Maimonides and the Convert: A Juridical and Philosophical Embrace of the Outsider (original) (raw)
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Journal of Jewish Identities, 2021
Obadiah was a philosophically-inclined convert to Judaism from Islam who wrote to Maimonides with a sensitive set of questions that embraced Jewish identity, theology, comparative religion, and social and religious practice. Maimonides dealt with many of these issues at greater length and more systematically in other works, but his responsum to Obadiah offers important information about how he implemented these ideas in practice. By situating the responsum to Obadiah within the broader context of Maimonides’ thought in general and his writings on conversion to Judaism in particular, I show how he shaped the law to meet both Obadiah’s personal needs and the social needs of converts to Judaism more generally.
Ajs Review-the Journal of The Association for Jewish Studies, 2005
This set of interrelated studies is full of closely reasoned analyses and bold but careful speculation. Several of these studies provide a model, almost unique within biblical studies, of how to integrate biblical and extra-biblical data within a framework deeply informed by theory. The book is intended for specialists with expertise in technical details the book addresses but rarely pauses to describe. This work's breadth is noteworthy. It contains lengthy studies of Israelite cult places uncovered by archaeologists (not only familiar ones such as Arad and Beersheva, but also smaller and less well-known enclosures and tumuli throughout the areas in which ancient Israelites lived), cult items (altars, figurines, cult stands), inscriptions, as well as historiographic and prophetic texts from the Hebrew Bible. Zevit emphasizes that there were many forms of religious practice in ancient Israel, that various gods were worshipped in motley settings, that worshipers of YHWH may often have worshipped other deities as well, and-most significantly-that one can appreciate the varieties of religious experience in ancient Israel only by coordinating the data that come from the full range of texts, artifacts, and perspectives this study utilizes. New insights regarding specific issues abound. Space permits only a few examples. Zevit's discussion of the origin of the Israelites (pp. 84-121) is one of the finest treatments of this controversial issue available. His mastery of archaeological and textual data is perhaps unmatched by other scholars who write on this subject, most of whom focus on one type of evidence and are embarrassingly unfamiliar with responsible use of the others. Zevit concludes that a significant discontinuity between the Late Bronze and Iron Age populations of the highlands of Canaan emerges from several different types of evidence. It follows that the Israelites did not originate in Canaan, though significant elements of the Canaanite populations were absorbed into Israel early in the period of the monarchy. The range of evidence used by Zevit and the methodological self-consciousness with which he analyzes it render this discussion one of the most convincing ever published. The lengthy analysis of Hebrew inscriptions is full of new readings and interpretations, which cannot be treated here. The most significant suggestion Zevit makes is that phrases like lyhwh wlHšrth in the Kuntillet gAjrud and related inscriptions refer not to YHWH and His partner, the goddess Asherah (which is, as he notes in his painstaking review of the literature, grammatically impossible), nor to YHWH and His cult-pole, but to YHWH and the goddess named Asheratah, whose relationship to YHWH is not spelled out in the phrase itself. Zevit proposes a startling new view of the Elohistic Psalter (Psalms 42-83). Most scholars believe that the tetragrammaton has been replaced throughout this
Maimonides on the Status of Judaism - with Menachem Kellner
Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of Daniel J. Lasker (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2021) : 135-161., 2021
We use the "Guide of the Perplexed"' 3.32. to illustrate Maimonides’s understanding of the history of the Jews and the nature of Judaism. To our great surprise, the revolutionary implications of that chapter in the Guide of the Perplexed—notorious in and of itself—have been ignored throughout the generations
Text@Contexts 8, 2021
This article will discuss varying modes of rabbinic interpretation of Jewish law and reformulation of that law to comprehend different circumstances, particularly the two modes that such interpretations may be formulated in. I draw on a range of Jewish legal sources separated in historical periods by thousands of years: from the Pentateuchal codifications of Deuteronomy, to the post-exilic Ezra-Nehemiah, to the post-enlightenment responsa of Moses Schreiber (1762–1839), better known as the Hatam Sofer, whose rulings inaugurated a new era of Orthodox rabbinic opinion responding to the modernising tendencies of post-enlightenment European Jewry (Brown 2011: 154); and, finally, the contemporary rabbinic rulings (Heb. piskei din) of the Rabbinic High Court Judge Avraham Sherman and Senior Rabbinic High Court Judge Shlomo Dichovsky as they clashed over the question of conversion in contemporary Israel. While these texts originate far apart from each other in time and space, they do proceed one from the other in a consistent understanding of how Jewish law is developed.
