Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought

Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought

Author: James A. Diamond

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2019-02-20

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1789624983

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The first critical study of how Maimonides has been read by leading Orthodox rabbis in our time shows that some have tried to liberate themselves from his influence, others have built on his ideas generating vibrant controversy, and yet others have sought to recreate Maimonides in their own image.


Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought

Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought

Author: James Arthur Diamond

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781800343344

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The first critical study of how Maimonides has been read by leading Orthodox rabbis in our time shows that some have tried to liberate themselves from his influence, others have built on his ideas generating vibrant controversy, and yet others have sought to recreate Maimonides in their own image.


Maimonides the Rationalist

Maimonides the Rationalist

Author: Herbert A. Davidson

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2011-04-30

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1909821039

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In his own estimation, Maimonides was neither exclusively a dedicated philosopher nor exclusively a devoted rabbinist: he saw philosophy and the Written and Oral Torahs as a single, harmonious domain, and he believed that this view was similarly fundamental to the lives of the prophets and rabbis of old. In this book, Herbert Davidson examines Maimonides’ efforts to reconstitute this all-embracing, rationalist worldview that he felt had been lost during the millennium-long exile.


Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism

Maimonides' Confrontation with Mysticism

Author: Menachem Kellner

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2006-09-21

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 190982108X

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Maimonides’ vision of Judaism was deeply elitist, but at the same time profoundly universalistic. He was highly critical of the regnant Jewish culture of his day, which he perceived as so heavily influenced by ancient Jewish mysticism as to be debased. While focusing on that critique, Menachem Kellner skilfully and accessibly demonstrates how Maimonides used philosophy to purify a corrupted and paganized religion, and to present distinctions fundamental to Judaism as institutional, sociological, and historical, rather than ontological. In Maimonides’ hands, metaphysical distinctions are translated into moral challenges.


Maimonides the Universalist

Maimonides the Universalist

Author: Menachem Kellner

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2020-11-04

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1800347456

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Maimonides’ Mishneh torah presents not only a system of Jewish law, but also a system of values. This study focuses on the moral and philosophical meditations that close each volume of his code. The authors analyse these concluding passages to uncover the universalist outlook underlying Maimonides’ halakhic thought.


Maimonides

Maimonides

Author: Moshe Halbertal

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-11-24

Total Pages: 399

ISBN-13: 1400848474

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A comprehensive and accessible account of the life and thought of Judaism's most celebrated philosopher Maimonides was the greatest Jewish philosopher and legal scholar of the medieval period, a towering figure who has had a profound and lasting influence on Jewish law, philosophy, and religious consciousness. This book provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to his life and work, revealing how his philosophical sensibility and outlook informed his interpretation of Jewish tradition. Moshe Halbertal vividly describes Maimonides's childhood in Muslim Spain, his family's flight to North Africa to escape persecution, and their eventual resettling in Egypt. He draws on Maimonides's letters and the testimonies of his contemporaries, both Muslims and Jews, to offer new insights into his personality and the circumstances that shaped his thinking. Halbertal then turns to Maimonides's legal and philosophical work, analyzing his three great books—Commentary on the Mishnah, the Mishneh Torah, and the Guide of the Perplexed. He discusses Maimonides's battle against all attempts to personify God, his conviction that God's presence in the world is mediated through the natural order rather than through miracles, and his locating of philosophy and science at the summit of the religious life of Torah. Halbertal examines Maimonides's philosophical positions on fundamental questions such as the nature and limits of religious language, creation and nature, prophecy, providence, the problem of evil, and the meaning of the commandments. A stunning achievement, Maimonides offers an unparalleled look at the life and thought of this important Jewish philosopher, scholar, and theologian.


The Bible and Zionism

The Bible and Zionism

Author: Nur Masalha

Publisher: Zed Books

Published: 2007-08

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 9781842777619

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This text investigates the Biblical justification for Zionism & charts the historical rise of Zionism since its 19th century roots. Providing a contribution to the argument for a single democratic & secular Israeli state, it shows how the biblical language of 'chosen people' & 'promised land' is used to justify ethnic division & violence.


Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon

Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon

Author: James A. Diamond

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-27

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1107063345

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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.


Jewish Theology Unbound

Jewish Theology Unbound

Author: James Arthur Diamond

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0198805691

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Jewish Theology Unbound challenges the widespread misinterpretation of Judaism as a religion of law as opposed to theology. James A. Diamond provides close readings of the Bible, classical rabbinic texts, Jewish philosophers, and mystics from the ancient, medieval, and modern period, which communicate a profound Jewish philosophical theology on human nature, God, and the relationship between the two. The study begins with an examination of questioning in the Hebrew Bible, demonstrating that what the Bible encourages is independent philosophical inquiry into how to situate oneself in the world ethically, spiritually, and teleologically. It explores such themes as the nature of God through the various names by which God is known in the Jewish intellectual tradition, love of others and of God, death, martyrdom, freedom, angels, the philosophical quest, the Holocaust, and the state of Israel, all in light of the Hebrew Bible and the way it is filtered through the rabbinic, philosophical, and mystical traditions.


Must a Jew Believe Anything?

Must a Jew Believe Anything?

Author: Menachem Kellner

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2022-03-09

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1802079262

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The crucial question for today's Jewish world, Kellner argues, is not whether Jews will have Jewish grandchildren, but how many different sorts of mutually exclusive Judaisms those grandchildren will face. This accessible book examines how the split that threatens the Jewish future can be avoided. For this second edition, the author has added a substantial Afterword, reviewing his thinking on the subject and addressing the reactions to the original edition.