The biblical and rabbinic background to medieval Jewish philosophy

This paper is devoted to the analysis and to the comparison of concepts on theodicy and on the nature of evil that was developed by two medieval Jewish philosophers. They are Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides or Ralbag, 1288-1344) and Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410/12). The sources of the analysis are the third chapter of the fourth book of the “Wars of the Lord” (1329) by Gersonides and the second chapter of the second book of the “Light of the Lord” (1410) by Crescas. Both philosophers assert that evil essentially cannot come from God. The causes of evil are the sinfulness of human beings, or the celestial bodies, or the breaking of the connection between human and God. The problem of evil and injustice in this world are closely related for Gersonides and Crescas to other problems, such as divine knowledge of future events, free will, reasons for reward and punishment. Gersonides and Crescas differ considerably on these issues. Gersonides demonstrates that God is not an essential source of evil. He proceeded to build on this statement with the fallacy of the opinion that divine providence extends to individuals. After all, said Gersonides, retribution would make God a source of evil. And in this case, righteous men would always be rewarded, and sinners would always be punished for their sins. But obviously this is not the case. Crescas, in contrast to Gersonides, claims that God knows individuals. This does not prevent him from agreeing with Ralbagh that God is not the source of evil. According to Crescas, any punishment or suffering (even for the righteous) always leads to good. It is obvious therefore that Crescas adheres to a more traditional position, trying, inter alia, to bring his thoughts as close as possible to the ideas expressed in the Torah. Gersonides adheres to a position close to the ideas of Maimonides. Gersonides, in the author’s opinion, created a philosophical concept that is more consistent in comparison with Crescas’ conception, however more distant from the Jewish teaching.

Reviewed by: The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature Alan J. Avery-Peck The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature, edited by Reimund Bierenger, Florentino Garcia Martinez, Didier Pollefeyt, and Peter Tomson. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism. Leiden: Brill, 2009. 544 pp. $241.00. This volume collects papers presented at a symposium on the study of Rabbinic literature and the New Testament held in 2006 at the Catholic University of Leuven. The focus is the use of Jewish writings in the interpretation of early Christian history and thought. As William Horbury points out in the introductory essay, this is not a new approach; as far back as the Church Fathers, Christian theologians and scholars recognized the value of Rabbinic writings in interpreting New Testament passages. What has changed is the spirit in which this work is done. Generations of Christian scholars, continuing into the past century, denigrated Jewish ideas as fictions that were unmasked by the perfected religious ideology preached by Jesus. But while this polemical aspect of the comparative work has faded, methodological issues increasingly have been recognized. The texts of Rabbinic Judaism derive from the third century and beyond. How on their basis are we to determine what Jews believed and practiced in the first century? And what of the diversity in early Christian thought, not to mention the temporal gap between the historical Jesus and even the earliest Christian writings? While examining Jesus and [End Page 210] the church's Jewish backdrop should be central to understanding Christianity, the approach clearly requires careful methodological consideration. In light of these issues, this collection initially focuses upon methodologies used to determine the history of Judaism in the first centuries. With this methodological foundation in place, the main sections of the book illustrate the light Rabbinic literature—both law (Halakhah) and lore (Aggadah)—sheds on New Testament writings. Horbury's introductory overview, "The New Testament and Rabbinic Study—An Historical Sketch," is followed by these topical sections and articles: Methodology in Rabbinic Studies: Isaiah Gafni, "The Modern Study of Rabbinics and Historical Questions: The Tale of the Text"; Giuseppe Veltri, "From the Best Text to the Pragmatic Edition: On Editing Rabbinic Texts"; Günter Stemberger, "Dating Rabbinic Traditions"; Catherine Hezser, "Form Criticism of Rabbinic Literature"; and Roland Deines, "The Social Profile of the Pharisees." Halakhah: Peter J. Tomson, "Halakhah in the New Testament: A Research Overview"; Lutz Doering, "Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels"; Friedrich Avemarie, "Jesus and Purity"; Thomas Kazen, "Jesus, Scripture and Paradosis: Response to Friedrich Avemarie"; and Peter J. Tomson, "Divorce Halakhah in Paul and the Jesus Tradition." Midrash: Jan Joosten and Menahem Kister, "The New Testament and Rabbinic Hebrew"; Menahem Kister, "'First Adam' and 'Second Adam' in 1 Cor 15:45-49 in the Light of Midrashic Exegesis and Hebrew Usage"; and Miguel Pérez Fernandez, "Midrash and the New Testament: A Methodology for the Study of Gospel Midrash." Other Materials: Martin McNamara, " Targum and the New Testament: A Revisit"; and Crispin Fletcher-Louis, "Jewish Mysticism, the New Testament and Rabbinic-Period Mysticism." The section on methodology sets out how Rabbinic writings can be used for historical study. What sort of history is revealed by the Rabbinic literature (Gafni)? No one today takes at face value the much later Rabbinic texts' claims for events that happened hundreds of years earlier. Still, Gafni notes the general chronological and geographical consistency apparent throughout the Rabbinic literature as well as the many hard-to-account-for parallels between later Rabbinic texts and the much earlier writing of Josephus and the New Testament. This means, for Gafni, that, beyond reflecting on the history and ideology of this literature's own authors and redactors, Rabbinic documents also may at points be useful as evidence for historical events that occurred long before their redaction. While the question of how much we can know remains [End Page 211] hotly debated, important in this section is the setting out of specific approaches to writing the history that must be teased out of the Rabbinic texts. The extent to which Jesus observed, and the New Testament represents, Halakhah as it was set out by the rabbis takes up the next section. Of...

