Sages’ words literally, unquestioningly accept these fantastic tales. When
it suits him, Maimonides plunges into elaborate interpretations showing
that these mythical sayings are in fact parables that conceal profound
truths, and that they, just like the parables of the Bible, must not be
taken at their face value.^151
Unlike the Bible, however, where Maimonides is committed to inter-
pret every single diffi culty and render it acceptable to reason, in the case
of the Sages’ sayings Maimonides retains the option to bail out. The Sages,
sage as they were, were human beings and thus fallible. Furthermore,
they were not prophets, whose words are sanctioned by revelation. The
option to reject what the Sages say remains therefore open and this is
the option chosen at times by Maimonides.
In a Hebrew responsum to Rabbi Phinehas, regarding the denizens of
Noah’s ark (yotzei teva), he thus says:
All these things are legends (divrei haggada), and in what pertains to
legends one should not attempt a rational examination....^152 Each
person contemplates the [scriptural] verse according to that which
he sees in the verse. [Such ruminations] do not contain [anything
sanctioned] by tradition, nor commands and prohibitions, nor any
legal matter, and therefore there is no room there for rational ex-
amination. Now you may say, as many do: “What, do you call
things written in the Talmud ‘legends?’ ” [I say]: Yes I do! The con-
tent of these things, and what ever belongs to this category, defi nes
them as legends, regardless of where they are written, whether it is
in the Talmud, or in homiletics writings, or in books of legends.^153This terse text reveals Maimonides’ complex attitude to authoritative
texts that record what he regards as sheer nonsense. In his attempts to
isolate such rec ords and to strip them of their sanctity, he treads carefully,
so as not to jeopardize the authority of the text as a whole.
Some pre cedents for this careful approach are to be found in the writ-
ings of earlier Jewish thinkers. Saadya Gaon, for example, presents at the
end of his discussion of the resurrection a series of questions regarding
therealia of resurrection: Will those resurrected require food and drink?
Will they rise dressed or naked? Will they get married? Will each per-
son fi nd his erstwhile wife, or does death annul matrimonial ties? In his
response, Saadya paraphrases the Talmudic response to the question
(^151) See, for instance, Guide 2.26.
(^152) Literally: “one does not ask” (ein maqshin), meaning, it is not fi tting to present the kind
of questions that one asks when trying to reconcile a text with reason.
(^153) Epistles, 461.