Rabbi Moshe ibn Tibbon רבי משה אבן תבון
the third generation of translators: the Rambam came to speak Hebrew
There is a labour without which half our shelf would not exist, and it is rarely noticed: translation. The Rambam wrote in Arabic, and for the Jews of Spain that was their own tongue—but for Provence, France and Ashkenaz it already was not.
The grandfather, Rabbi Yehuda ibn Tibbon, began; the father, Rabbi Shmuel, translated the Moreh Nevuchim; Rabbi Moshe completed it: the Rambam's commentary on the Mishnah, the Sefer ha-Mitzvot, the Iggeret Teiman—and besides them books of medicine and of the stars, Euclid and Ibn Rushd. The Tibbonids made words for Hebrew that it did not have: much of today's learned vocabulary is their work.
He wrote his own books too: commentaries on the Song of Songs and others. But he is remembered as a bridge—and that is no less than a book of one's own.
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- The translations of Rabbi Moshe ibn Tibbon, with their colophons — what was translated and when, in his own hand
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — three generations of the ibn Tibbon house and the years of the work
Basis: documents and evidence.