The Book of Job in Medieval Jewish Philosophy, by Robert Eisen. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 324 pp. $60.00. This is a good idea for a book, and it is well executed throughout. Eisen takes six thinkers, some very well known, others less so, and examines their views on the enigmatic Book of Job. The thinkers are Saadya Gaon, Maimonides (definitely the kingpin in terms of his influence on the whole exercise), Samuel ibn Tibbon, Zerahiah Hen, Gersonides, and Simon ben Zemah Duran. Readers will find things to disagree with on occasion in Eisen's analysis, but he is pretty close to these authors and has a shrewd grasp of where their main points are, and where their weaknesses are also. His main theme, and it is a valuable one, is that we should not strictly demarcate between philosophy and theology during this period. There has been a tendency to regard philosophers looking at a topic like suffering as though they were doing something entirely different from their theological peers, and yet they often have considerable light to throw on the Bible, despite (or perhaps due to) their philosophical approach. Eisen seeks to buttress this view with a brief examination of some modern thinkers on Job and how they relate to the medieval discussion. This chapter does not to my mind really come off; it is too short to establish its aim and does not have the space to convince the reader that the problematic today and in the past is the same. Eisen asks an interesting question in this book, but it seems to me that he offers the wrong reason for the right answer. The question is whether in understanding medieval theological issues it is helpful to examine at least some of the philosophical texts. The answer is surely that these texts often are very revealing of aspects of the Bible, even if they do not use traditional theological techniques to establish their conclusions. Eisen's conclusion is that philosophy and theology are nor so different after all, and both contain insights when used to examine the Bible. In the Middle Ages the idea that philosophy and theology are similar in approach would have been regarded with horror. Thinkers then spent a good deal of time sharply distinguishing between different forms of thought, and the boundaries between grammar, logic, philosophy, theology, law and so on were drawn so as to establish a wide chasm between all these different techniques. Indeed, it was taken to be the mark of an educated person to be able to distinguish between these different forms of thought. …

Medieval Jewish philosophers approached the human body and being in a body from various aspects: ontological, ethical, psychological, and eschatological. Thinkers from many different geographical and philosophical backgrounds nonetheless all shared a common point of reference: Judaism as an “embodied religion.” Jewish day-to-day practice (“mitzvot”) and Jewish law (“halakha”) have much to do with the regulation and moderation of the body, in this life as well as after the resurrection (if taken literally). This creates potential tension with the different philosophical and theological traditions many Jewish philosophers responded to. Passages from the writings of—among others—Saadya Gaon, Judah Halevi, Bahya ibn Paquda, Maimonides, and Abraham ibn Daud, are analyzed and assessed, exhibiting a wide scope of opinions and approaches, all of which have some affinity to the “embodiment” of the Jewish religion, which perhaps reduces the ontological distance between the realm of body and the realm of mind.

