Rabad

Rabad (ראבד), or ABRAHAM IBN-DAUD, for which the acrostic stands, a noted rabbi, was born at Toledo about 1110, and died as a martyr 1180. He was one of the most renowned Talmudists of his time, highly esteemed for his historical knowledge. He is the author of the סֵ הִקִּבָּלָה (The Successions of Tradition), written in the form of annals, giving the history of the world from Adam to his own time (1161), and showing the uninterrupted chain of tradition to his day, against the opinion of the Karaites, who denied all tradition. As a supplement to this chronicle, Ibn-Daud wrote a succinct history of the Roman empire, from its foundation by Romulus till the West Gothic king Reccared, entitled Memoirs of the Events of Rome (גכרון דברי רומי), and the History of the Jewish Kings during the Second Temple (דברי מלכי ישראל בבית שני ). These histories were first published, together with the Seder Olam, in Mantua (1513), then in Venice (1545), and Basle (1580); the Sepher Ha-kabbalah by itself, with the Seder Olam Rabba and Sutta (Cracow, 1820), and with a Latin translation by Gilbert Genebrard (Paris, 1572). He also wrote a work in Arabic, Akida Rafina; in Hebrew, Emunah Ramah (ed. Well, Frankfort-on-theMain, 1857), on the elements of nature and their capability of leading to elements of religious faith; on these elements of faith, and on the medicine for the soul in its infirmities. He also wrote Astronomical Notices and Replies to Abn-Alpharag on the section of the law named the "Journeyings," i.e. Numbers 33 etc. See Furst, Bibl. Jud. i, 7 sq.; Gratz, Gesch. der Juden, 6:176183, 212; Jost, Gesch. des Judenth. u. s. Sekten, ii. 425; Dessauer, Gesch. der Juden, p. 295; Braunschweiger, Gesch. der Juden in den romanischen Staaten, p. 70 sq.; Lindo, History of the Jews in Spain, p. 60; Finn, Sephardim, p. 193; Etheridge, Introd. to Hebrew Literature, p. 251; Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, i, 420, 427; Guggenheimer, Die Religionsphilosophie des R. Abr. ben-David ha-Levi (Augsburg, 1860); Levita, Massoreth ha-Massoreth (ed. Ginsburg, Lond. 1867), p. 108. (B. P.)