Alexandria, between the two islands Lampedusa and Pantellaria. It is extant in several manuscripts. The preface and the beginning of the text have been printed by Filipowski (c. 1860) as a specimen. Samuel made this retranslation, at the request of Joseph ben Israel of Toledo, working from a single and bad Arabic translation of Batriq (Steinschneider, ibid p. 132. ).