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Saadya Gaon鈥檚 Works on the Jewish Calendar: Near Eastern Sources and Transmission to the West听(2021鈥�2023) is听headed by听Prof. Sacha Stern听补苍诲听(LMU Munich), with听Dr. Nadia Vidro听as a Senior Research Fellow and is funded by the听.
In the first half of the 10th century, the Jewish calendar had become a major issue for Near Eastern Jewish communities. Calendar controversies broke out among Rabbanites and between Rabbanites, Qaraites and other Jewish movements. The intensity of 10th-century calendar debates was an outcome of the major changes that had occurred through the 9th century, with the institution of a new calendar based on calculation which was widely followed by the Rabbanites by the beginning of the 10th century. These debates were not just about the technical question of how to set the months and years but were fights for legitimacy, authority, and legal independence. It is therefore hardly surprising that the calendar was of great interest to Saadya Gaon, a preeminent scholar and communal leader of rabbinic Babylonian Jewry in the first half of the 10th century.
Saadya b. Joseph al-Fayyumi, better known as Saadya Gaon (882鈥�942 CE), was the most important and influential scholar of Judaeo-Arabic culture in the 10th century. The head of the rabbinic academy of Sura, a polemicist and a polymath, Saadya produced a vast body of writings that had a lasting impact on Jewish literature and culture. His works cover philosophy, liturgy, grammar, Bible translation and exegesis, religious law, and other areas of intellectual activity. Saadya composed at least four works on the calendar and the calendar polemics, and possibly some others that are attributed to him in 10th-century Jewish and Muslim sources but appear lost. Yet Saadya鈥檚 works on the calendar and his role in the development of the Jewish calendar literature have not received much scholarly attention.
This project investigates Saadya Gaon鈥檚 literary production on the calendar by reconstructing and editing the full corpus of Saadyanic calendar writings, and analysing this corpus against the background of earlier calendar literature and the diffusion of the Rabbanite calendar in later medieval Europe. We will produce critical text editions of Saadya鈥檚 works with English translations. Based on these editions, we will study Saadya鈥檚 contribution to the development of calendar theory, and the role of his works in fomenting or resolving Near Eastern communal conflicts over the calendar and in the diffusion of the calculated Jewish calendar to the West. We will also reflect on the role and impact of the sciences (astronomy) and of biblical and Talmudic exegesis on Saadya鈥檚 calendar theory.
Image: Cambridge University Library, ,听T-S 10K2, folio 1r.
Associated Publications
Nadia Vidro (2023) , Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, Fragment of the Month, August 2023
- A short piece on an elusive calendar treatise by Saadya Gaon, known in research literature as听Iq膩ma al-士Ibbur.
Nadia Vidro (2023) , Genizah Fragments: Blog of the Genizah Research Unit (13 July 2023)
- A short piece on working together with the Cambridge University Library Conservation Department to improve the legibility of a crucial but very poorly preserved fragment of Saadya Gaon's polemical treatise听Refutation of Ibn S膩qawayh
Nadia Vidro (2022), ,听Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, Fragment of the Month,听May 2022.听
- A short piece arguing that manuscripts previously identified as a work by Saadya Gaon are, in fact, fragments of a Qaraite legal code.
- A Q&A about the project on the blog of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit
Workshops and Conference Panels
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Saadya Gaon in the Qaraite literature of the 10th鈥�11th centuries
November 2023, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Saadya Gaon鈥檚 anti-Qaraite polemic was fundamental for the development of Qaraite literature. In their turn, Qaraites quoted Saadya and discussed his views so much that their treatises can now be used to reconstruct Saadya鈥檚 lost works. This workshop explored anew the inextricable connection between Saadya and the Qaraites by looking at a wide range of previously little studied Qaraite sources from the 10th-11th centuries.听The workshop was organised by Ronny Vollandt (LMU), Nadia Vidro (UCL) and Sacha Stern (UCL) and attracted an audience of about 20 participants.
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Saadya Gaon between Science and Tradition: Texts, Sources and Impact
December 2022, 54th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Boston
This panel explored Saadya Gaon鈥檚 writings on the interrelated subjects of the Oral Torah, the anti-Qaraite polemic and calendar. Papers in the session asked questions such as: How does Saadya鈥檚 take on science vs. tradition fit into the context of earlier and contemporary Near Eastern literature? How deep was Saadya鈥檚 knowledge of the Rabbanite calendar calculation? What was the nature of Saadya鈥檚 calendar writings 鈥� were they scientific, polemical or halakhic works? What impact did Saadya鈥檚 views have on his immediate successors in the mid- to late-tenth century?
Presenters:
- Marc Herman (York University), 鈥淭he earliest reception of Saadia Gaon鈥檚 approach to the Oral Torah鈥�
- Sacha Stern (UCL), 鈥淧olemics, halakhah, and science: Saadya Gaon鈥檚 understanding of the science of calendar computation鈥澨�
- Nadia Vidro (UCL), 鈥淎nti-Qaraite works of Saadya Gaon: a re-evaluation鈥�
- Respondent: Eve Krakowski (Princeton)
Associated Videos
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Nadia Vidro, Saadya Gaon's works on the Jewish calendar.听
A presentation of the project, delivered as part of the Autumn 2021 Lecture Series (9 December 2021)
