  Falaquera’s goal in the encyclopedia, his longest work, was to make possible the serious study of the sciences by his fellow Jews. The encyclopedia is divided into two parts, one on the natural beings and one on the divine ones. The first part basically follows the traditional order of Aristotle’s books on natural science. When Falaquera writes that there “is not a word in this entire composition that I say of my own,” he is hardly exaggerating. His main source in the work is usually the middle commentaries of Averroes or his epitomes when the middle commentaries were not available. These texts are often translated literally, but with no hesitation to abridge them and to blend them with other sources, in particular other commentaries by Averroes, for the sake of clarification or completeness. Short passages from other works and other authors are inserted when it suits Falaquera’s purposes. But apart from connecting phrases, references to other parts of the book, and occasional attributions, there is indeed hardly a word that is Falaquera’s own. It is thus remarkable that Falaquera was often able to improve upon his sources and even intentionally part from them solely through his combining of texts. It has been shown, for example, that “by advisedly and creatively combining [Averroes’] commentaries [on the Meteorology],” Falaquera was able to present an account of Aristotle’s teachings clearer than that of either of Averroes’ commentaries [Fontaine, “Why Is the Sea Salty?” 213–218], and that by inserting a brief passage from Avicenna into his abridged paraphrase of Averroes’ Epitome of the Parva naturalia, he was able to provide a response to Averroes’ argument therein that theoretical knowledge cannot be acquired in dreams [Harvey, “Falaquera’s De‘ot ha-Filosofim,” 232–233]. Other such examples abound, but can usually be detected only through a careful comparison of the encyclopedia with its sources. Falaquera’s intended reader, who did not know Arabic, would thus have been unaware of his skill and particular goals in weaving together his sources, but this would not have bothered Falaquera. He had a far greater goal in mind. The De‘ot ha-Filosofim presents the reader with an ambitious and comprehensive account of Aristotelian science and philosophy, indeed the first full in-depth treatment of Aristotelian science in Hebrew.