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The Medieval Church · c. 920–930

The Tafsir

Saadia Gaon · 882 – 942

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What it is

The Torah and much of the rest of the Hebrew Bible translated into Arabic, deliberately smoothing anthropomorphism — where the Hebrew has God's hand, the Arabic has his power — and adding a running commentary against Karaite and Muslim readings.

Why it lasted

The first Jewish Bible translation into a language Jews actually spoke since the Targums, and still the Torah read by Yemenite Jews. It is also a theological programme: every rendering is an argument.

Scripture it works from

Where to read it

Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.

These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.

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