On Astrology and Prayer

Asher ben Shelamya ha-Kohen of Lunel was a Provençal talmudist and a nephew of Asher ben Meshullam. He headed a talmudic academy and wrote an abridged version of the Hebrew translation of Baḥya Ibn Paqūda’s Duties of the Heart to help his students. Nothing is known of his life.

Asher ben Meshullam ha-Kohen of Lunel was one of the five sons of Meshullam ben Jacob, the head of the local talmudic academy and an important patron of the scientific translation movement in Provence. Asher, a talmudic scholar known for his asceticism, was also interested in the Arabic philosophical and ethical tradition; he and his father both encouraged Judah Ibn Tibbon (1120–after 1190) to translate various works from Judeo-Arabic into Hebrew. Asher wrote commentaries on the Babylonian Talmud, which for the most part have been lost. Little else is known about his life.