Reviewed by: Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature by Max K. Strassfeld Jordan D. Rosenblum Max K. Strassfeld. Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature. Oakland: University of California Press, 2022. 248 pp. Hardcover $95.00. ebook $95.00. ISBN-13: 9780520382053 In the past few decades, scholarship on rabbinic literature has benefited from the inclusion of more diverse voices and perspectives. This diversity—which is reflected both in the embodied humans who study these texts and traditions and in the inclusion of theories and methods from various other fields and disciplines—has allowed for new, dynamic, and impactful developments in the field. Max K. Strassfeld’s Trans Talmud adds to the emerging—and necessary—growth in diverse perspectives and voices in scholarship on rabbinics. Strassfeld draws on theories and methods from both trans and intersex history, as well as disability studies, in order to (re-)read rabbinic texts, and vice-versa. This dual reading, wherein rabbinics scholars learn from the theories and methods of trans, intersex, and disability studies, and scholars of trans, intersex, and disability studies learn from rabbinic texts, is a key feature of his book. Strassfeld (successfully, in my opinion) attempts to initiate a dialog and thus, in order to do so, makes sure to introduce texts and theories from various disciplines to the other. He does an excellent job of not [End Page 263] presuming knowledge of either ancient texts or modern theories on the part of the reader, and introduces them equally well to his various audiences. At the same time, Strassfeld is aware of the modern, embodied implications of both his scholarship and the world in which it is written. He un-apologetically speaks to his “trancestors” (see 195–196). Yet, he uses a deft touch to impart nuance to activism. For example, while acknowledging the subversive (and yet constructive) potential of a particular rabbinic text, he also cautions “I have no wish to buy queer subversion using androgynes as currency” (80). On several occasions, Strassfeld is explicit about his struggle to balance what can be competing goals of historical and activist scholarship. On numerous occasions, Strassfeld “embrace[s] a ‘bad’ or literal reading strategy” (165; also see e.g., 188) in order to trans a rabbinic text (more on the term “trans” below). These moments are often when Strassfeld makes his most important contributions. My one small criticism is that this is a missed opportunity. Strassfeld’s “bad” readings are in line with traditional practice for the text—that is to argue for a literal reading to advance a new reading is, after all, very rabbinic. Therefore, more focus might have been put on how his readings conform with conventional Talmudic and Midrashic exposition. That is, his most subversive readings are much more in line with rabbinic practice than might be at first apparent. In my opinion, reframing them in this way increases his contribution. Strassfeld’s “bad” readings are part of his strategy to “trans” rabbinic texts. For example, he notes: “I will embrace anachronism as part of embracing a ‘bad/trans’ reading strategy designed to acknowledge the particular ontologies that govern contemporary trans and intersex politics” (7). Strassfeld argues that transing rabbinic texts leads to readings that both elucidate the past and offer opportunities for the present (and future). One instance in which this strategy is especially effective is in Chapter 4 (“Transing the Eunuch: Kosher and Damaged Masculinity”), wherein he argues that “transing eunuchs and androgynes can mean noticing the ways in which they carry special burdens in rabbinic sources” (135). In this case, these burdens focus around “procreative failures” (135). This chapter is a good example of where Strassfeld takes texts often studied and offers insights that will benefit both scholars of rabbinic literature and modern trans, intersex, and disability studies. Strassfeld’s Trans Talmud is well written. In particular, he does a good job of not assuming knowledge on the part of the reader. As such, he defines key words and concepts both in the text and in footnotes clearly and succinctly. Trans Talmud is written both for scholars of rabbinic literature and those not familiar with the texts and history and therefore would...

