166 CHAPTER SIX
(who had no qualms in rejecting the authenticity of several other works
generally attributed to Maimonides) goes beyond accepting its authentic-
ity. For him, the Treatise on Resurrection represents the quintessential
Maimonides; it is “the most personal of Maimonides’ works,” which
“goes to the heart of his innermost beliefs.”^45
The heated debate that led Maimonides to compose this work is some-
times called “the fi rst Maimonidean controversy.” At the core of the
controversy stood Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. Maimonides’ opponents
criticized him for having composed such a book, as well as for various
specifi c halakhic points discussed in it. The sharpest criticism, however,
was leveled against Maimonides because of his supposed denial of the
resurrection of the dead. In his Commentary on the Mishnah Maimo-
nides had listed the belief in the resurrection among the thirteen articles
of faith that are central to Judaism. His detractors, however, blamed him
for not mentioning this article of faith in the Mishneh Torah, or for play-
ing it down, or for treating the resurrection as a mere meta phor; in either
case, his attitude to the resurrection was taken to be a grave assault on
the Jewish tradition.
Maimonides’Treatise on Resurrection is not a self- contained solilo-
quy. It represents his response to the extensive and protracted debate
on resurrection, and its signifi cance can be understood only when the
other pieces of the debate are fi tted together. The culmination of the
debate is recorded in three “essays,” published during a relatively short
period (within about a year of each other, around 1191): a treatise by
the Gaon Samuel ben Eli, titled Treatise on Resurrection (Maqala fi
teh.iyyat ha- metı ̄m);^46 a treatise by Joseph Ibn Shimon, entitled the Si-
lencing Epistle on the Resurrection of the Dead (Risalat al- iskat fi
hashr al- amwat);^47 and Maimonides’ treatise, bearing the same title as
the Gaon’s.^48
One should fi rst of all note that the discovery and publication of the
two other components of the triad defi nitively puts to rest the idea of a
misattribution of the Treatise on Resurrection to Maimonides. Joseph’s
Silencing Epistle quotes the Gaon’s Treatise on Resurrection whereas
Maimonides’Treatise on Resurrection shows his familiarity with the two
(^45) Davidson, Moses Maimonides, 510.
(^46) Only a medieval Hebrew translation of this text is extant; see Y. T. Langermann, “A
New Codex of Medieval Jewish Philosophy” Kiryat Sefer 64 (1992– 93): 1427– 32 [He-
brew]; Idem, “Samuel ben Eli’s Epistle on Resurrection,” 66– 82.
(^47) Preserved in two incomplete Judaeo- Arabic manuscripts, as well as in a medieval Hebrew
translation; see Stroumsa, The Beginnings of the Maimonidean Controversy.
(^48) The Arabic text was edited and translated by J. Finkel, PAAJR 9 (1939); see also Epis-
tles, 319– 38; “The Essay on Resurrection,” in Halkin and Hartmann, Crisis and Leader-
ship, 211– 31.