Converts, Heretics, and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider, 2007
In this chapter, I continue with Maimonides’ radical deconstruction of God’s presence in the world. As a direct corollary of the sort of austere presenceless shekhinah explored in chapter 6, Maimonides had to deal with a host of biblical terms commonly used with reference to God. On their face, they undermine his project to “banish” God from the human domain because they pose seductive lures for drawing Him back in. At the very heart of Aristotelian physics is the principle of motion, the operative feature of the cosmos. Associated with properties such as potentiality and actuality endemic to the workings of the natural world, the literal application of motion to God constitutes an offence of capital proportions. Leading up to the chapter on shakhon, Maimonides rationalized the biblical use of numerous terms connoting motion, such as “approach,” “coming,” “going,” and “going out” with respect to God. While doing so, he also constructed an intricate preface to his avowedly anti-mythological conception of the shekhinah. What follows is an attempt to reconstruct that preface in pursuit of the acutely outsider God advocated by Maimonides.
From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition
From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition, 2010
P h i l oDe Abrahamo ACCS Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Adv. haer. IrenaeusAdversus haereses alt. Translation of the ancient text is slightly altered ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers Ant. J o s e p h u sAntiquitates Iudaicae ANTC Abingdon New Testament Commentary ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Apoc. Jn. Apocryphon of John ASE Annali di storia dell' esegesi ASNSP Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa BDB Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament BEHE Bibliotheque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Bell. J o s e p h u sDe bello Iudaico BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Bib Biblica BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin CBNTS Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series CChrSA Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum CCL Corpus Christianorum, series latina (Turnhout: Brepols, -) Cher. P h i l oDe cherubim Comm. Matt. Origen Commentariorum series in evangelium Mattaei Conf. P h i l oDe confusione linguarum Congr. P h i l oDe congressu quaerendae eruditionis gratia CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum CTM Concordia Theological Monthly xiv abbreviations Det. P h i l oQuod deterius potiori insidiari soleat DJD Discoveries in the Judean Desert series Ebr. P h i l oDe ebrietate Ep. Aeg. Lib. Athanasius Epistula ad episcopos Aegypti et Libyae Epist. J e r o m eEpistulae ETL Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses Eth. eud. AristotleEthica Eudemia Eth. nic. AristotleEthica Nicomachea Exp. Luc. AmbroseExpositio evangelii secumdum Lucum ExpTim Expository Times Fug. P h i l oDe fuga et inventione Fug. T e r t u l l i a nDe fuga in persecutione Her. P h i l oQuis rerum divinarum heres sit Hom. Gen.
Abraham Maimonides on Reclaiming Judaism's Lost "Perfection" from the "Imperfection" of Islam
Polemical and Exegetical Polarities in Medieval Jewish Cultures – Studies in Honour of Daniel J. Lasker, 2021
By his own admission, Abraham Maimonides’ (AM’s) program for a pietistic renaissance of Judaism owed a debt to Islam, especially to Sufism. The majority of Egyptian Jewry rejected his reforms and contended that Jewish law prohibited the adoption of Islamic practices, such as prostration and kneeling in prayer, asceticism, and other Sufi-like behavior that was alien to Judaism. AM (1186–1237) claimed that these practices were inherently part of the religion of Israel in antiquity, and he was merely trying to restore Judaism to its original pre-exilic spiritual state of excellence or “perfection” (Arabic kamaal). He argued that the non-Jews, Muslims and the Sufis in particular, were the ones who had adopted—and adulterated—the practices of ancient Israel, especially those of the prophets. Because of their sins, the Jews had lost these practices at the beginning of the exile; they were forgotten or “concealed.” Reclaiming them would lead to the restoration of “perfection” in Judaism and to Jewish sovereignty. The Nagid repeatedly adduced biblical and rabbinic sources that supposedly supported his claim. In this study, I present and analyze newly identified Judeo-Arabic texts from the Geniza, both in the original and in translation, from the Kifaaya, AM’s magnum opus, and from his circle of pietists, as well as some previously published texts from the Kifaaya and sections of his Torah commentary, with new suggestions for decipherment or translation and fresh analysis.