Ibn Al-Tayyib’s Commentary on Genesis

The first English-language translation of a major biblical commentary written in Arabic by a seminal figure in the history of Christianity in the Middle East.

Abū-l-Faraj ibn al-Ṭayyib (d. 1043) spent his adult life in Baghdad, where he served as a priest in the Church of the East around the turn of the first millenium. He was a polymath – a physician, philosopher, and theologian – and part of an illustrious line of teachers dedicated to the transmission of scientific knowledge from Greek into Syriac and then later into Arabic. He authored commentaries on Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates, as well as original treatises on the Trinity, science and miracles, Christian law, and the resurrection. His major works of biblical interpretation included a complete commentary on the Bible, entitled The Paradise of Christianity. The first part of it, his Commentary on Genesis, is translated here into English for the first time and accompanied by a critical introduction to Ibn al-Ṭayyib’s life and writings; the form, method, and content of his biblical interpretation; and his theology of creation and the divine Word.