Astronomical Content and its Sources in Abraham Ibn Ezra's Introductions to Astrology.

This article examines the astronomical content and sources in Abraham Ibn Ezra's two astrological introductions, *Reshit Ḥokhmah* ("Beginning of Wisdom") and *Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot* ("Judgments of the Zodiacal Signs"). Ibn Ezra (ca. 1089–ca. 1161), a medieval Hebrew scholar, integrated extensive astronomical material—drawn from Arabic and earlier Greek sources such as Ptolemy and Abū Maʿshar—into these works to support astrological doctrines. *Reshit Ḥokhmah* includes detailed descriptions of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, fixed stars with their astrological attributes, and the paranatellonta of zodiacal decans, largely based on an alternative Arabic redaction of Farghānī's *Elements* and Abū Maʿshar's *Kitāb al-mudḥal al-kabīr*. *Mishpeṭei ha-Mazzalot* features two rare astronomical tables on the greatest elongations of Venus and Mercury and on planetary retrogradation, reflecting influences from Abraham Bar Ḥiyya's and the Toledan Tables. The study highlights how these introductions exemplify the close medieval collaboration between astronomy and astrology, with Ibn Ezra employing astronomical knowledge both as a foundation and as a tool to elaborate astrological concepts.