Abstract

Abraham ibn Ezra, the subject of this Cologne doctoral dissertation, is a lesser-known figure in the history of Jewish philosophy in medieval Spain, his dates placing him roughly after Ibn Gabirol and before Moses Maimonides. The title given to this book calls first for some comment. By "Religionsphilosophie," a term he has seemingly inherited from his scholarly predecessors, Greive does not mean "philosophy of religion," but is referring to a system of reality and of knowledge concerned with a metaphysical ultimate principle and our relation to that principle, and in which no divide is established between "religion" and "philosophy," between "mysticism" and "rational thought"., accommodating his faith to his philosophy.) This system, as it is found in Ibn Ezra, conforms in its general lines to the Neoplatonic-inspired philosophy common in medieval Islamic and Jewish thought. A second comment might be made concerning the scope of Greive’s work. It is not his intent to present a full and systematic account of Ibn Ezra’s philosophy. He wishes rather to provide a careful reconstruction of certain aspects of Ibn Ezra’s thought which will represent an improvement on earlier scholarly accounts and will serve to illuminate Ibn Ezra’s philosophy as a whole. Following a brief review of Ibn Ezra’s Jewish philosophical predecessors, Greive surveys previous scholarly work on Ibn Ezra, finding confusion and misinterpretation of particular theories and a tendency to relate Ibn Ezra to Ibn Gabirol while ignoring Islamic influences. Greive then proceeds to his corrective treatment of aspects of Ibn Ezra’s thought, but not before surveying Ibn Ezra’s life, works and posthumous influence, noting that an account of Ibn Ezra’s philosophical thought must draw from all his literary production, as he did not compose a strictly philosophical work. There is one possible exception, Ibn Ezra’s prose poem Haj ben Meqis, which Greive presents in the latter part of his book in German translation with introduction and notes, and which, for Greive, can serve to demonstrate Ibn Ezra’s dependence vis-à-vis Avicenna. The book ends with a translation of a short poem, the Arugat ha-hokmah, and a very useful bibliography and indices.