Samuel ben Hofni (; died 1034;
abbreviation
An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...
: "The Rashbaḥ") was the
gaon of
Sura Academy in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
("Babylonia") from 998 to 1012.
Biography
His father was a Talmudic scholar and
Av Beit Din or chief jurist, probably of
Fez), one of whose responsa are extant, and on whose death Samuel wrote an elegy. Samuel was the father-in-law of
Hai ben Sherira, who is authority for the statement that Samuel, like many of his contemporaries, zealously pursued the study of non-Jewish literature. Beyond these few data, nothing is known of the events of Samuel's life. He served as the Gaon of Sura from 998 to 1012, he was later succeeded by
Dosa ben Saadia. His son
Israel ben Samuel Ha-Kohen was the last Sura Gaon.
His ''responsa''
Although, as a rule, geonic literature consists mainly of
responsa, Samuel ben Ḥofni composed but few of these. This was because
Sura Academy had for a century occupied a less prominent position than that of
Pumbedita, and that, especially in the time of Hai ben Sherira, information was preferably sought at the latter institution.
A
Cairo Genizah fragment of the Taylor-Schechter collection, containing a letter to
Shemariah ben Elhanan written, according to Schechter's opinion, by Samuel ben Ḥofni, and another letter of Samuel's to
Kairouan, show the great efforts which at this time the last representative of the Babylonian schools had to make to maintain the ancient seats of learning in Mesopotamia. Samuel's responsa, written in
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
,
Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
, and
Judeo-Arabic (those written in Arabic were translated into Hebrew) discuss
tefillin,
tzitzit,
Shabbat
Shabbat (, , or ; , , ) or the Sabbath (), also called Shabbos (, ) by Ashkenazi Hebrew, Ashkenazim, is Judaism's day of rest on the seventh day of the seven-day week, week—i.e., Friday prayer, Friday–Saturday. On this day, religious Jews ...
and holidays, forbidden and permitted food (
kashrut
(also or , ) is a set of Food and drink prohibitions, dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to halakha, Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed ko ...
),
women
A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl.
Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...
,
priests, servants, property rights, and other questions of civil law. They consist chiefly of explanations of the
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
and include some very short halakhic decisions, from which fact it is surmised that they are taken from his Talmud treatise ''Sha'arei Berakhot''. With the intellectual independence peculiar to him, he occasionally declares a Talmudic law to be without
Biblical
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...
foundation, and when an explanation in the Talmud seems inadequate, he adds one of his own which is satisfactory.
Samuel wrote the ''Introduction to the
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
'' (), which is known only through citations from it made by
Jonah ibn Janah,
Joseph ben Judah ibn Aknin, and
Abraham Zacuto
Abraham Zacuto (, ; 12 August 1452 – ) was a Sephardic Jewish astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, rabbi and historian. Born in Castile, he served as Royal Astronomer to King John II of Portugal before fleeing to Tunis.
His astrolabe of cop ...
. His treatise concerning the hermeneutic rules in the Talmud is known only by name. Some of Samuel ben Ḥofni's teachings, not found in any other sources, have been conveyed in
Nathan ben Abraham I's Judeo-Arabic
Mishnah
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...
commentary, supplemented by an anonymous copyist in the 12th-century. The entire work has been translated into Hebrew by
Yosef Qafih.
Treatises
Samuel's systematic treatises on many portions of the Talmudic law surpassed in number those of his predecessors. They were composed in Arabic, although some bore corresponding familiar Hebrew titles. They are:
* ''Aḥkām Shar‘ al-Ẓiẓit,'' ten chapters, on rules concerning
tzitzit
* ''Lawāzim al-Aḥkām,'' known from a citation, from the catalogue of a book-dealer of the twelfth century (this catalogue was found among the
genizah fragments of
Fostat, and was published by E. N. Adler and I. Broydé, and from fragments recently (1906) discovered and published by Schechter
* ''Al-Bulūgh wa'l-Idrāk,'' in six chapters, on the attainment of one's majority (
bar mitzvah)
* ''Fī al-Ṭalāq'' (appears in the above-mentioned catalogue under the title ''Kitāb al-Ṭalāq''), on divorce
* ''Naskh al-Shar‘ wa-Uṣūl al-Dīn wa-Furū‘ihā'' (i.e., "Abrogation of the Law and the Foundations of Religion and Its Branches"), cited by
Judah ibn Balaam and
Moses ibn Ezra
* ''Fī al-Nafaqāt,'' concerning taxes
* ''Al-Shuf‘a,'' twenty chapters, concerning boundary disputes
* ''al-Risālah al-Shakīrīyah'' (= Hebrew, , mentioned by
Moses ibn Ezra), probably concerning the hiring of persons
* ''Al-Sharā’i‘,'' concerning commandments; divided into "gates" or chapters ("she‘arim") with separate titles, e.g., ''Sha‘arei Sheḥiṭut''; ''Sha‘ar shel Bediḳut haBasar min ha-Ḥelev''; ''Sha‘arei Berakhot.'' The last-mentioned part has been edited in Hebrew by I. H. Weiss, and partially translated into
German.
