It is probable that his father was Gershom ben Salomon de Beziers, a notable mentioned in medieval histories. Gersonides may have married a distant cousin; it is not known whether he had any offspring.
Gersonides spoke Provençal; his works, however, are all written in Hebrew, and all his quotations from Averroes, Aristotle, and Moses Maimonides are in Hebrew as well. He may have had a reading knowledge of Latin; he appears to manifest an awareness of contemporary Scholastic discussions. He might, however, have learned of such discussions in oral conversations with his Christian contemporaries.
Apart from several trips to Avignon, Gersonides most likely resided his entire life in Orange. There is some evidence that he may have followed the traditional occupation of his family, moneylending. He died on 20 April 1344.
With the decline of Spanish Judaism in the thirteenth century, Provence quickly became the cultural center for Jewish intellectual activity. The popes in Avignon had a lenient policy toward the Jews, whose creative life flourished, particularly in philosophy and theology. Jewish philosophers did not have direct access to the works of Aristotle, but Provençal Jews learned of Aristotle through the commentaries of Averroës, the twelfth-century Spanish Muslim philosopher.
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