Greco-Latin gynaecology in Jewish robes: The Hebrew translation of Muscio’s Gynaecia

Abstract

This contribution intends to help broaden our current understanding of the early stages of the formation of the Hebrew corpus of gynecology by contributing new insights derived from the study of one of the first treatises that composed it. To that end, it begins by contextualizing what is considered to be the first systematic translation of gynecological texts into Hebrew from Latin carried out in Provence during the closing years of the twelfth century. Thereafter, it focuses on the analysis of the major gynecological treatise of the translator’s program, Sēfer hatôledet (The Book of Generation), rendered from Muscio’s late antique Latin adaptation of Soranus of Ephesus’s Gynecology.