* ''Shurūṭ,'' concerning contracts
* ''Ha-Mattanah,'' concerning gifts
* ''Ha-Shuttafut,'' concerning partnership
The above-mentioned catalogue contains in addition the following titles of works by Samuel on the same subjects of Talmudic law:
* ''Kitāb Aḥkām al-Piqqadon,'' concerning deposits
* ''Kitāb al-Mujāwara,'' concerning neighborhood
* ''Kitāb al-Bay‘,'' concerning sales
The catalogue ascribes to Samuel ben Ḥofni likewise a commentary on the tractate
Yebamot. Moreover, Schechter's genizah fragments contain the beginning of an Arabic commentary by Samuel on a Hebrew "reshut" of
Saadia's.
As Bible exegete
The most important work of Samuel, however, was in
Bible exegesis. As early a writer as
Jonah ibn Janah called him a leading advocate of simple, temperate explanation ("
peshaṭ"), and
Abraham ibn Ezra, although finding fault with his verbosity, placed him in the front rank of Bible commentators of the
geonic period. In modern times his significance as a Bible exegete has been given proper appreciation through Harkavy's studies of the manuscripts in the
St. Petersburg Library. Fragments of Samuel's commentary on the Pentateuch were preserved only in the Leningrad Ms. (St. Petersburg Ms.) and in Mss. from the
Cairo Geniza, and which were collected, rendered into a Hebrew translation and published in 1979 by Aaron Greenbaum.
Translations of the Bible
Samuel ben Ḥofni wrote, besides, an Arabic translation of the
Pentateuch with a commentary, a commentary on some of the
Prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...
s, and perhaps a commentary on
Ecclesiastes
Ecclesiastes ( ) is one of the Ketuvim ('Writings') of the Hebrew Bible and part of the Wisdom literature of the Christian Old Testament. The title commonly used in English is a Latin transliteration of the Greek translation of the Hebrew word ...
. M. I. Israelsohn has published a portion of Samuel's Pentateuch translation (Gen. xli.-l.) with commentary. The deficiencies in these edited fragments might be supplied by the citations in
Abraham Maimonides' commentary on
Genesis and
Exodus. The German translation of a specimen of these fragments is given in Winter and Wünsche.
The fragments show that Samuel's translation of the Pentateuch was dependent upon, though it was more literal than, that of
Saadia, which had been written almost one hundred years earlier. In contrast to Saadia, Samuel gives Hebrew proper names in their original form. Grammatical notes occupy a remarkably small space in his verbose commentary, and his grammatical point of view was that taken by scholars before the time of
Ḥayyuj. On the other hand, he gives careful consideration to the chronology of Bible accounts, and in explaining a word he gives all its various meanings besides references to its occurrence elsewhere. His source is the
midrashic and
Talmudic literature, though he specifically mentions only
Seder Olam Rabbah and
Targum Onkelos.
Polemical writings
Samuel ben Ḥofni is mentioned in connection with
Saadia and
Muḳammaṣ as a polemical writer. An anti-
Karaite work entitled ''Arayot,'' on the degrees of relationship, is ascribed to him, but whether correctly or incorrectly is not certain.
Kabalists have assigned to him a ''Sefer ha-Yashar'', and a request directed to Saadia for his decision on oaths.
Theological views
Samuel ben Ḥofni is justly called a rationalist. In religious matters he considered reason higher than tradition. Holding to a belief in the creation of the world out of nothing, he rejected
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
and everything that reason denies. He deliberately placed himself in opposition to Saadia, who had held fast to the belief that the
witch of En-dor had brought
Samuel
Samuel is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the biblical judges to the United Kingdom of Israel under Saul, and again in the monarchy's transition from Saul to David. He is venera ...
to life again, that the serpent had spoken to
Eve
Eve is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and there ...
, and the ass to
Balaam, even though he felt himself compelled to explain the wonders by supplying the intermediary agency of
angels. Samuel denied these and similar miracles, and, with an irony reminiscent of
Ḥiwi al-Balkhi, he put the question, "Why, if they were able to do so at one time, do serpents not speak at present?"
According to his conception, God changes the natural order of things only when He wishes to verify before all people the words of a prophet. This view was opposed by his son-in-law
Hai Gaon. That in later times he was not termed a heretic, although disparaging criticism was not lacking, was due to his position as
gaon.
[see Weiss, l.c. iv. 198; Menachem Meiri, ''Bet ha-Beḥirah,'' in Adolf Neubauer, ''M. J. C.'' ii. 225]
Notes
External links
*
*In addition to the references given above see
**
Zunz, Ritus, p. 191;
**G. Margoliouth, in J. Q. R. xiv. 311.
Rav Shmuel ben Hofni HaKohen Gaon at kehuna.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuel Ben Hofni
1034 deaths
Kohanim writers of Rabbinic literature
Geonim
11th-century Abbasid rabbis
Rabbis of Academy of Sura
Year of birth unknown