Pines was born in
Charenton-le-Pont near
Paris, and grew up in Paris,
Riga,
Arkhangelsk,
London and
Berlin. His father, Meir Pines, was a scholar and businessman whose
Sorbonne dissertation comprised the first attempt at a history of
Yiddish literature. Between 1926 and 1934 Shlomo Pines studied
philosophy,
Semitic languages, and
linguistics at the universities of
Heidelberg,
Geneva and
Berlin. Among his friends at Berlin were
Paul Kraus and
Leo Strauss, the latter of whom would contribute the lengthy introductory essay to Pines' classic translation of
The Guide. From 1937 to 1939 he taught the
history of science in Islamic countries at the Institute of the History of Science in Paris. In 1940, he and his family departed for
Palestine on the last boat leaving
Marseille before the
Nazi occupation of France (during which time 25% of
French Jews were deported and murdered). In the young State of
Israel, Pines was a professor in the Department of
Jewish Thought and the Department of
Philosophy at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1952 until his death in 1990. In 1971 Pines discovered a 10th-century Arabic version of the
Testimonium Flavianum by
Josephus due to
Agapius of Hierapolis. Pines also discovered a 12th-century
Syriac version of Josephus by
Michael the Syrian. Leading scholar
Louis Feldman stated that the discovery of Pines "created a considerable stir" in the academic community by drawing attention to two important historical works which had been almost completely neglected before then. Pines' fluency in a wide variety of modern and ancient languages, including
Arabic,
Syriac,
Hebrew,
Persian,
Sanskrit,
Turkish, and
Coptic, enabled him to undertake scholarship of uniquely broad scope. == Awards ==