Retracing the Reception of Greek Ideas on the Rainbow: Transformations in Pre-Modern Hebrew and Arabic Sources

Bernheimer, Teresa (2025): Retracing the Reception of Greek Ideas on the Rainbow: Transformations in Pre-Modern Hebrew and Arabic Sources. In: Jewish Culture and History, Vol. 26, No. 4: pp. 476-487

Abstract

What colours do we see in the rainbow? Pre-modern discussions are often based on translations and commentaries of ancient Greek texts, in particular Aristotle’s Meteorology. This study traces how Aristotle’s colour terminology was received and reinterpreted in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic, and Hebrew texts from the ninth to thirteenth centuries, focusing particularly on Ibn Biṭrīq, Ibn Rushd, and Samuel Ibn Tibbon. It explores how translators and commentators negotiated between semantic equivalence and linguistic distinctiveness and argues that inherited Greek colour terminologies reflects both shared cultural environments and different processes of translation, interpretation, and adaptation.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies; Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies > Jewish studies > Munich Research Centre for Jewish-Arabic Cultures Blog; Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies > Jewish studies
• Subjects: 900 History and geography > 900 Geschichte
• ISSN: 1462-169X
• Place of Publication: online
• Language: English