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the fascination with the Book of Job as evidenced by the diverse body of interpretations throughout the ages from religious thinkers in Judaism and Christianity from late antiquity to modern academic scholars. It presents a background of medieval Jewish philosophy, and then reviews the major challenges that interpreters of Job have faced throughout the ages. The present study aims to go beyond providing a description of how medieval Jewish philosophers read the Book of Job by drawing much-needed attention to the exegetical literature in medieval Jewish philosophy in general. By analyzing how medieval Jewish philosophers interpreted the Book of Job, the exegesis of these thinkers is brought to light as an exciting chapter in the history of Jewish thought, which neither scholars of medieval Jewish philosophy nor scholars of medieval Jewish exegesis can afford to ignore. A proper examination of the commentaries chosen and an assessment of their significance both as philosophical and exegetical works require that these be discussed on a number of levels. For each commentary, the discussion will focus on three interfaces: between the commentaries and their antecedent sources, between the commentaries and the biblical text, and between the commentaries and the systematic thought of the medieval Jewish philosophers.

This article explores rabbinic traditions that see in the character of Joseph a figure of uncertain sexual orientation. I examine a series of rabbinic and biblical texts in which an unconventional gender dynamic may be present. While it is true that these biblical and rabbinic texts ran contrary to the normative ideational and behaviorally prescriptive traditions concerning sexuality presented by the main body of biblical and rabbinic texts, it is nonetheless true that the texts I examine invite readers to see an alternative dynamic through their stories. I will employ a variety of methodologies, including philological/critical scholarship, close literary reading, and queer theory, through which we might most profitably examine the interpretative traditions I consider.

This article explores rabbinic traditions that see in the character of Joseph a figure of uncertain sexual orientation. I examine a series of rabbinic and biblical texts in which an unconventional gender dynamic may be present. While it is true that these biblical and rabbinic texts ran contrary to the normative ideational and behaviorally prescriptive traditions concerning sexuality presented by the main body of biblical and rabbinic texts, it is nonetheless true that the texts I examine invite readers to see an alternative dynamic through their stories. I will employ a variety of methodologies, including philological/critical scholarship, close literary reading, and queer theory, through which we might most profitably examine the interpretative traditions I consider.

The Hebrew Bible contains two quite different divine personae. One is quick to anger and to exact punishment while the other is a compassionate God slow to anger and quick to forgive. One God distant, the other close by. This severe contrast posed a theological challenge for Jewish thought for the ages. This Element follows selected views in rabbinic literature, medieval Jewish philosophy, Jewish mystical thought, the Hasidic movement, modern Jewish theology, response to the Holocaust, and Jewish feminist theology. In the history of Jewish thought there was often a tendency to identify closely with the God of compassion.

This chapter describes the concepts of kavod, shekhinah, and created light. The term kavod occurs about a dozen times in the Torah in some sense or other of perceptible divine presence. Rabbinic literature tends to prefer the term shekhinah for what is apparently the same phenomenon. Heikhalot literature seems to place greater emphasis on kavod than on shekhinah, while later kabbalah does just the opposite, making shekhinah one of the sefirot — the ten hypostasized attributes or emanations by means of which the Infinite enters into relationship with the finite. Medieval Jewish philosophers such as Sa'adiah and Judah Halevi added a third term, ‘created light’, and took all three as synonyms. All of these literatures seem to agree on one thing: the terms kavod, shekhinah, and created light all denote something in the ‘real world’. The terms are not simply metaphors or descriptions of the internal state of an individual undergoing a religious experience. However, it is precisely in such a fashion that Maimonides understood the terms. Maimonides' ‘non-ontological’ view of the terms kavod, shekhinah, and created light is part and parcel of his campaign against proto-kabbalistic elements in Judaism.

