David ben Yom-Tob ibn Bilia
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David ben Yom Tov ibn Bilia was a
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
who lived in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Ibn Bilia was the author of many works, the greater part of which, no longer in existence, are known only by quotations. Among them were: ''Me'or 'Enayim'', a commentary on the
Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the sa ...
, quoted by Caspi,
Levi ben Gershon Levi ben Gershon (1288 – 20 April 1344), better known by his Graecized name as Gersonides, or by his Latinized name Magister Leo Hebraeus, or in Hebrew by the abbreviation of first letters as ''RaLBaG'', was a medieval French Jewish philosoph ...
, and chiefly by the author's countryman Samuel Zarza, who often criticized Ibn Bilia's interpretations as being too mystical; and ''Yesodot ha-Maskil'', published, with a French translation by
S. Klein S. Klein On The Square, or simply S. Klein, was a popular-priced department store chain based in New York City. The flagship stores (a main building and a women's fashion building) were located along Union Square East in Manhattan; this locati ...
, in the collection ''Dibre Ḥakamim'', Metz, 1849. In the ''Yesodot'' Ibn Bilia propounded thirteen articles of belief in addition to those of
Maimonides Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Torah ...
. These are: # The existence of incorporeal intellects; # The creation of the world; # The existence of a future life; # Emanation of the soul from God; # The soul's existence through its own substance and its self-consciousness; # Its existence independent of the body it subsequently occupies; # Retribution of the soul; # Perdition of the souls of the wicked; # Superiority of the Mosaic law over philosophy; # The presence of an esoteric as well as an exoteric meaning in Holy Scripture; # Inadmissibility of emendations of the Torah; # The reward of the fulfilment of the divine precepts implied in the precepts themselves; # The inadequacy of ceremonial laws alone for the realization of human perfection. These, together with the thirteen articles of Maimonides, make twenty-six, the numerical value of the
Tetragrammaton The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew language, Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', ''he (l ...
. Ibn Bilia also wrote ''Ẓiyyurim'', an ethical work; ''Kilale ha-Higgayon'', a work on logic, of which only a fragment has been preserved (Neubauer, "Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS." No. 2168); ''Ma'amar bi-Segullot 'Or ha-Naḥash'', a treatise on the medicinal virtues of the skin of the serpent, translated from Johannes Paulinus' Latin translation "Salus Vitæ" (Munich, No. 228). In the past some scholars, including the nineteenth century scholar
Moritz Steinschneider Moritz Steinschneider (30 March 1816, Prostějov, Moravia, Austrian Empire – 24 January 1907, Berlin) was a Moravian bibliographer and Orientalist. He received his early instruction in Hebrew from his father, Jacob Steinschneider ( 1782; ...
, have identified Ibn Bilia with the David ben Yom Tov who was the father of the Catalan astronomer Jacob ben David ben Yom Tov Poel. That David wrote works including the ''Kelal Qatan'' ("Concise Summary"), a treatise on the medical applications of astrology. However the two are now believed to have been separate individuals.


Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography

* Zunz, Additamenta zu Delitzsch's Katalog der Leipziger Bibliothek, p. 326; * Dukes, in Literaturblatt des Orients, viii. 116, 456; * idem, Naḥal Ḳedumim, p. 48; * Senior Sachs, Ha-Paliṭ, pp. 31–33; * Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 857; * Kayserling, Gesch. der Juden in Portugal, p. 68; * Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebers. pp. 499, 806. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bilia, David ben Yom Tov ibn Portuguese philosophers Jewish philosophers 14th-century philosophers 14th-century Portuguese rabbis 13th-century Portuguese Jews