Language:
English
Year of publication:
2020
Titel der Quelle:
The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2020) 105-131
Keywords:
Maimonides, Moses, Criticism and interpretation
Abstract:
Lauded in both the synagogue and the academy, Moses Maimonides remains the most influential philosopher to have emerged out of the Jewish tradition. Yet his radical conception of God’s unity and incorporeality informs a thoroughgoing rationalist reinterpretation of the language of Scripture that might be thought to denude God of his personal qualities. Framed around the first 5 of Maimonides' 13 principles of faith, we examine in this chapter Maimonides' views on God's unity and incorporeality, and the theory of divine attributes at the root of his radical biblical hermeneutic, explaining how, despite some pragmatic concessions to human frailty, Maimonides presents a biblical God who might easily be mistaken (though mistake it may not be) for the more rarefied and abstract God of Aristotle. In conclusion, we discuss, how in the face of such a view, Maimonides can nonetheless maintain a commitment to religious worship.
DOI:
10.1017/9781108233705.006
URL:
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