ר' שמואל אבן תיבון

Rabbi Shmuel ben Yehudah ibn Tibbon (c. 4910/1150 – c. 4990/1230), known in English sources as Samuel ibn Tibbon, was a chacham and physician of Provence, best known for turning the works of the Rambam from Arabic into Hebrew. He was born at Lunel in Languedoc and received his learning in rabbinic literature from his father, Rabbi Yehudah ben Shaul ibn Tibbon, himself a well-known translator; other teachers at Lunel taught him medicine, Arabic and the general knowledge of the day. He held the Rambam in the highest regard and translated the Moreh Nevuchim in the Rambam’s own lifetime, with his encouragement.

He lived in several towns of southern France, at Beziers in 1199 and at Arles in 1204, and traveled to Barcelona, Toledo and Alexandria between 1210 and 1213 before settling at Marseille. Besides the Moreh he translated the Rambam’s Shemoneh Perakim, his commentary on Avot, the Iggeret Teiman and the Maamar Techiyat HaMetim, as well as works of science and philosophy from the Arabic. His son Moshe ibn Tibbon translated after him, and Rabbi Yaakov Anatoli was his son-in-law.

Returning from Alexandria in 1213 he wrote on board ship Peirush HaMilot HaZarot, an explanation of the philosophical terms of the Moreh and the first Hebrew philosophical lexicon; in its introduction he divided the words into five classes and appended a list of corrections he wished made in copies of his translation. He wrote Maamar Yikavu HaMayim, a treatise in twenty-two chapters on the pasuk in Bereishit, dealing with the created world and with the question of its coming into being in time; a commentary on Kohelet on the soul and the intellect; an Iggeret al HaHashgachah sent to the Rambam in 1199, whose reply has not reached us; and Taam HaShulchan VehaMenorah on the reasons for the mitzvot. Two further works of his, a commentary on Shir HaShirim and one called Ner HaChofesh, are known only from mentions in the others.

Beyond translating the Moreh he was in many respects its first commentator, and on certain questions took a more Aristotelian position than the Rambam himself, which drew sharp opposition — Rabbi Shlomo min HaHar campaigned against the translation on the grounds that it disclosed publicly what the Rambam had concealed, and Rabbi Yaakov ben Sheshet wrote against Maamar Yikavu HaMayim. The Radak wrote that from the time this great chacham was gathered to his fathers he found no one with whom to discuss his questions on the Moreh, and Rabbi Avraham son of the Rambam brought that his father testified of him that he had gone down to the depth of the sefer’s intent. He was niftar at Marseille, and his body was brought to Eretz Yisrael; testimony of 1450 and of 1537 places his grave in the old Jewish cemetery of Teveria.