Studies on Gersonides
Studies on Gersonides

Author: Gad Freudenthal

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-11-27

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 9004625739

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R. Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides, 1288-1344) is one of the greatest and most original figures of Medieval Jewish thought. He wrote numerous works in philosophy, science and biblical exegesis. Some of his scientific works, most notably his highly innovative Astronomy, were translated from Hebrew into Latin and could thus reach non-Jewish scholars. The twelve studies collected in this bilingual volume (English and French in equal parts) offer for the first time a comprehensive overview and assessment of Gersonides' work in astronomy, mathematics, logic, natural science, and psychology. Gersonides' contributions are analyzed within the context of contemporary philosophy and science in Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin. New light is also shed on the reception of Gersonides' work within European science. The volume includes a very extensive bibliography of writings by and about Gersonides. From the contents: Part I: Gersonides' Astronomy: Bernard R. Goldstein, José Luis Mancha, José Chabas, Henri Hugonnard-Roche, Guy Beaujouan. Part II: Gersonides' Work in Mathematics: Tony Lévy, Karine Chemla, Serge Pahaut. Part III: Gersonides' Science in Its Relations to His Philosophy and Theology: Herbert A. Davidson, Tzvi Y. Langermann, Charles H. Manekin, Amos Funkenstein, Gad Freudenthal.

Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People
Gersonides on Providence, Covenant, and the Chosen People

Author: Robert Eisen

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1995-01-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780791423134

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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.

Gersonides
Gersonides

Author: Ruth Glasner

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2015-05-21

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 0191054739

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Gersonides was a highly original Jewish philosopher, scientist and biblical exegete, active in Provence in the first half of the fourteenth century. Ruth Glasner explores his impressive achievements, and argues that the key to understanding his originality is his perspective as an applied mathematical scientist. It was this perspective that led him to examine Aristotelianism from directions different from those usually adopted by contemporary scholastic scholars. Gersonides started on his way, as he himself claims, as a 'mathematician, natural scientist, and philosopher', who believed in his power to solve the main problems of medieval science. He ended up concentrating on his work as a mathematical astronomer, developing techniques of observation and computation, and somewhat less optimistic about the prospect of scientific knowledge.

Gersonides' Afterlife
Gersonides' Afterlife

Author: Ofer Elior

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-06-29

Total Pages: 691

ISBN-13: 9004425284

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Gersonides’ Afterlife is the first full-scale treatment of the reception of one of the greatest scientific minds of medieval Judaism: the philosopher-scientist Levi ben Gershom (1288–1344). The papers collected here describe his multifarious impact from the fourteenth century to present-day religious Zionism.

"Without Any Doubt"

Author: Sara Klein-Braslavy

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-06-09

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 900420699X

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Gersonides—Rabbi Levi ben Gershom (Provence, 1288–1344)—was a multifaceted thinker. Endowed with his original and critical mind, he did not accept the authority of his predecessors but investigated every matter for himself. His extraordinary attention to method—both of inquiry and of writing—stands out clearly in his own work and in his reading of certain biblical books. The eight articles on Gersonides’ thought and method collected in this volume address four main topics: Gersonides’ methods of inquiry and composition; the use of introductions in his own works and in biblical books; his method in the supercommentaries on Averroes; and his methods of biblical exegesis. "Klein-Braslavi's (sic) book...is highly recommended for all libraries that take seriously philosophy, the life of the mind and cognition." David B. Levy, Touro College

Torah in the Observatory
Torah in the Observatory

Author: Menachem Marc Kellner

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13:

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by Gersonides: Providence, Mosaic Prophecy, Miracles, the Messiah and Resurrection, Astronomy and Metaphysics, Politics and Perfection. It is not by chance that Menachem Kellner has devoted so much to the study of Gersonides. Like Gersonides, Kellner has firmly in hand the knowledge of the Bible and of the traditional literature of Judaism, he is well trained in philosophy and science, and his broad interests make him the best and most penetrating champion of a great philosopher and an outstanding student of human thought. Colette Sirat, directeur d'etudes a l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Sorbonne et chercheur associe a l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes --Book Jacket.

Studies on Gersonides
Studies on Gersonides

Author: Gad Freudenthal

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 9789004096417

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R. Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides, 1288-1344) is one of the greatest figures of Medieval Jewish thought. He wrote numerous works in philosophy, science and Biblical exegesis. Some of his scientific works, most notably his highly original Astronomy, were translated from Hebrew into Latin and could thus reach non Jewish scholars. The papers collected in this bilingual volume (English and French in equal parts) offer for a first time a comprehensive overview and assessment of Gersonides' scientific work. Since for Gersonides science and philosophy formed a unity, the volume adopts a broad notion of science, including, in addition to astronomy, mathematics and logic, also physics and psychology. The various studies analyze Gersonides' contributions to these disciplines, situate them in the context of Greek-Arabic philosophy and science as translated into Hebrew, and describe their subsequent reception. The volume also includes a very extensive bibliography of writings by and about Gersonides.

Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy
Evil and Suffering in Jewish Philosophy

Author: Oliver Leaman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780521427227

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The problems of evil and suffering have been extensively discussed in Jewish philosophy, and much of the discussion has centred on the Book of Job. In this new study Oliver Leaman poses two questions: how can a powerful and caring deity allow terrible things to happen to obviously innocent people, and why has the Jewish people been so harshly treated throughout history, given its status as the chosen people? He explores these issues through an analysis of the views of Philo, Saadya, Maimonides, Gersonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and post-Holocaust thinkers, and suggests that a discussion of evil and suffering is really a discussion about our relationship with God. The Book of Job is thus both the point of departure and the point of return.

Prophecy
Prophecy

Author: Howard Kreisel

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 681

ISBN-13: 9401008205

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More than any other topic, prophecy represents the point at which the Divine meets the human, the Absolute meets the relative. How can a human being attain the Word of God? In what manner does God, when conceived as eternal and transcendent, address corporeal, transitory creatures? What happens to God's divine Truth when it is beheld by minds limited in their power to apprehend, and influenced by the intellectual currents of their time and place? How were these issues viewed by the great Jewish philosophers of the past, who took the divine communication and all it entails seriously, while at the same time desired to understand it as much as humanly possible in the course of dealing with a myriad of other issues that occupied their attention? This book offers an in-depth study of prophecy in the thought of seven of the leading medieval Jewish philosophers: R. Saadiah Gaon, R. Judah Halevi, Maimonides, Gersonides, R. Hasdai Crescas, R. Joseph Albo and Baruch Spinoza. It attempts to capture the `original voice' of these thinkers by looking at the intellectual milieus in which they developed their philosophies, and by carefully analyzing their views in their textual contexts. It also deals with the relation between the earlier approaches and the later ones. Overall, this book presents a significant model for narrating the history of an idea.