Page:Eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics.djvu/41

Rh out the value of his translation, even though it is largely a literal one. He maintains that Ibn Tibbon's work will continue to be one of the most important in the history of translations, for it laid the foundation of Hebrew philosophical style with its syntactical and terminological Arabisms. Grätz contemptuously calls Ibn Tibbon a "handicraftsman in philosophy."

While it is true that Ibn Tibbon's style is not the best, he should not be criticized too severely on this account. He consciously avoided elegance of expression for the sake of accuracy, and in order to faithfully render the original even went so far as to reproduce ambiguities. As far as possible, he consulted Maimonides on difficult passages. One must remember, too, that Ibn Tibbon was a pioneer in the art of translating from Arabic into Hebrew, that he had no patterns to go by, except the works of his father, Jehudah, that a philosophical Hebrew vocabulary did not exist, and, in consequence, even the most ordinary terms had to be coined. Ibn Tibbon was well aware of the difficulties that the reader would meet in his translation, and in order to avoid these as far as possible composed a Glossary of Strange Words, in which he ably explains the philosophical terms employed. He realized fully that his translation contained Arabisms, but wherever it was possible to use a Hebrew word or expression he did so. Many words and constructions in Hebrew which Ibn Tibbon used for the first time to convey the Arabic sense are now commonly accepted philosophical terms. It is unjust, moreover, to judge Ibn Tibbon by the ordinary texts of the works he has translated. Not until a carefully prepared and revised text of the Moreh has been published will one be able to determine accurately his ability and his shortcomings. Judging by the experience of the editor in his textual work in the Peraḳim, often