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The Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344)

A Critical Edition of Chapters 1–20 with Translation and Commentary

  • Book
  • © 1985

Overview

Authors:
  1. Bernard R. Goldstein

    1. Jewish Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

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Part of the book series: Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences (HISTORY, volume 11)

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Table of contents (3 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Bernard R. Goldstein
    Pages 1-15

  3. Translation

    • Bernard R. Goldstein
    Pages 17-129

  4. Commentary

    • Bernard R. Goldstein
    Pages 131-197

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 198-312
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Keywords

About this book

It would seem that S. Munk was the first modern scholar to draw attention to the significance of Levi ben Gerson's Astronomy, surely the most original work on astronomy written in Hebrew in the Middle Ages. Munk (1859, p. 500) called for a specialist to undertake a serious study of this work, but there was little response to his plea in the succeeding century. Indeed, this is the first edition of the Hebrew text of any part of Levi's Astronomy but for the table of contents (Renan, 1893, pp. 624-32), and the poems celebrating the invention of the Jacob Staff that appear in chapter 9 (Carlebach, 191Oa, pp. 152-53). The text of Levi's Astronomy is written in a ponderous Hebrew style but the content sparkles with originality. The Ptolemaic tradition is subjected to a profound critique based on the idea that the planetary models must conform both to Levi's own observations as well as those of the ancients, and the claim that astronomical theory must be philosophically sound. The enduring vigor of the Ptolemaic tradition has been characterized by O. Neugebauer as fol­ lows: "There is no better way to convince oneself of the inner coherence of ancient and medieval astronomy than to place side by side the Almagest, al­ BaWini's Opus astronomicum and Copernicus's De Revolutionibus. Chapter by chapter, theorem by theorem, table by table, these works run parallel" (1957, pp. 205-6).

Authors and Affiliations

  • Jewish Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Bernard R. Goldstein

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344)

  • Book Subtitle: A Critical Edition of Chapters 1–20 with Translation and Commentary

  • Authors: Bernard R. Goldstein

  • Series Title: Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-8569-1

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. 1985

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4613-8571-4Published: 08 November 2011

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4613-8569-1Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0172-570X

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XII, 312

  • Topics: Mathematics, general

  • Industry Sectors: Engineering, IT & Software

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