170 CHAPTER SIX
Jewish communities) had been corresponding with the Gaon as well as
with Maimonides, asking for clarifi cations regarding Maimonides’ posi-
tion on the resurrection of the dead, and receiving answers from both
leaders.^60 There were also several public oral discussions of this issue.
Maimonides mentions such a discussion that was held in Damascus, and
Joseph Ibn Shimon recounts a heated debate he had held with the Gaon
in Baghdad on the resurrection and on the soul’s immortality. In medi-
eval Arabic society, letters and public debates were standard, routine
mechanisms of intellectual exchange. The redaction of a formal epistle or
treatise, on the other hand, where the respective positions became fi xed
and were recorded in a systematic literary composition, represented a
different stage, often an escalation of the polemic.
In his treatise, the Gaon refers to the correspondence with the Jews of
Yemen, but as the immediate incentive for his decision to put pen to pa-
per he mentions a question presented to him by a group of Baghdadi
Jewish dignitaries. These people, he says, read what Maimonides had
written,^61 and they have asked the Gaon “to compose an Arabic treatise
on this subject, so that this should be understood by the elite as well as
the general public.”
The Gaon’s treatise comprises a potpourri of arguments. It contains
semi-philosophical arguments on the immortality of the soul, culled from
various philosophical and theological sources, but the only philosophical
source that he identifi es by name is Saadia Gaon. Most of the treatise,
however, is dedicated to the analysis of biblical verses as well as Talmu-
dic and Midrashic passages. These verses and passages are intended to
demonstrate in a defi nitive way that the resurrection of the dead is an
integral part of the reward in the hereafter, a reward in which the body
partakes as much as the soul.^62
The publication of the Gaon’s treatise did not remain unanswered. Jo-
seph Ibn Shimon, whose home was in Aleppo, was at the time residing in
Baghdad, whence he conducted his far- fl ung trade. He had participated
in the debates mentioned by the Gaon, and was confi dent that he had
(^60) The Yemenite correspondence with the Gaon was in Hebrew; the language of Maimo-
nides’ correspondence is not known to us.
(^61) The Gaon refers to a “composition” (hibbur) by Maimonides, which suggests the Mish-
neh Torah; he also mentions “chapters” (peraqim) in this composition, and “a treatise”
(maamar), which may indicate Maimonides’ Commentary on the Mishnah and the intro-
duction to Pereq Heleq. Maimonides himself mentions the criticism regarding the Mishneh
Torah (see Epistles, 293) as well as “their drivel” (al-jamjama allati yujamjimuha) regard-
ing the Commentary on the Mishnah (Epistles, 295).
(^62) For a summary of the Gaon’s position, see Stroumsa, “Twelfth- Century Concepts of
Soul and Body,” 317– 21; on the Gaon’s sources, see Langermann, “Samuel ben Eli’s Epistle
on Resurrection,” 54– 61.