DIE PSALMEN
Berlin: Bey Friedrich Maurer, 1783. Item #42900
1st edition. Period boards, 12mo, xii, 354 pages; 18 cm. In German. Title translates as, “The Psalms.” With title- and colophon-illustrations by Johann Wilhelm Meil.
Goed. IV 1, 490, 14; Slg Borst 463; Dorn, Meil 405-406;
First edition of Mendelssohns translation, “with the most gracious liberties,” of the Psalms into German, which was received with great enthusiasm in many circle but which was banned by the Orthodox Rabbinate. Mendelssohn had worked on the translation for ten years, publishing first his translation of the Pentaeuchc, then the Psalms in 1783; his translation of the Song of Songs was published after his death.
Moses Mendelssohn (Moses of Dessau; 1729–1786) was a philosopher of the German Enlightenment in the pre-Kantian period, early Maskil, and a renowned Jewish figure in the 18th century. Mendelssohn was fluent in German and Hebrew and learned Latin, Greek, English, French, and Italian. His early teachers were young, broadly educated Jews, and he met the writer and dramatist G.E. Lessing (1754) and a deep and lifelong friendship developed between them. Throughout his life he worked as a merchant, while carrying out his literary activities and widespread correspondence in his free time. In 1754 Mendelssohn began to publish – at first with the assistance of Lessing – philosophical writings and later also literary reviews.
He also started a few literary projects (for example, the short-lived periodical Kohelet Musar) in order to enrich and change Jewish culture and took part in the early Haskalah. In 1763, he was awarded the first prize of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences for his work Abhandlung über die Evidenz in metaphysischen Wissenschaften ("Treatise on Evidence in Metaphysical Knowledge"). However, when the academy elected him as a member in 1771, King Frederick II refused to ratify its decision.
In 1769, he became embroiled in a dispute on the Jewish religion, and from then on, he confined most of his literary activity to the sphere of Judaism. His most notable and enduring works in this area included the translation into German and commentary on the Pentateuch, Sefer Netivot ha-Shalom ("Book of the Paths of Peace," 1780–83) and his Jerusalem: oder, Ueber religiöse Macht und Judenthum ("Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism," 1783, this work), the first polemical defense of Judaism in the German language and one of the pioneering works of modern Jewish philosophy.
An active intermediary on behalf of his own people in difficult times and a participant in their struggle for equal rights, he was at the same time a forceful defender of the Enlightenment against the opposition to it which gained strength toward the end of his life. In the midst of a literary battle against one of the leading figures of the counter-Enlightenment, he died in 1786 (EJ).
SUBJECT(S): Early printed books Bible. Psalms. German -- Versions. OCLC: 7395724
Wear to boards, heavy at spine, but solid inside with clean bright paper and print. Good Condition. (KH-10-26-GGR-’cclex).
Price: $450.00