Judah Halevi: The Kuzari

Wiki:

Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi יהודה בן שמואל הלוי‎; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي Yahuḏa al-Lāwī; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela,^[2] in 1075^[3] or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

From his work "In Defense of the Despised Faith", know as "The Kuzari", in the form of a dialog between a Khazar king and a rabbi, Hartwig Hirschfeld's translation from 1905:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/khz/khz01.htm

Excerpts:

44. Al Khazari: It is strange that you should possess authentic chronology of the creation of the world.

45. The Rabbi: Surely we reckon according to it, and there is no difference between the Jews of Khazar and Ethiopia in this respect.

46. Al Khazari: What date do you consider it at present?

47. The Rabbi: Four thousand and nine hundred years
.......
.......

60. Al Khazari: Does it not weaken thy belief if thou art told that the Indians have antiquities and buildings which they consider to be millions of years old?

61. The Rabbi: It would, indeed, weaken my belief had they a fixed form of religion, or a book concerning which a multitude of people held the same opinion, and in which no historical discrepancy could be found. Such a book, however, does not exist. Apart from this, they are a dissolute, unreliable people, and arouse the indignation of the followers of religions through their talk, whilst they anger them with their idols, talismans, and witchcraft. To such things they pin their faith, and deride those who boast of the possession of a divine book. Yet they only possess a few books, and these were written to mislead the weak-minded. To this class belong astrological writings, in which they speak of ten thousands of years, as the book on the Nabataean Agriculture, in which are mentioned the names of Janbūshār, Sagrīt and Roanai. It is believed that they lived before Adam, who was the disciple of Janbūshār, and such like.

62. Al Khazari: If I had supported my arguments by reference to a negro people, i.e. a people not united upon a common law, thy answer would have been correct. Now what is thy opinion of the philosophers who, as the result of their careful researches, agree that the world is without beginning, and here it does not concern tens of thousands, and not millions, but unlimited numbers of years.

 

More recently, about the translations of the Kuzari:
https://seforimblog.com/2017/06/translations-of-rabbi-judah-halevis/

Less than thirty years after R. Judah ben Samuel Halevi completed his Book of Kuzari in approximately 1140, it became one of the first Judaeo-Arabic compositions to be translated into Hebrew. This pioneering translation marked part of the cultural transfer of Andalusian Jewish culture, written in Judaeo-Arabic, into Hebrew, and was accomplished in 1167 by R. Judah ben Saul Ibn Tibbon, “the father of the translators.” As the centers of Jewish intellectual life moved to Christian areas where Hebrew was the predominant Jewish literary language, it was only through this translation that the Kuzari was known to generations upon generations of Jews. 

...

With the birth of Jewish studies in the nineteenth century, scholars began publishing original texts in academic editions. Thus, Hartwig Hirschfeld (1854-1934), working with Oxford-Bodleian Ms. Pococke, the only complete, or almost complete, version of the work, produced a first edition of the original Judaeo-Arabic text of the Kuzari. He published with it a version of the Ibn Tibbon translation which was partially corrected to correspond to the Judaeo-Arabic version, but not in a consistent manner. Thus, Hirschfeld changed some passages in the Hebrew despite their being attested in all the Ibn Tibbon manuscripts and editions, but left other problematic passages untouched.

...

In addition to editing the Judaeo-Arabic text of the Kuzari, and producing an edition of Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation, Hartwig Hirschfeld also translated the book into English.

There is a recent translation by Rabbi Chanan Morrison, based on a Hebrew translation of a new critical edition by Rabbit Yitzhak Shilat (2010)  "utilizing several Arabic manuscripts, including texts from Russian collections inaccessible to earlier researchers" : Sefer Ha-Kuzari: Precise Hebrew Translation in the Style of the Period of Its Composition.  Morrison also writes: "In preparing the text, I found Prof. Hartwig Hirschfeld's classic (but antiquated) 1905 English translation to be of great assistance.

60. The Kuzari: Does it not weaken your belief that the people of India are reported to have ancient relics and buildings that they are certain are millions of years old?

61. The Rabbi: It would weaken my belief were it based on accurate knowledge or a written historical record that is universally accepted.  But that is not the case.

They are an unreliable people, lacking clear historical account.  They anger the followers of religions with these claims, just as they anger them with their statues, talismans and practices.   They say these things are effective, and they ridicule those claiming to possess a book from God.

This conjecture is only found in a few books written by a few individuals -- books that only mislead the feeble minded.   To this category belong some of their astrological writings, which speak of tens of thousands of years, and The Book of Nabataean Agriculture, which mentions the names of Janbushad, Sagrit and Duani.  They say that they lived before Adam, that Janbushad was Adam's teacher, and other such claims.

---

Note: The Book of Nabataean Agriculture is, per what I can find, about the people termed as the last pagans of Iraq.  I haven't been able to find out whether there is any mention of India/Indians in that book.

----

Just to contrast the Morrison vs Hirschfeld translations, Morrison has:

62.  The Kuzari: Granted, had I based my argument only on the traditions of a fractious people who cannot agree about anything, your answer would be excellent.  But what will you say about the philosophers, who as the result of careful research on their erudite level, have concluded that the world is eternal, without beginning?   And here it is not a question of tens of thousands or even millions of years, but an infinite number of years!

Hirschfeld has:

 62. Al Khazari: If I had supported my arguments by reference to a negro people, i.e. a people not united upon a common law, thy answer would have been correct. Now what is thy opinion of the philosophers who, as the result of their careful researches, agree that the world is without beginning, and here it does not concern tens of thousands, and not millions, but unlimited numbers of years.

 

-----

 

Eliding over the modern phenomena of a fractious negro people,  it would be interesting to trace from where Judah Halevi obtained his opinion of India.