impact wrenches
a biblical translation in the making the evolution and impact of saadia gaons tafsir
p in his youth r. saadia gaon 882 942 c.e. dreamed of publishing a new translation of the torah for arabic speaking jews to replace the overly literal ones in vogue at the time . it would be a proper translation conforming to the tenets of both traditional judaism and contemporary philosophy not to mention the canons of arabic grammar and style . saadia s interest in this project was not purely academic . rabbinic judaism was under attack from karaite and muslim polemicists eager to win new converts and saadia felt that a new arabic version of the torah was needed to counter the attack . his dream was realized with the issuing of the tafs r the most important jewish bible translation of the middle ages . p richard c. steiner traces the history of the tafs r its ancient and medieval roots its modest beginnings its subsequent evolution and its profound impact on the history of biblical exegesis . among the many sources he uses to elucidate this history are two previously neglected manuscripts a christian arabic translation of the pentateuch from st. catherine s monastery in the sinai desert and a judeo arabic annotated translation of genesis from the cairo genizah . steiner argues that the latter is a page from a copy of the first edition of the tafs r prepared while saadia was a student in tiberias and the former is a copy of hunayn b. ish q s lost arabic version of the pentateuch ninth century c.e. containing a philosophical rendering of genesis 1 1 adopted later by saadia in the tafs r.