Gersonides Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Menachem Kellner

Critical Essay by Menachem Kellner

SOURCE: Kellner, Menachem. “Translator's Introduction.” In Commentary on “Song of Songs,” by Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), translated by Menachem Kellner, pp. xv-xxxi. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998.

In the following excerpt, Kellner contends that Gersonides addressed his biblical commentaries to amateurs in philosophy and notes that, since the so-called secrets of the Torah had already been revealed, he had no reason to avoid discussing them in his works.

In June or July 1325, at the age of thirty-seven, Levi ben Gershom wrote his commentary on Song of Songs. He had already written a large number of works, beginning with his Wars of the Lord (parts of which were completed in 1317), continuing through independent works on logic, mathematics, and astronomy, and culminating in a long series of supercommentaries on many of the commentaries of Averroës on Aristotle.¹ In 1325, Gersonides completed his first biblical commentary, on the book of...
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