INTRODUCTION The question whether God exists and what his attributes are is not a philosophical concern in either the Hebrew Bible or in the classical rabbinic texts from the Mishnah to the Talmud. To be sure, the Bible includes texts bearing witness to a deep crisis of the conception of a providential God interacting with human beings, most importantly the books of Job and Ecclesiastes. It even reports that “the fool says in his heart: ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). Whereas the Athenian in Plato’s Laws responds to such a denial with the first extant proof for the existence of the Divine, no such attempt is recorded in the Bible however. Passages abound, moreover, which taken literally contradict crucial features of the conception of God held by medieval Jewish philosophers – God’s incorporeality, for example, or God’s internal unity. Jewish philosophical discussions of God usually arise at those intellectual intersections where natural theology – starting with the speculations of the pre-Socratics about the archē of nature – encounters the representations of God contained in the Jewish sources. It is important to stress that this encounter would be decidedly misconstrued as an encounter between the God of philosophy and the God of religion. Aristotle, for example, takes both the worship and the contemplation of God to be the highest human good. Conversely, for Jewish philosophers like Philo of Alexandria in late antiquity, Maimonides in the Middle Ages, and Spinoza in the early-modern period, the ideal of philosophy and the ideal of religion coincide in the intellectual love of God, much of which consists in reflecting on the issues discussed in the present chapter.

The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature, edited by Shaye J. D. Cohen. BJS 326. Providence: Brown University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 167. $60.00. Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture, by Jeffrey Rubenstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Pp. xvi + 436. $55.00. Shaye Cohen's edited volume The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature and Jeffrey Rubenstein's Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture are major contributions to the field of rabbinics, the former for its explicit attempt to deal with methodological issues pertaining to the study of this literature, the latter for the ways in which it analyzes several notable rabbinic stories in a fresh and detailed manner. While prima facie these works are different in terms of style and scholarly agenda, each nonetheless deals with the question of the extent to which rabbinic literature can be used to enhance our understanding of the rabbis, and of Palestinian and Babylonian Jews of late antiquity. The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature comprises six papers given at a small conference held at Brown University in 1998. Topics included the relationship of the Mishnah to the Tosefta, the relationship of these texts to Tannaitic midrashim and beraitot, the relationship of the Bavli (Babylonian Talmud) to the Yerushalmi (Palestinian Talmud), the relationship of the Talmuds to both the Tosefta and the Tannaitic midrashim, and the relationship of the Yerushalmi to Genesis Rabbah, Leviticus Rabbah, and Lamentations Rabbah. Given the caliber of the participants, undoubtedly this was an intellectual feast for those interested in current trends in rabbinic scholarship. While the collection covers a variety of topics and raises many methodological issues, its cohesion lies in its attempt to debunk the documentary hypothesis. As Robert Goldenberg refers to it, the Documentary Premise, espoused by Jacob Neusner, is an approach to rabbinic documents that treats rabbinic texts only on the redactional level with no serious regard for either earlier sources found within a work, or for similar sources found in other compilations. Each document must be understood on its own terms and as such tells us a great deal about the redactor of the compilation. That is to say, documents such as the Mishnah, Genesis Rabbah, the Tosefta, or the Yerushalmi are discrete works that attest to the coherent Weltanschauung of their respective redactors who intentionally shape their sources accordingly. Indeed, as Shaye Cohen avers, Much of ancient rabbinic literature is as synoptic as Matthew, Mark, and Luke; because of their extensive parallels in structure, content, and wording, rabbinic texts should be `seen together (p. vii). It should be noted, however, that the synoptic problem in rabbinic literature is in many respects more complex and unwieldy than in the Gospels. While the Synoptic Gospels are more or less contemporaneous, rabbinic literature spans several centuries. In this instance, the synoptic problem does not deal with three Gospels, a commonly recognized Q source and two other putative sources, but rather it involves numerous iterations of similar stories, sayings and dicta in more than one corpus (for that matter in more than one type of corpus), which, depending on the corpus itself, could very well have undergone several layers of redaction. Cohen's collection of essays, despite lacking a synthesizing conclusion, offers the reader access into the complicated nature of the synoptic problem in rabbinic literature. Each of the six chapters merits a more detailed treatment than space allows. With this in mind, I will discuss briefly the main thrust of each paper and occasionally will make some general observations. In the first paper of the series, Robert Goldenberg sets the stage for the ensuing engagement with and criticism of Neusner's documentarian approach, which he considers a deeply problematic stance. …

