How Many Refutations Did Saadya Gaon Write against Ibn Sāqawayh?

Dr Nida Vidro's contribution to the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

How Many Refutations Did Saadya Gaon Write against Ibn Sāqawayh?

In: From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

Author

Nadia Vidro

Abstract

The bibliography of Saadya Gaon’s works is yet to be fully established. This is especially true in the field of polemics, where many questions remain unresolved. One bibliographical conundrum involves two treatises ascribed to Saadya: The Refutation of Ibn Sāqawayh (Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā Ibn Sāqawayh) and The Refutation of the Unfair Attacker on the Mishnah and the Talmud (Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā al-Mutaḥāmil ʿalā al-Mishnah wa-l-Talmud), neither of which have hitherto been reconstructed. It is often assumed that both these works were written against the same Qaraite scholar Ibn Sāqawayh, but the relationship between them remains unclear. This article attempts to provide a solution to this question and argues that they must be regarded as one and the same polemical treatise.

Citation

Vidro, Nadia. "Chapter 13 How Many Refutations Did Saadya Gaon Write against Ibn Sāqawayh?". In From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2024) doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004712331_014

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