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The Medieval Church · c. 920–930
The Tafsir
Saadia Gaon · 882 – 942
What it is
The Torah and much of the rest of the Hebrew Bible translated into Arabic, deliberately smoothing anthropomorphism — where the Hebrew has God's hand, the Arabic has his power — and adding a running commentary against Karaite and Muslim readings.
Why it lasted
The first Jewish Bible translation into a language Jews actually spoke since the Targums, and still the Torah read by Yemenite Jews. It is also a theological programme: every rendering is an argument.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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