Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment PDF Author: James Arthur Diamond
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079148923X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Winner of the 2003 Nachman Sokol-Mollie Halberstadt Prize in Biblical/Rabbinic Scholarship presented by the Canadian Jewish Book Awards Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment demonstrates the type of hermeneutic that the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) engaged in throughout his treatise, The Guide of the Perplexed. By comprehensively analyzing Maimonides' use of rabbinic and scriptural sources, James Arthur Diamond argues that, far from being merely prooftexts, they are in fact essential components of Maimonides' esoteric stratagem. Diamond's close reading of biblical and rabbinic citations in the Guide not only penetrates its multilayered structure to arrive at its core meaning, but also distinguishes Maimonides as a singular contributor to the Jewish exegetical tradition.

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment PDF Author: James Arthur Diamond
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 079148923X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2003 Nachman Sokol-Mollie Halberstadt Prize in Biblical/Rabbinic Scholarship presented by the Canadian Jewish Book Awards Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment demonstrates the type of hermeneutic that the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) engaged in throughout his treatise, The Guide of the Perplexed. By comprehensively analyzing Maimonides' use of rabbinic and scriptural sources, James Arthur Diamond argues that, far from being merely prooftexts, they are in fact essential components of Maimonides' esoteric stratagem. Diamond's close reading of biblical and rabbinic citations in the Guide not only penetrates its multilayered structure to arrive at its core meaning, but also distinguishes Maimonides as a singular contributor to the Jewish exegetical tradition.

Opening the Gates of Interpretation

Opening the Gates of Interpretation PDF Author: Mordechai Z. Cohen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004210067
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
This study highlights the contributions of the great philosopher-talmudist Moses Maimonides to the rationalist, “plain sense” (peshat) tradition of Jewish Bible exegesis, assessing his place in the Geonic-Andalusian school and showing how he harnessed Greco-Arabic learning to open new hermeneutical possibilities.

Converts, Heretics, and Lepers

Converts, Heretics, and Lepers PDF Author: James Arthur Diamond
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
James Diamond's new book consists of a series of studies addressing Moses Maimonides' (1138-1204) appropriation of marginal figures--lepers, converts, heretics, and others--normally considered on the fringes of society and religion. Each chapter focuses on a type or character that, in Maimonides' hands, becomes a metaphor for a larger, more substantive theological and philosophical issue. Diamond offers a close reading of key texts, such as the Guide of the Perplexed and the Mishneh Torah, demonstrating the importance of integrating Maimonides' legal and philosophical writings. Converts, Heretics, and Lepers fills an important void in Jewish studies by focusing on matters of exegesis and hermeneutics as well as philosophical concerns. Diamond's alternative reading of central topics in Maimonides suggests that literary appreciation is a key to deciphering Maimonides' writings in particular and Jewish exegetical texts in general. "Converts, Heretics, and Lepers is a very sophisticated exploration of Maimonidean religious philosophy. Although there have been numerous studies on Maimonides, perhaps more than any other Jewish thinker, James Diamond manages to approach the master from fresh perspectives. The result is a stunningly lucid and deep engagement with Maimonides." --Elliot Wolfson, Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University "A series of extraordinarily close readings of core texts of Maimonides', readings which illuminate the delicate interplay of philosophical and religious ideas in Maimonides. In his previous work, Diamond convincingly illustrated the way in which Maimonides carefully chooses, subtly interprets, and circumspectly weaves together rabbinic materials to address philosophers and talmudists alike, each in their own idiom. This book is a further expression of Diamond's mastery of this intricate methodology and is a work to be studied and re-studied. All students of Maimonides are in his debt." --Menachem Kellner, University of Haifa "James Diamond's book about Maimonides is a welcome addition to the regular stream of books about the thinker Jews have rightly called 'the great eagle.' His unique contribution to the Maimonidean literature is to show that the true Jewish philosopher like Maimonides is always an outsider in ordinary Jewish thought, and he is thus uniquely able to appreciate and explicate what Jews and other worshipers of the One God have to learn from other outsiders like himself." --David Novak, J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Toronto

Maimonides' Cure of Souls

Maimonides' Cure of Souls PDF Author: David Bakan
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438427441
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Explores the unacknowledged psychological element in Maimonides’ work, one which prefigures the latter insights of Freud.

A Rivalry of Genius

A Rivalry of Genius PDF Author: Marc Hirshman
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 9781438406794
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
By comparing interpretations of the Hebrew Bible by Jews, Christians, and Gnostics in Late Antiquity, this book provides a unique perspective on these religious movements in Palestine. Rival interpretations of the early Church and the Midrash are set against the backdrop of the pagan critique of these religions and the gnostic threat that grew within both Christianity and Judaism. The comparison of the exegetical works of Christianity and Judaism illuminates the later development of the two religions and offers fresh insight into the Bible itself.

