Henry Bate’s Translation of Ibn Ezra’s treatise The Book of the World. A Critical Edition

Abstract

Critical Edition of Henricus Bate’s translation of Ibn Ezra’s Book of the World (Sefer ha-‘Olam), which deals with the astrological prediction and interpretation of political events and with weather forecasting. Bate’s preface to his translation in which he defends Albumasar against Ibn Ezra’s criticism and advocates an approximating method of calculation of astronomical data is a remarkable document in the medieval history of science. The introduction gives a survey of the manuscript tradition of this translation which was quite successful.