 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
   |
Commentary on the MishnahMaimonides’ comprehensive Commentary on the Mishnah was written in Judeo-Arabic under the title Kitab al-Siraj (the Book of Light). In the Cairo Geniza fragments were found of drafts, written in his own hand. The composition of this work began in 1161, while he resided in North Africa and was completed in Egypt in 1168 when he was thirty years old. It is clear that Maimonides himself produced the final version of the Commentary considerably later, for five of the Sedarim (orders) in his own hand have survived. Three of them, Zera’im, Nezikin and Kodashim are preserved in the Hebrew manuscripts collection at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Huntington 117, Pocock 295), while the Jewish National and University Library owns two orders, Mo’ed (from the middle of Tractate Eruvin onwards) and Nashim, Heb. 4° 5703 (formerly part of the Sassoon Collection, 72-73). For several generations, the manuscript was in the possession of the author’s descendants in Egypt . There is evidence that this manuscript was kept in Aleppo from the 15 th century, and placed in libraries in Europe during the 17 th century. Geniza fragments (not only autograph fragments) of the tractate Shabbat were assembled in the critical edition of S. Hopkins, Jerusalem, 2001 and fragments from the introduction to Seder Toharot were published by J. Blau and A. Scheiber, Jerusalem, 1981. In addition, a facsimile edition of this manuscript was published by R. Edelman in 3 volumes, Copenhagen , 1956-1967. There is no single medieval Hebrew translation of the entire commentary. Partial translations are:
|
|
