Aspectos del Sefer ha-galuy de Yosef Qimḥi

Abstract

The Sefer ha-galuy, written by Yosef Qimḥi about 1165, is in a sense the continuation of the philological polemics started in Cordova in the 10th century, and a sample of the strong echo that those polemics had in the 12th century Europe. The name of the book alludes to the author's intention to "discover or unveil" where the truth is in the questions debated by Dunaš ben Labrat and Měnaḥem ben Saruq and, in bis case, by Rabbenu Tam. In this article, the only extant manuscript of this work is analysed; it is also pointed aut Yosef Quimḥi's way of facing the classical dispute and his critical attitude towards the Maḥbereṯ of Měnaḥem ben Saruq. In connection with the purest Sephardic tradition, he offers a very positive contribution to the philological debate, on the basis of a rigorous linguistic analysis and the knowledge of the results attained to by Andalusian philologists in the 11th century.