Problems and Parables of Law

Problems and Parables of Law PDF Author: Josef Stern
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791438244
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
A rigorous analysis of Maimonides' and Nahmanides' explanations of the Mosaic commandments that challenges received notions of the relation between these two seminal thinkers.

Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon

Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon PDF Author: James A. Diamond
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139917293
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Jewish thought since the Middle Ages can be regarded as a sustained dialogue with Moses Maimonides, regardless of the different social, cultural, and intellectual environments in which it was conducted. Much of Jewish intellectual history can be viewed as a series of engagements with him, fueled by the kind of 'Jewish' rabbinic and esoteric writing Maimonides practiced. This book examines a wide range of theologians, philosophers, and exegetes who share a passionate engagement with Maimonides, assaulting, adopting, subverting, or adapting his philosophical and jurisprudential thought. This ongoing enterprise is critical to any appreciation of the broader scope of Jewish law, philosophy, biblical interpretation, and Kabbalah. Maimonides's legal, philosophical, and exegetical corpus became canonical in the sense that many subsequent Jewish thinkers were compelled to struggle with it in order to advance their own thought. As such, Maimonides joins fundamental Jewish canon alongside the Bible, the Talmud, and the Zohar.

Evil and Providence in Maimonides’S Guide of the Perplexed

Evil and Providence in Maimonides’S Guide of the Perplexed PDF Author: Modestus Anyaegbu
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1503512444
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
Maimonidess rationalist rejection and interpretation of anthropomorphism play a major part in his reading of the problem of evil and providence in the guide of the perplexed. The debate has been on finding an explanation as to why the righteous suffer and the vicious prosper in a world under the providence of a divine Creator. The anthropomorphic bent given to the legendary case of the biblical Job has given us the concept of God as a personal agent. But confronted with the reality of his innocent suffering, this image of God leaves much to be desired. We shall argue that Maimonidess theory of providence as consequent upon the intellect and evil as consequent upon the absence of intellectual perfection are based on the concept of God as existence. It is the absence of intellectual perfection that marks man qua animal and leaves him open to chance occurrences and evil. A Promotional Write-Up: The present work places before us the strange position and it must be saida little bit shocking to us, of the great Jewish thinker on the question of providence. Only the intelligent, that is to say, the human beings who have effectively actualized their intellects and have come to an accomplished knowledge, are considered and personally protected by the Eternal. In other words, the traditional piety that is usually asked of the believers by religious authorities is not sufficient. This piety is still marked by illusion and does not procure for man the true knowledge of God which is worthy of him. The individual ought to overcome pietistic representations in order to open himself to divine truth which is accessible only through knowledge. This is what the Book of Job illustrates . . . At the time when the actuality does not cease to present before us the question of the status of religion and the religious within modernity, the attempt by Maimonides to articulate these two styles carries an indisputable force of conviction as shown with abundant evidence in the work presented by Modestus Anyaegbu. Jean-Michel Counet, president of the Institut Suprieur de Philosophie, Universit Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.

Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People

Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People PDF Author: Robert Eisen
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791423134
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
This is a careful examination of the doctrine of Jewish chosenness in the light of Gersonides's thought on providential suffering and on inherited providence. Gersonides is one of the most interesting and important philosophers of the later Jewish Middle Ages.

Leo Strauss on Maimonides

Leo Strauss on Maimonides PDF Author: Leo Strauss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226776778
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 691

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Book Description
Leo Strauss is widely recognized as one of the foremost interpreters of Maimonides. His studies of the medieval Jewish philosopher led to his rediscovery of esotericism and deepened his sense that the tension between reason and revelation was central to modern political thought. His writings throughout the twentieth century were chiefly responsible for restoring Maimonides as a philosophical thinker of the first rank. Yet, to appreciate the extent of Strauss’s contribution to the scholarship on Maimonides, one has traditionally had to seek out essays he published separately spanning almost fifty years. With Leo Strauss on Maimonides, Kenneth Hart Green presents for the first time a comprehensive, annotated collection of Strauss’s writings on Maimonides, comprising sixteen essays, three of which appear in English for the first time. Green has also provided careful translations of materials that had originally been quoted in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, German, and French; written an informative introduction highlighting the original contributions found in each essay; and brought references to out-of-print editions fully up to date. The result will become the standard edition of Strauss’s writings on Maimonides.