Wisdom in Jewish Theology

2021 ◽  
pp. 240-254
Author(s):  
Jonathan Schofer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Analytic Treatment ◽  
Intimate Connection ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Philosophical Account ◽  
The Middle Ages

Two major strands articulating wisdom in Jewish theology appeared in the Middle Ages: the philosophical and the mystical. The greatest philosophical account of wisdom appears right at the end of The Guide for the Perplexed, by Maimonides. Maimonides offers an analytic treatment of verses from the book of Proverbs and uses of wisdom elsewhere in the Jewish Bible to set out wisdom as a distinct and valued human virtue. The greatest mystical treatment of wisdom appears in The Zohar, a tremendous Kabbalistic exposition of the Pentateuch. In The Zohar, wisdom is one of ten points of divine emanation called sefirot. Human attainment of wisdom requires ascetic and disciplined study of traditional Jewish sources, which brings intimate connection with divine emanation. In the eighteenth through twentieth centuries, new developments in Jewish thought brought renewed significance for wisdom in the writings of Hasidic Jewish leaders, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas.

scholarly journals Jewish philosophy as a Direction of the World philosophy of Modern and Contemporary Times

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-442
Author(s):  
I Dvorkin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Leo Strauss ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Marginal Part ◽  
The World ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
Jewish Philosophy

This article represents an analysis of the Jewish philosophy of the Modern and Contemporary as the holistic phenomenon. In contrast to antiquity and the Middle Ages, when philosophy was a rather marginal part of Jewish thought, in Modern Times Jewish philosophy is formed as a distinct part of the World philosophy. Despite the fact that representatives of Jewish philosophy wrote in different languages and actively participated in the different national schools of philosophy, their work has internal continuity and integrity. The article formulates the following five criteria for belonging to Jewish philosophy: belonging to philosophy itself; reliance on Jewish sources; the addressee of Jewish philosophy is an educated European; intellectual continuity (representatives of the Jewish philosophy of Modern and Contemporary Periods support each other, argue with each other and protect each other from possible attacks from other schools); working with a set of specific topics, such as monism, ethics and ontology, the significance of behavior and practical life, politics, the problem of man, intelligence, language and hermeneutics of the text, Athens and Jerusalem, dialogism. The article provides a list of the main authors who satisfy these criteria. The central ones can be considered Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza, Moshe Mendelssohn, Shlomo Maimon, German Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Josef Dov Soloveichik, Leo Strauss, Abraham Yehoshua Heshel, Eliezer Berkovich, Emil Fackenheim, Mordechai Kaplan, Emmanuel Levinas. The main conclusion of the article is that by the end of the 20th century Jewish philosophy, continuing both the traditions of classical European philosophy and Judaism, has become an important integral part of Western thought.

William Tyndale's Response to the Hebraic Tradition

1967 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
pp. 110-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dahlia M. Karpman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Nicholas Of Lyra ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Language Type ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Printing Presses

Christians of the Middle Ages did not respond favorably to Jewish thought; what they did learn with the assistance of prominent Jews, they used to develop a Christian typology. Apart from Nicholas of Lyra and Andrew of St. Victor, by and large commentators ignored the rabbinical discussions of the Bible. Intensive Hebraic scholarship had to await Renaissance philological techniques, printing presses, and the Reformation, before it came to full flower. The philological study of Hebrew by a grammarian such as Politian and the study of the Christian Cabala undertaken by men like Pico gave interest to this little-known language. Type faces were set up for Hebrew grammars, lexicons, and Bibles during the early development of printing. But it was the Reformation, with its emphasis on the two founts of religion—sola fidei, sola scriptura—which brought about the great dissemination of Hebrew learning.

Magic in the Middle Ages

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kieckhefer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Literature And Politics ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Science Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Material ◽  
Magical Beliefs ◽  
The Middle Ages

How was magic practiced in medieval times? How did it relate to the diverse beliefs and practices that characterized this fascinating period? This much revised and expanded new edition of Magic in the Middle Ages surveys the growth and development of magic in medieval Europe. It takes into account the extensive new developments in the history of medieval magic in recent years, featuring new material on angel magic, the archaeology of magic, and the magical efficacy of words and imagination. Richard Kieckhefer shows how magic represents a crossroads in medieval life and culture, examining its relationship and relevance to religion, science, philosophy, art, literature, and politics. In surveying the different types of magic that were used, the kinds of people who practiced magic, and the reasoning behind their beliefs, Kieckhefer shows how magic served as a point of contact between the popular and elite classes, how the reality of magical beliefs is reflected in the fiction of medieval literature, and how the persecution of magic and witchcraft led to changes in the law.

The Noetic Turn in Jewish Thought

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-57
Author(s):  
Dragoş A. Giulea
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Direct Vision ◽  
Apocalyptic Literature ◽  
Prophetic Literature ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Important Development ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
Everyday Knowledge ◽  
The Middle Ages

AbstractThe noetic turn—perhaps the most important development in Jewish theological discourse after that from prophetic literature to apocalypticism—denotes the translation of the biblical and particularly apocalyptic ontological and epistemological categories, generally conceived according to the norms and categories of everyday knowledge, into noetic categories. God, his throne, light, angels and heavens are re-conceived from a noetic perspective. Noetic perception takes the place of direct vision, hearing and dreams in apprehending the heavenly mysteries of the apocalyptic literature. The noetic turn introduces new ontological layers and degrees in heaven, new doctrines regarding the levels of divine concealment and manifestation and new theories about human epistemic capacities. This turn exerts a momentous influence on philosophically educated authors of Jewish and Christian cultures, on such classics as Philo, Clement, Origen, Halevi, Maimonides and Gersonides and many other thinkers of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

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