This section contains 9,443 words (approx. 32 pages at 300 words per page) |
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 Job...
This section contains 9,443 words (approx. 32 pages at 300 words per page) |