  The first order of business in translating a text is the preparation of a reliable edition. Thus Ibn Tibbon, as critical scholar, made every effort to collect and compare manuscripts of the texts on which he worked. For example, in a brief introduction to his “Letter on Providence,” he describes his efforts to eliminate corruptions in his manuscript of the Guide by acquiring additional copies and comparing them to his Vorlage. In the preface to the Meteorology, similarly, he indicates that he had consulted manuscripts of Aristotle’s work in Toledo and Barcelona, and had studied the commentaries by Alexander, Avicenna, and Averroes, in order to help construct a more reliable text closer to the original.