# British Library Harley MS 5680 preserves a 1479 Hebrew Canon (Books 3 and 5) now in a public catalogue

Date: 1479

## The fact

Harley MS 5680 is a Hebrew copy of Canon Books 3 and 5, after Nathan ha-Me’ati’s 1279 translation, with a 1479 colophon, now described in the British Library archives catalogue. The dated object is that 1479 copy; the public English carrier is the BL catalogue. [Avicenna](/people/avicenna) did not commission a Hebrew book. A Jewish medical translation is a minority-access path into a Latin-and-Arabic monopoly.

## Context

Hebrew Canons also served Jewish physicians inside unequal civic status. High confidence on the manuscript as catalogued.

Avicenna is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

The named official or archival page and the independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: British Library Harley MS 5680 — Avicenna’s Canon, Hebrew (Books 3 and 5) (https://searcharchives.bl.uk/catalog/040-003948071; British Library).

## Significance

A public Hebrew Canon witness is a minority-language access path, not a rights statute.

A public Hebrew Canon witness is a minority-language access path, not a rights statute.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Avicenna: https://factrail.ai/people/avicenna

## Drivers

- Protection of Minority Rights: https://factrail.ai/drivers/protection-of-minority-rights

## Sources

- https://searcharchives.bl.uk/catalog/040-003948071
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Avicenna

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/av-bl-harley-hebrew-canon