Commentary of Salmon Ben Yeruham on lamentations

Abstract

This thesis is a critical edition of the Judaeo-Arabic commentary on the book of Lamentations by the tenth century Karaite Salmon Ben Yeruham. The edition of the text is based on four manuscripts and nine fragments. Two manuscripts and all the fragments are in the British Museum. The third and the fourth manuscripts are housed one in the Bibliothèque National in Paris and the other in the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. It has been possible to examine all the manuscripts and fragments with the exception of the New York manuscript which was available only on microfilm. The present edition has taken manuscript A (B.M. Or. 2516) as its main text because it is a complete copy compared with the others. The edition is prefaced by an introduction comprising a discussion of the data we possess about the commentator’s life with references to his works in general and of the authenticity of the authorship of this work in particular. This is followed by an analysis of the commentary, discussing the method used by Salmon, the Karaite theology presented by him and its relationship to Mu'tazilite views. There follows a descriptive linguistic study of the text, investigating the relationship of its language to the characteristics of other Judaeo-Arabic texts on the one a hand, and to Classical Arabic on the other. Next, there is a description of the manuscripts and fragments, followed by detailed notes in which is I presented the relationship between Salmon’s text and translation of Lamentations presented on the one hand, and the Massoretic Text, the Septuagint the Peshitta and Saadiah Gaon’s Arabic version on the other.