Isaac Albalag

Isaac Albalag was a Jewish philosopher and translator of the second half of the 13th century.

Biography According to Moritz Steinschneider (Hebräische Uebersetzungen. pp. 299–306), Albalag probably lived in northern Spain or southern France. Heinrich Graetz makes him a native of southern Spain. His liberal views, especially his interpretations of the Biblical account of the Creation in accordance with the Aristotelian theory of the eternity of the world, stamped him in the eyes of many as a heretic. Albalag remarked that Al-Ghazali did not refute the philosophers but rather his errors, into which he had fallen by obtaining information not from Aristotle himself, but from his commentators, such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and others. According to Albalag, this charge also applies to Maimonides when attempting to refute Aristotle, as, for instance, on the eternity of the world.