Persecution and the Art of Translation: Some New Evidence Concerning the Latin Translation of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed

The ongoing work on a critical edition of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in its medieval Latin translation, and the recently published detailed studies of the Latin manuscripts provide us with a unique opportunity to reconsider a field of study which, after more than 150 years of intensive scholarly engagement, still presents us with some remarkable lacunae. In confronting the new material evidence, this paper raises some basic questions regarding the unique nature of Maimonides’ work itself and the way it is reflected through its reception among European readers, Jews and Christians alike. My two main goals here are, first, to emphasize the unique character of the early Latin reception of the Guide, which was less philosophically oriented and more Hebraistic in nature, and, second, to emphasize its close ties to a set of persecutional acts that took place in the very same period.Les travaux en cours pour l’édition critique du Guide des égarés de Maïmonide dans sa traduction latine médiévale, ainsi que les études récemment publiées à propos des manuscrits latins, nous fournissent une opportunité unique de reconsidérer un champ d’études qui, après plus de cent cinquante ans d’intense engagement de la part des chercheurs, présente encore de grandes lacunae. En se confrontant aux nouveaux matériaux, cet article soulève des questions fondamentales sur la nature unique de l’ouvrage de Maïmonide ainsi que sur la façon dont elle se reflète à travers sa réception parmi les lecteurs européens, juifs tout comme chrétiens. Cet article a comme but, tout d’abord, de souligner le caractère unique de la réception la plus ancienne du Guide, qui était peu orientée sur l’aspect philosophique mais plutôt sur le côté hébraïsant ; ensuite, de mettre l’accent sur ses rapports avec une série d’actes de persécution qui se sont passés à la même période.תחילת פרסום המהדורה המדעית לספר מורה הנבוכים לרמב"ם בתרגומו הימי ביניימי ללטינית, כמו גם המחקרים שפורסמו לאחרונה ומתבססים על ניתוח מפורט של כתבי היד הלטיניים, כל אלה מעניקים לנו הזדמנות ייחודית לשוב ולבחון תחום מחקר שבו, גם לאחר למעלה ממאה וחמישים שנות התעסקות אינטנסיבית, אנחנו עדיין ניצבים בפני כמה לקונות מחקריות משמעותיות. המאמר הנוכחי מעלה, בהסתמך על העדויות החדשות, מספר תהיות בנוגע לאופיו היסודי של חיבורו המקורי של הרמב"ם, כפי שהוא משתקף ברצפציה האירופית המוקדמת שלו, בקרב יהודים ונוצרים כאחד. שתי המטרות המרכזיות שלי הן ראשית הדגשת האופי המיוחד של ההתקבלות המוקדמת של מורה הנבוכים בשפה הלטינית, שמשקפת התעסקות פחות פילוסופית ויותר הבראיסטית באופיה, ושנית, הדגשת הקרבה הרבה שבין מעשה התרגום עצמו לבין שורת אירועי רדיפה וצנזורה שמתרחשים במקביל לו

Applications of Wavelet Transforms to the Analysis of Superoscillations

The phenomenon of superoscillation is the local oscillation of a band limited function at a frequency ω higher than the band limit. Superoscillations exist during the limited time intervals, and their amplitude is small compared to the signal components with the frequencies inside the bandwidth. For this reason, the wavelet transform is a useful mathematical tool for the quantitative description of the superoscillations. Continuous-time wavelet transform (CWT) of a transient signal ft is a function of two variables: one of them represents a time shift, and the other one is the scale or dilation variable. As a result, CWT permits the simultaneous analysis of the transient signals both in the time and frequency domain. We show that the superoscillations strongly localized in time and frequency domains can be identified by using CWT analysis. We use CWT with the Mexican hat and Morlet mother wavelets for the theoretical investigation of superoscillation spectral features and time dependence for the first time, to our best knowledge. The results clearly show that the high superoscillation frequencies, time duration, and energy contours can be found by using CWT of the superoscillating signals

“From Moses to Moses”: Late Medieval Jewish and Christian Interpretation of Moses’s Prophecy

The paper examines how the figure of the biblical Moses was philosophically interpreted in medieval Jewish and Christian writings. It highlights a turning point in a new concept of prophecy and scriptural authority and suggests that this transformation was made complicated for both Jewish and Christian intellectuals by the appearance of Moses Maimonides, who was most influential in promoting the Muslim model of philosophic interpretation of prophecy, and at the same time confusingly emerged as a living manifestation of semi-biblical authority. Against Jewish exclusivist interpretation of Mosaic law as the leading polemical argument to encounter competing revelations, the first part of my paper points out a mechanism of “Jewish successionism”, i.e., the re-interpretation of the biblical Moses as an instrument for rationalizing normative paradigmatic shift. The second, main part of the paper turns to the Latin translation of Maimonides’s Guide of the Perplexed, placing it in the midst of a crucial western Latin turn into a new phase of engagement with Old Testament concept of prophecy. A short comparison between some prominent twelfth century figures and later Scholastic thought demonstrates the central role of the new Arab Aristotelianism in general, and that of Maimonides in particular. Maimonides reception among the schoolman will culminate in the writings of Meister Eckhart, exposing the full potentiality of the double appearance of the Egyptian (Rabbi) Moses

Chapter Final Phases of Medieval Hebraism

"The relationship between Jews and Christians and between Judaism and Christianity during the 13th and 14th century is a matter of concrete and contingent historical circumstances; and its ideological elements are inherent in pre-modern Catholicism and pre-modern Rabbinical Judaism. Indeed, both St. Paul and the Rabbis are typical revolutionary figures of late antiquity who present themselves as the authentic interpreters of old sacred writings. Throughout the ages, the interpretation of the Sacra pagina remained at the very center of Chris-tian and Jewish theology involving hidden or manifest polemics against the rival interpretation. Still, this fundamental and fixed element did not prevent dramatic changes in the concrete historical manifestations of Judaism and Christianity. Nowhere else, the parallel developments in both religions were as spectacular, often even traumatic, as in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, where Jewish communities had existed since late antiquity; and where Jews and Christians had developed stable forms of coexistence. These were severely shaken by the dramatic events that marked the ascendancy of European hegemony beginning with the first crusade at the end of the 11thcentury.

Immunohistochemistry Evaluation of the Effect in Vivo of Tumor Necrosis Factor (TNF)-α on Blood Vessel Density in Murine Fibrosarcoma

Purpose: Angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth and metastases, thus bestowing obvious importance upon methodologies which could enable its inhibition