Ibn-tibbon, Jehudah Ben-saul

Ibn-Tibbon, Jehudah ben-Saul a Jewish scholar of Spanish descent, was born at Lunel, France, about 1120. He was educated a physician, but his ardent love for the study of Hebrew led him to abandon the practice of his profession, and he devoted himself mainly to the translation into Hebrew of some of the most valuable works of able Jews written in Arabic. He died about 1190. His translations are The Duties of the Heart of Joseph b.-Bechai, the Ethics of Ibn-Gebiroi, the Kusari of Judah Ha-Levi, the A Moral Philosophy of Saadia Gaon, and the grammatical and lexicographical work of Ibn-Ganach (q.v.). All his translations bear his own pedantic character: they are literal, and therefore clumsy, and we can hardly see why he should have gained the surname of prince of translators, unless it was for the service which he rendered by presenting the Jews translations of works not otherwise accessible to them. He is also said to have written a work on the purity of the Hebrew language (הלשון סוד צחות), which Is lost. See Kitto, Cyclop. Bibl. Lit. 2, 358; Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (col. 1374-76); Gratz, Gesch. d. Juden, 6, 241; Furst, Biblioth. Jude 1:3, 401 sq.