Greco-Latin Gynecology in Jewish Robes The Hebrew Translation of Muscio’s Gynaecia Carmen Caballero Navas Abstract: This contribution intends to help broaden our current understanding of the early stages of the formation of the Hebrew corpus of gynecology by contributing new in- sights derived from the study of one of the first treatises that composed it. To that end, it begins by contextualizing what is considered to be the first systematic translation of gyne- cological texts into Hebrew from Latin carried out in Provence during the closing years of the twelſth century. Thereaſter, it focuses on the analysis of the major gynecological treatise of the translator’s program, Sēfer hatôledet (The Book of Generation), rendered from Mus- cio’s late antique Latin adaptation of Soranus of Ephesus’s Gynecology. Sēfer hatôledet (The Book of Generation) is a Hebrew gynecological treatise produced at an undetermined date at the end of the twelſth century, albeit cer- tainly not later than 1199. 1 It was part of the first systematic translation of medical texts from Latin into Hebrew, completed in Provence between 1197 and 1199 by an alleged convert, frequently referred to in scholarly literature of the last three dec- ades by his pseudonym, Doʾeg the Edomite, who translated twenty-four medical works. 2 This intriguing translator also succeeded in conveying to a learned Jewish audience the synthesis of the main gynecological traditions of antiquity as well as contemporary Latin trends on women’s conditions by rendering in Hebrew three gynecological texts, as well as several encyclopedias and general works that in- cluded important sections on women’s medicine. 3 1 The title paraphrases part of Ron Barkai’s assertion that the translator of Sēfer hatôledet “had dressed Muscio’s Gynaecia with Jewish garments” (Barkai 1998, 31; see also 56, where his uses “clothes”). The research for this contribution has been carried out under the auspices of the research project Language and Literature of Rabbinic and Medieval Judaism (FFI2013-43813-P and FFI2016-78171-P), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). I wish to thank Monica Green for her constant generosity in providing me with wise advice and helpful observations. 2 Steinschneider 1893, 711–714. For the list of Hebrew translations, see Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms héb. 1190, 44r–46r, and its edition by Steinschneider 1888. For a recent edition, see Freudenthal 2018, 37–39. For the English translation, see Barkai 1998, 20–34 and Freudenthal 2013, 118–120. Recently, a further edition and translation has been contributed by Freudenthal, McVaugh and Mesler 2020, 277–278 and 280–282. 3 Barkai 1998, 30–34 and 44–49; Caballero Navas 2021, 351–355.