Ibn Shaprut

Ibn Shaprut
Born	14th century  Translator

Shem-Tob ben Isaac Shaprut of Tudela (

While still a young man he was compelled to debate in public, on original sin and redemption, with Cardinal Pedro de Luna, afterward Antipope Benedict XIII. This disputation took place in Pamplona, December 26, 1375, in the presence of bishops and learned theologians (see his "Eben Boḥan"; an extract, entitled "Wikkuaḥ" in manuscript, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, No. 831).

A devastating war which raged in Navarre between the Castilians and the English obliged Ibn Shaprut, with many others, to leave the country. He settled at Tarazona, in Aragon, where he practised his profession of physician among both Jews and Christians. As a Talmudic scholar he carried on a correspondence with Sheshet.

Works and editions

The Touchstone

At

As part of The Touchstone in order to assist the Jews in defense against conversion and polemical writings, Ibn Shaprut edited or translated portions of the Four Gospels into Hebrew, accompanying them with pointed observations; answers to the latter, written by a neophyte named Jona, also exist in manuscript.

En Kol

Ibn Shaprut wrote a commentary to the first book of

The Exposer of Mysteries

He also wrote a super commentary, entitled "Ẓafnat Pa'aneaḥ," to

The Orchard of Pomegranates

One work of Ibn Shaprut has been printed: "Pardes Rimmonim," ( פרדס רימונים ) The Orchard of Pomegranates explanations of difficult Talmudic

"Shem Tob's Hebrew Gospel of Matthew"

Shem-Tob's

In 1879 the German orientalist Adolf Herbst published two other Jewish Hebrew translations of Matthew, also used by Italian and Spanish Jews to combat attempts to conversion, as Des Schemtob ben Schaphrut hebraeische Übersetzung des Evangeliums Matthaei nach den Drucken des S. Münster und J. du Tillet-Mercier neu herausgegeben(Göttingen, 1879). However these two manuscripts have no direct connection to Ibn Shaprut. They are a Spanish manuscript published and heavily edited by the cartographer Sebastian Münster (and now lost) and a related (surviving) Italian Jewish manuscript purchased by Bishop Jean du Tillet and published by the Hebraist Jean Mercier (1555).

Notes