biography
| name: |
Ezra, Abraham ben Meir ben
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1092–1167)
|
| biography:
| Spanish-Hebrew poet, grammarian, and biblical commentator, born in Tudela, N Spain. Forced to leave Spain in 1140, he is recorded as having taught in Jewish communities in Rome, Salerno, Lucca, Pisa, Mantua, Verona, Béziers, Narbonne, Bordeaux, Angers, and Rouen, usually suffering poverty with fortitude. In Dreux he wrote Fundamenta tabularum astronomicarum (1154) and in London a treatise on the astrolabe (1160), though his astronomical knowledge is vitiated (inevitably at that time) by an obsession with astrology. His knowledge of mathematics and astronomy was exceptional, exemplifying the authority enjoyed by Spanish Jews in contemporary scholarship. He wrote chiefly in Hebrew for the benefit of other Jews and while his prose is uneven in quality, his biblical commentaries were widely used and respected. |
|
|
