פירוש רס"ג לי"ג מידות שהתורה נדרשת בהן על פי המקור הערבי: פרשנות, מגמות ומקורות עלומים

SaꜤadia Gaon (d. 942 AD) wrote a commentary on the thirteen hermeneutical principlesattributed to R. Yishmael at the beginning of the Sifra. His commentary contains someunknown Midrashic material and presents original interpretive approaches along with hintsof polemical activity. The original Judaeo-Arabc text of this commentary was, until recently,unknown, and all scholarly work on it was based on a medieval Hebrew translation preservedin a single manuscript. The Hebrew translation raised several unanswered questions. Thecommentary does not appear in any of the lists found in the Cairo Geniza of Saadia’s works,not even in the list prepared by his two sons. The time and place of the translator are unclear.Above all, in the absence of the original Judaeo-Arabic text, there was no way to evaluatethe faithfulness of the translation.This article deals with these issues and presents the Arabic original, which survivedalmost entirely, along with a new Hebrew translation. We find that the previous translationis part translation, part reworking of the text – a standard practice in translations from thatperiod. This reworking omitted close to half of the original material. The article answers theopen question of the time and place of the translation, identifies the source of the Midrashicmaterial, and presents parallel passages from other works by SaꜤadia to demonstrate hisoriginality. Finally, for the first time, the article raises the possibility that another ancientcommentary was available to Saadia.