- Title: Between two worlds: The tractate "Light of the Nations" of ‘Ovadyah Sforno (ca. 1475-1550)
- Time Span: 2015 - 2021
- Sponsor: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
- Director: Prof. Giuseppe Veltri
- Associates: Giada Coppola, Florian Dunklau
At the core of this project is the philosophical work 'Or Ammim by Ovadyah Sforno (1475?-1550) ("Light of the Nations", first print: Bologna 1537). Although he is known as one of the most eminent Biblical commentators, Sforno’s philosophical works have remained largely unnoticed. He is considered the last Hebrew scholar to have produced a book on central questions of medieval religious philosophy written in the classical form of a scholastic 'Summa'. His work attempts to defend Jewish dogmas against Aristotelian-Averroist arguments, thereby setting Judaism on a rational footing. Sforno is an example of cultural intermediation in the Italian Renaissance. He gained a doctorate in medicine at a Christian university, and self-translated his work into Latin in order to make it accessible to his Christian colleagues ("Lumen Gentium" (first print: Bologna 1548)).
The project aims to produce both a new Hebrew critical edition “The Light”, based on the original print and a previously unknown unique autograph manuscript, and the first scientific edition of the author’s own remarkable Latin translation. Both versions will be translated into English for the first time, making the whole work accessible to the respective academic audience, i.e. scholars in Jewish Studies, Latin Studies, Renaissance Studies, Philosophy and Theology. A lexicographical analysis of the ways in which Sforno uses terminology in both works will shed light on the development of the Hebrew scientific and philosophic language, thereby contributing a comparative study to the intercultural phenomenon of the translation movement from Hebrew to Latin and Latin to Hebrew. A commentary to the work will contextualise and give insights into Sforno’s thinking in the light of General (Greek, Latin and Arabic-Islamic) and Jewish philosophy. Finally, much of the project will focus on the relationship of this work to the author’s exegetical writings, which are marked by his method of rational and philosophical reasoning.
The outcome will be a comprehensive two-volume edition that will add a crucial but neglected aspect to our knowledge of this influential Jewish exegete and philosopher of the early modern period.
