[Avodah] Teyqu - Peirush or Hevel?

[Danny Schoemann]

After R' Simon Montagu's response, I did some more research on this -
and the findings are distressing.

The title page in Latin actually says it all. Here's Google's
translation (after lifting the text with Google Lens:

A WORK OF THE BOOK OF HEBREW BY THE LEARNERS A GRAMMAR
Elaborated by the Hebrew Elias Levites, entitled Tishbi, in which are
712 words, which are partly Hebrew, Chaldean, Arabic, Greek, and
Latin, which are not easily found in the Rabbinical Dictionaries: and
yet Hebrew, in the writings of the Rabbis, is used in a very learned
manner: the origin, etymon, and true usage are often taught and
explained by Paul Fagius, who was born without Latin.

(I suspect the headline is wrong since I didn't replace all V's with
U's and the last few words were mangled since there are hyphens in the
original.)

The introduction written by  Elias Levites goes to ridiculous lengths
to praise this Paul Fagius - quoting the famous "from Moshe (Rabbeinu)
to Moshe (Maimonides),Lo kom k'Moshe" and the paraphrasing it as Mi
Paulus ad Paulus... as you can see at
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=42662&st=&pgnum=8

The endnote, as I already stated, has an explicit reference to Yoshke.
In the original.

My Lowenbraun son-in-law has a new version of the Metargem - also from
Elias Levites - Eliyahu Bochur - and they have a long intro about him
- dancing around his strange affiliations, but buried in a footnote
you will discover that the Tishbi has an entry on YShU - and it's a
long entry. (For some reason digitale-sammlungen.de seems dead this
moring. But it was at
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/view/bsb10988900?page=237 and conmtnues to
https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/view/bsb10988900?page=235
The missing page being the Latin one.)

This entry missing along with the dating at the end are absent from
subsequent printings (on HebrewBooks).

So, the original Tishbi was written in Hebrew and (edited and)
translated by Paul Fagius - and therefore, I dare say, one cannot
trust anything in it.

Since the Tishbi seems to be the source for the classic Teyqu acronym
being  called "Hu Peirush Shel Hevel", and considering the Christian
meddling in the book, I think it's safe to say that he's (at most) a
Da'as Yochid.

I have lost all interest in anything this Bochur wrote.

- Danny, waiting longingly for the great Teyqu era.


On Sun, Feb 16, 2025, 22:40 Simon Montagu <simon.montagu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 16, 2025 at 10:08 PM Danny Schoemann <doniels at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> 2. I never claimed he converted. I wrote that his Wikipedia biography was full of references to X-tians.
>
>
> You strongly implied it by attributing Fagius's reference to "Meshihenu vego'alenu" to him, and suggesting this is why he characterized the Teku notarikon as Hevel
>
>>
>>
>> Didn't come across any Pauls in my research, nor any Latin.
>
>
> Did you look at the title page of the book you linked to yourself?
> https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb10988900?page=412
>