This chapter describes the extensive work of medieval Jewish philosophy. It survives in fragmentary form in a single manuscript. The chapter focuses exclusively upon distinct colorings, which set this work apart from any other writing of the medieval period that the author has seen. It deals with two issues that combine to define the authors theological orientation: panentheism and a polemic against dualism. The chapter dwells longest on the second of these, mainly because it offers the most promising leads for locating treatise in historical context. The author's discussion of astronomical matters, much like his treatment of the one as well as other issues that must be left out of the chapter, is reminiscent of Levi ben Gersom. His long discourse on the notion of unity, and his quest to uphold the one, transcendent, creator God, leads him to investigate the subject of motion. Keywords: anti-dualistic polemic; astronomy; medieval jewish philosophy; panentheism

Reviewed by: The Stranger Within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature Leonard Victor Rutgers Gary G. Porton. The Stranger Within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature. Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Pp. xiii + 410. $29.95. Conversion to Judaism is a topic that has traditionally attracted a great deal of scholarly attention. In the first chapter of this fundamentally important book on converts and conversion in rabbinic literature, Gary Porton points out how his work differs from previous scholarship on this topic. Porton is not primarily [End Page 109] interested in converts, but rather in how the rabbis viewed them. In addition, Porton’s book is structured in such a way as to drive home an important methodological point: rabbinic texts on converts and conversion must be evaluated separately and on their own terms before they can be fitted into a larger, more general history of conversion. That such an approach leads to insights that differ radically from commonly held views on conversion to Judaism may be evident. For example, where earlier scholars maintained that a standard conversion ceremony had come into existence in Jewish circles as early as the first or second century c.e., Porton’s meticulous analysis of the rabbinic materials now shows that such ceremonies do not predate the late ancient-early medieval period, and that even by this time not all rabbis agreed as to what rites should be performed to make such a ceremony into an acceptable and religiously valid one. Porton’s book divides into four parts. Chapter 1 addresses methodological issues, offers a review of previous scholarship, and briefly describes a view that, as Porton shows in subsequent chapters, stands at the basis of rabbinic discussions of conversion, namely the concept that the People of Israel formed, at one and the same time, an ethnic group and a religious community. In chapters 2 through 6 Porton offers an descriptive-analytical survey of virtually every passage in rabbinic literature that bears on converts and conversion. Porton examines such passages within the larger literary context in which they appear. Furthermore, Porton treats rabbinic discussions of conversion according to the collection of texts in which such disussions have been included. Thus in chapter 2 Porton presents evidence from the Mishnah, in chapter 3 references contained in the Tosefta, and in chapter 4 the material that has been preserved in early Midrashim including Sifra, Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael, Sifré Numbers, and Sifré Deuteronomy. Chapters 5 and 6 contain, finally, a comprehensive survey of references to converts and conversion that have been transmitted in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. These five chapters are important not only because of the wealth of evidence they contain, but also because they show that not every passage in rabbinic literature that refers to converts deals with the phenomenon of conversion as such. Porton points out that next to passages that focus on conversions specifically, other passages refer to converts only in the context of discussions that have little to do with conversion at all (such as discussions of what should happen to someone’s property when he or she dies without leaving a heir). Thus, in rabbinic literature converts are not infrequently mentioned only to help refine rabbinic ideas and doctrines on issues where conversion as such is not at stake. In chapters 7 through 10 Porton turns from a text-critical and contextual analysis of individual texts to a thematical and more comprehensive discussion of issues such as the conversion ritual (chapter 7), marriages between converts and Israelites (chapter 8), “converts as newborn children” (chapter 9), and “converts and the Israelite way of life” (chapter 10). While such a presentation of the evidence inevitably leads to repetitions (Porton is obligated to cite many of the passages discussed earlier in the descriptive-analytical chapters), this way of treating rabbinic passages on conversion has several advantages. Among other [End Page 110] things, Porton is able to show that rabbinic ideas on conversions were not static, but rather that they evolved over time. Comparably, on the basis of a comprehensive discussion of the data Porton succeeds in documenting the extent to which...

»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495