Joseph ibn Shem-Tov

Joseph ben Shem-Tov ibn Shem-Tov (died 1480) was a prolific Judæo-Spanish writer born in Castile. He lived in various cities of Spain: Medina del Campo de Leon (1441); Alcalá de Henares (1451); and Segovia (1454).

Though it is not known precisely what office he held at court, he occupied a position which brought him in contact with distinguished Christian scholars. According to the custom of the time, he held public disputations with them in the presence of the court; this probably led him to study the polemical literature of the Jews. In the preface to his commentary on Profiat Duran's Al-Tehi ka-Aboteka, he recounts a disputation with a Christian scholar concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. He seems to have elaborated this disputation and to have used it later in various anti-Christian writings. In 1452 he was sent by the Prince of Asturia, Don Enrique, to Segovia to prevent an outbreak of popular rage at Easter against the Jews. He speaks occasionally in his writings of great sufferings which drove him from place to place, and of passing through a severe illness. Graetz (Gesch. viii. 422) has discovered, from a quotation in Joseph Jaabez's Or ha-Ḥayyim, that Ibn Shem-Ṭob died a martyr. The year of his passing was 1480.

Ibn Shem-Ṭob's numerous writings, a list of which was compiled by Munk and supplemented by Beer and Steinschneider, are divisible into (a) independent works and (b) commentaries.

The Kebod Elohim is Joseph's chief work. His leading ideas and principles, scattered throughout his other writings, are here brought together. In it he compares the ethical opinions of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle, with those of Judaism, a thing which had not before been earnestly or thoroughly done. For this purpose he gives many extracts ("peraḳim") from the Ethics of Aristotle, and translates chapters ix. and x., though from a Latin version. In answer to the question as to man's summum bonum he concludes it to be the Torah, which teaches and promises immortality, whereas the Greeks only speculate as to man's final goal. That the Torah and the philosophy of the Greeks have one and the same end, as some maintain, he denies, declaring the claim to be incompatible with the essence of positive religion; the Torah ordains the fulfilment of the 613 commandments, not the ethical teachings of Aristotle. Speculation within the bounds of the Torah is permitted, even commanded; and its province should be "the secret meanings of the Torah and of its rules, and the teachings of the Prophets." By this he probably indicates kabalistic dogmas. The divine commands are reasonable, although explanations based on reason, without the help of tradition often fail to explain the foundations of the commands.

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