Felix Pratensis (Felice da Prato) (died 1539 in Rome) was an Italian Sephardic Jewish scholar who converted to the Catholic Church. He is known for his collaboration with the Flemish printer Daniel Bomberg on the first printed Hebrew Biblia Rabbinica [1] [2] (Veneta) of 1517/8.
He received an education and acquired three languages. In 1518, he converted to Christianity. Having become an Augustinian friar, he devoted himself to proselytizing, especially to Jews.
Before his conversion, Felix published a Latin translation of the Psalms entitled Psalterium ex Hebræo ad Verbum Translatum, Venice, 1515.
Keturah was a wife and a concubine of the Biblical patriarch Abraham. According to the Book of Genesis, Abraham married Keturah after the death of his first wife, Sarah. Abraham and Keturah had six sons. According to Jewish tradition, she was a descendant of Noah's son Japheth.
Daniel Bomberg was one of the most important early printers of Hebrew books. A Christian Hebraist who employed rabbis, scholars and apostates in his Venice publishing house, Bomberg printed the first Mikraot Gdolot and the first complete Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, based on the layout pioneered by the Soncino family printers, with the commentaries of Rashi, and of the Tosfot in the margins. The editions set standards that are still in use today, in particular the pagination of the Babylonian Talmud. His publishing house printed about 200 Hebrew books, including Siddurim, responsa, codes of law, works of philosophy and ethics and commentaries. He was the first Hebrew printer in Venice and the first non-Jewish printer of Hebrew books.
David Kimhi (1160–1235), also known by the Hebrew acronym as the RaDaK (רַדָּ״ק), was a medieval rabbi, biblical commentator, philosopher, and grammarian.
A Mikraot Gedolot, often called a "Rabbinic Bible" in English, is an edition of the Hebrew Bible that generally includes three distinct elements:
Yiram of Magdiel was a minor Italian Jewish commentator on the Bible, active in Rome. The term Magdiel, which appears in Genesis 36:43, was apparently interpreted as Rome, so that his name was really Yiram of Rome.
Alfonso de Zamora was a Jewish-Spanish scholar and a major contributor to the Complutensian Polyglot Bible. Like many Spanish Jews during the persecutions of the 15th century, Alfonso converted to Catholicism while remaining a Crypto-Jew [secret Jew].
Jacob ben Reuben was a Karaite scholar and Bible exegete of the eleventh century. He wrote a brief Hebrew language commentary on the entire Bible, which he entitled Sefer ha-'Osher, because, as he says in the introduction, the reader will find therein sufficient information, and will not need to have recourse to the many voluminous commentaries which the author himself had consulted. The book is, in fact, merely a compilation; the author's explanation of any given passage is frequently introduced by the abbreviations or ; and divergent explanations of other commentators are added one after the other and preceded by the vague phrase. It is, in fact, chiefly an extract of Yefet ben Ali's work, from whom Jacob borrowed most of his explanations as well as the quotations from various authors, chiefly on the Pentateuch. But Jacob also drew upon later Karaite authors, the last of whom is Jeshua ben Judah, who, so far as is known, flourished about 1054. This date points to the second half of the eleventh century as the date of composition of the Sefer ha-'Osher.
David Rosin was a German Jewish theologian from Rosenberg, Silesia.
Rabbi Isaac ben Asher HaLevi or Riba (ריב"א) is the earliest known Tosafist, son-in-law of Eliakim ben Meshullam and pupil of Rashi. He flourished in Speyer during the 11th century.
Isaiah di Trani ben Mali (the Elder) (c. 1180 – c. 1250) (Hebrew: ישעיה בן מאלי הזקן דטראני), better known as the RID, was a prominent Italian Talmudist.
Hezekiah ben Manoah, or Hezekiah bar Manoah, was a French rabbi and Bible commentator of the 13th century. He is generally known by the title of his commentary, Chizkuni.
Abraham (Adolf) Berliner was a German theologian and historian, born in Obersitzko, in the Grand Duchy of Posen, Prussia. He was initially educated by his father, who was the teacher in Obersitzko. He continued his education under various rabbis, later studying at the University of Leipzig where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy.
Isaac Aboab of Castile, also known as Isaac Aboab II, was a Spanish-Jewish Rabbi, Posek and Torah commentator.
Jewish commentaries on the Bible are biblical commentaries of the Hebrew Bible from a Jewish perspective. Translations into Aramaic and English, and some universally accepted Jewish commentaries with notes on their method of approach and also some modern translations into English with notes are listed.
Midrash Tehillim, also known as Midrash Psalms or Midrash Shocher Tov, is an aggadic midrash to the Psalms.
Shemaiah of Soissons was a French Jewish scholar of the 12th century. He is often erroneously identified with Shemaiah of Troyes.
Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi was a Bulgarian Romaniote Jewish scholar and Talmudist born at Ohrid. Owing to the wars which agitated Bulgaria in the 14th century, Mosconi left his native country about 1360. He traveled in all the three continents of the Old World. He was in Chios and Cyprus, in Négropont, in Laodicea, and later in Egypt. He was afterward in Morocco, in Italy, and in France. In Perpignan he made the acquaintance of several scholars, among them Moses Narboni and David Bongoron.
Jewish printers were quick to take advantages of the printing press in publishing the Hebrew Bible. While for synagogue services written scrolls were used, the printing press was very soon called into service to provide copies of the Hebrew Bible for private use. All the editions published before the Complutensian Polyglot were edited by Jews; but afterwards, and because of the increased interest excited in the Bible by the Reformation, the work was taken up by Christian scholars and printers; and the editions published by Jews after this time were largely influenced by these Christian publications. It is not possible in the present article to enumerate all the editions, whole or partial, of the Hebrew text. This account is devoted mainly to the incunabula.
The Hebrew incunabula are a group of Hebrew books, papmphlets or broadside printed before the year 1501.
Johanan ben Aaron ben Nathanael Luria was an Alsatian Talmudist. He lived successively at Niedernheim and Strasburg at the end of the fifteenth century and in the beginning of the sixteenth. After having studied for many years in German yeshivot, he returned to Alsace and settled in Strasburg, where he founded a yeshiva by permission of the government. Luria was the author of an ethical work entitled "Hadrakah" and of "Meshibat Nefesh", an aggadic and mystical commentary on the Pentateuch, founded on Rashi. To this commentary was appended a dissertation in which Luria refuted the arguments advanced by Christians against Judaism.
It contains the Pentateuch with Onḳelos and Rashi, the Former and Later Prophets with Targum Jonathan and Ḳimḥi's comments (the anti-Christian passages omitted); Psalms with Targum and Ḳimḥi; Proverbs with the commentary known as "Ḳaw we-Naḳi"; Job with the commentaries of Naḥmanides and Abraham Farrisol; the Five Scrolls with the commentary of Levi b. Gerson; Ezra and Chronicles with the commentaries of Rashi and Simon ha-Darshan. To these were added the Jerusalem Targum to the Pentateuch; Targum Sheni to Esther; the variant readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali; the thirteen "articles of faith" of Maimonides; the 613 precepts according to Aaron Jacob Ḥasan; and a table of the parashiyot and Hafṭarot according to the Spanish and German rites. This edition is the first in which Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles are divided into two books, and Nehemiah is separated from Ezra. It is the first also to indicate in the margin the numbers of the chapters in Hebrew letters (Ginsburg, "Introduction," p. 26). The ḳeri consonants are also given in the margin.