Dodi Ve-Nechdi (Quaestiones Naturales) (1920) - Page 19

Natural Science, treating his subject from the point of view of “Arabian” philosophy. The questions embrace plants, animals, man, and also the physical conditions of the Universe.

As for Berachya’s adaptation (for that is the most that we can admit of the interrelation between the two versions), this is the verdict passed upon him by Steinschneider (H. Ueb. p. 464):—

“The translator (!) availed himself of every possible freedom by omitting, adding, and altering. In particular, he has changed the simple introductory phrases of the interlocutors, which give the clue to the connection between the various questions, into rhetorical tirades. He uses rhymed prose and the so-called musiv-style (the application of Biblical passages and phrases) with more dexterity and spirit than taste.”

We can scarcely believe that the learned Professor ever had the complete work before him; he seems, moreover, to have been dependent upon some careless copyist for the samples of the work which he did have. Otherwise, how shall we explain the following transcription which appears in the Letterbode VIII, 35?

Man is called in the Arabic tongue (!) beasts, and in the tongue of Javan [Greece], the beast of the field (!)

original: "homo quidam animal rationale?" -> Is man not a rational animal?

The passage should have been (cf. M. XX)

Man is called in the Arabic tongue 'the beast of the plain,' and in the tongue of Javan, 'the beast of the field'

And what shall we say of the glaring combination of errors copied by Joseph Jacobs in his otherwise valuable publication, “The Jews of Angevin England,” 1893, pp. 196–198? These are his words: “Man,” he says, “is in the Arabic tongue Behemoth, and in the tongue of Javan [Greece] the beast of the West,” a curious perversion of “animal rationale” (see Steinschneider in Letterbode VIII, 35). We now see where the “perversion” lies. This carelessness is particularly to be observed in several of Jacobs’s references. It is the risk incurred when a writer does not go to original sources, and the error is thus carried on from author to author.

I regret, first, that Jacobs should have published (p. 196) the passage containing the personal reference on the part of Berachya which appears in “Les Rabbins Français,” containing the objectionable words “and pearls before swine.”