Talk:Abraham ibn Daud

Is this the same "ibn Daud" known as "John Hispanus"?

In working on the article for Solomon Ibn Gabirol, I see that the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia entry refers to one "John Hispanus" a.k.a. "Ibn Daud" as taking part in the translation of Ibn Gabirol's Arabic-language philosophy text into Latin ("Fons Vitae"). The dates of birth/death correspond; however, the Jewish Encyclopedia article describes John Hispanus as a physician who converted to Christianity, while this Wikipedia entry describes "Abraham ibn Daud" not as a physician, and dying a martyr. —Boruch Baum (talk) 22:26, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Given that one is known as "John" and the other as "Abraham", and given that any man might have a son named "Daud", I'd say that they were not the same person, but very easy to confuse, and that the dates of the one man got attached by historians to the name of the other man. Just my speculation, based on the evidence.--Quisqualis (talk) 06:02, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Mar 2019: The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1901

It appears that parts of this article were lifted from the above text, which is out of copyright. What is the WP policy on plagiarism of older works?--Quisqualis (talk) 06:05, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

He is sometimes known by the abbreviation Rabad I or Ravad I

Wrong. For one, even though Ibn Daud's given name was Abraham, he was not a rabbi. For two. It was R Abraham b David (1125-1198), a near contemporary, who is known as RABad, for Rabbeinu Abraham ben David. Check the Wikipedia article on him. The initial R in Jewish acronyms for names always stands for Rabbi or Rabbeinu as in Rambam - Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, Rashi - Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki. G D Cohen's book Sefer HaQabbalah (1967) has 50 pages of introduction. At the beginning of his discussion of the life and works of Ibn Daud, he says: "Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo revealed only one fact about his personal life, and that was his pride in having acquired his higher education under the tutorship of his maternal uncle, R Baruk b Isaac ibn Albalia." The only other certain fact about Ibn Daud is that he wrote Sefer HaQaballah in 4921 WE (1160/61 ce, 5.10). Thus there is no evidence that he ever held the title of Rabbi. It is true that the title page of the Hebrew text cincluded in the same volume has: ספר הקבלה לר' אברהם אבן דאוד הלוי and that in footnote 80 to Part II of the Introduction there is mention of a book published in Amsterdam in 1711 that has in its long title the attribution of 'Sefer ha-Qabbalah le-ha-Rabad. But these titles are no evidence that he was ever known as a rabbi, either in his lifetime or in the period thereafter. Chronologer-01