Language:
English
Year of publication:
2017
Titel der Quelle:
Hebrew Union College Annual
Angaben zur Quelle:
88 (2017) 159-202
Keywords:
Maimonides, Moses,
;
Abraham ben Moses ben Maimon,
;
Jewish philosophy
;
Jewish philosophy Middle Ages, 500-1500
Abstract:
The controversies sparked by Maimonides' writings occupy a key phase in the history of medieval Jewish thought and have accordingly attracted much scholarly attention since the dawn of modern Jewish historiography. Despite the many advances of recent scholarship, much of this attention has been devoted to the European arena to the relative neglect of the Near East. In addition, the Maimonidean controversies have been of interest to intellectual historians with little to no consideration of their broader social significance. This study addresses controversies over Maimonides' legacy in the Near East, with a focus on social and cultural developments in Egypt, the master's home for roughly four decades yet long overlooked by scholars. Maimonides' son and successor, Abraham, became a lightning rod for criticism of his father's writings and assumed the mantle of championing the Maimonidean legacy. Abraham was at the center of three prominent controversies in Egypt, including one that is well preserved in a thirteenth-century Egyptian treatise that remains unpublished and whose contents are little known to scholars. Each one of these controversies had ramifications in broader Jewish society, particularly in Egypt, well beyond the confines of intellectual debates over the fine points of Maimonidean doctrine. The third and final case, related to the Montpellier controversy of 1232–1233, reexamines both the evidence for the purported burnings of Maimonides' writings and the broader socio-economic context at stake in Abraham's carefully calibrated public response.
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