With Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra's Commentary on the Creation, the insights and wisdom of one of Judaism's great thinkers can be studies with deeper understanding and a greater appreciation of their importance than was possible in centuries past. Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra was one of the outstanding scholars of the Middle Ages. Although he was a distinguished expert in almost every field of learning of his time, his fame rests almost entirely on his Bible commentary. As he expected readers to be familiar with the major literary and scientific works of the period. Ibn Ezra's writings are extremely terse. Unfortunately, over the course of hundreds of years, the bulk of early medieval literature, which had been readily accessible to Ibn Ezra and his students, fell into oblivion. As a result, much of Ibn Ezra's commentary became even more cryptic and at times barely comprehensible. During this past century, the discovery of an enormous body of books and manuscripts from the Middle Ages, including a number of Ibn Ezra's own works, has shed new light on Ibn Ezra's commentary. Drawing on this recently-surfaced material, including compositions by renowned scholars such as Rabbi Saadiah Gaon, grammarians such as Ibn Hayyuj, and philosophers such a Ibn Gabirol, from all of which Ibn Ezra drew extensively, this translation of Ibn Ezra's commentary of chapters 1 through 6 of The Book of Genesis elucidates more clearly than ever before the great scholar's insights on the story of Creation. Although Ibn Ezra's commentary has been studied for centuries and is printed in nearly every edition of the Torah published, much of his brilliance has been lost to contemporary students. With this volume, readers of the English have a key to unlock a vast treasury of knowledge previously closed to them.
by Michael Linetsky