Jewish Concepts of Scripture

Concepts of Scripture in Maimonides 137

Notes

1. For a recent study of subsequent prominent Jewish philosophers, one in the
   seventeenth century and one in the twentieth, who seriously engaged the Bible in
   light of Maimonides’s interpretive legacy, see my “Maimonides, Spinoza, and Bu-
   ber Read the Hebrew Bible: Th e Hermeneutical Keys of Divine ‘Fire’ and ‘Spirit’
   (Ruach),” Journal of Religion 91, no. 3 (July 2011): 320 – 43.


2. For but one example see BT Sanhedrin 64b. Typically the two sides of the de-
   bate on whether the Torah speaks humanly are identifi ed with the tannaitic schools
   of R. Akiva and R. Ishmael. For Maimonides’s use of this expression, see Abraham
   Nuriel, “Th e Torah Speaks According to the Language of the Sons of Man” (Heb.),
   in M. Hallamish and A. Kasher, eds., Religion and Language: General and Jewish
   Philosophical Essays (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Pub. Projects, 1981), 97 – 103.


3. See Jay Harris’s discussion of this exegetical principle in chapter 2 of How Do
   We Kn o w Th is? Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism (Albany: SUNY
   Press, 1995)


4. All references to the Guide of the Perplexed are to S. Pines’s translation
   (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), cited as GP throughout the body of
   the chapter.


5. See the eighth and ninth principles in his Commentary to the Mishnah
   (Mishnah im Perush Rabbenu Mosheh ben Maimon), 6 vols., trans. Joseph Kafi h
   (Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-Rav Kook, 1965) (hereaft er CM), Sanhedrin, Perek Heleq.
   See also Mishneh Torah (MT), Laws of Megillah Reading, 2:18, where the Penta-
   teuch survives even the Messianic era. References to MT are to the Shabse Frankel
   edition, 12 vols. (Bnei Brak, Israel: Hotsaat Shabse Frankel, 1975 – 2001).


6. Th e perplexed person envisioned by the Guide of the Perplexed is confronted
   by a clash between Torah and science that appears to be resolvable only by a stark
   either/or choice of either “renounc[ing] the foundation of the Law” or “turning
   his back” on his intellect, bringing “loss to himself and harm to his religion” (GP,
   Intro., p. 6).


7. Howard Kreisel has also argued in favor of a Maimonidean relevance that
   survives an outdated metaphysics in the sense that his “holistic” enterprise of an
   integrated worldview which deems practical philosophy inseparable from theoreti-
   cal philosophy continues to challenge modern students of philosophy. See “Imita-
   tio Dei in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed,” AJS Review 19, no. 2 (1994): 169 –
   211, esp. 203 – 5.


8. See CM, introduction to the tenth chapter of m. Sanhedrin.


9. MT, Laws Concerning the Basic Principles of the Torah, 1:8.


10. Ibid., 1:12, alluding to Job 4:19.


11. MT, Laws of Kings, 12:5.


12. Ibid., 12:1.


13. MT, Laws of Idolatry, ch. 1.