by Gersonides: Providence, Mosaic Prophecy, Miracles, the Messiah and Resurrection, Astronomy and Metaphysics, Politics and Perfection. It is not by chance that Menachem Kellner has devoted so much to the study of Gersonides. Like Gersonides, Kellner has firmly in hand the knowledge of the Bible and of the traditional literature of Judaism, he is well trained in philosophy and science, and his broad interests make him the best and most penetrating champion of a great philosopher and an outstanding student of human thought. Colette Sirat, directeur d'etudes a l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes Sorbonne et chercheur associe a l'Institut de Recherche et d'Histoire des Textes --Book Jacket.

David Gillis’s highly original study of Maimonides’ Mishneh torah demonstrates that its form reflects a belief that observance of the divine commandments of the Torah brings the individual and society into line with the cosmic order. He shows that the Mishneh torah is intended to be an object of contemplation as well as a prescription for action, with the study of it in itself bringing the reader closer to knowledge of God.

“This well-written, accessible [essay] collection demonstrates a maturation in Jewish studies and medieval philosophy” (Choice). Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for example, and made conscious efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced.

Menachem Kellner is an American-born scholar of Jewish philosophy, an educator, and a public intellectual who lives in Israel. For over three decades he taught at the University of Haifa, where he held the Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Chair of Jewish Religious Thought as well as several high-level administrative positions. Currently he teaches Jewish philosophy at Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college, which seeks to integrate Western and Jewish texts. Trained in ethics and political philosophy, Kellner specializes in medieval Jewish philosophy, arguing that Maimonides’ rationalist universalism should serve as the ideal for contemporary Jewish life. Creatively fusing Zionism, modern Orthodoxy, and democracy, his vision of Judaism is open to and engaged with the modern world.

"Shir ha-Shirim" -- Top of the title page.

Maimonides’ Mishneh torah presents not only a system of Jewish law, but also a system of values. This study focuses on the moral and philosophical meditations that close each volume of his code. The authors analyse these concluding passages to uncover the universalist outlook underlying Maimonides’ halakhic thought.

The articles of this volume present instantiations of the Hebrew Bible’s deployment in textual and visual forms by Iberian Jewish, Christian and converso exegetes, translators, philosophers, artists, and literary authors between the anti-Jewish riots of 1391 and the Expulsion of 1492.

Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed addressed Jews of his day who felt challenged by apparent contradictions between Torah and science. We Are Not Alone: A Maimonidean Theology of the Other uses Maimonides’ writings to address Jews of today who are perplexed by apparent contradictions between the morality of the Torah and their conviction that all human beings are created in the image of God and are the object of divine concern, that other religions have value, that genocide is never justified, and that slavery is evil. Individuals who choose to emphasize the moral and universalist elements of Jewish tradition can often find support in positions explicitly held by Maimonides or implied by his teachings. We Are Not Alone offers an ethical and universalist vision of traditionalist Judaism.

In Jewish Education from Antiquity to the Middle Ages fifteen scholars offer specialist studies on Jewish education from the areas of their expertise. This tightly themed volume in honour of Philip S. Alexander has some essays that look at individual manuscripts, some that consider larger literary corpora, and some that are more thematically organised. Jewish education has been addressed largely as a matter of the study house, the bet midrash. Here a richer range of texts and themes discloses a wide variety of activity in several spheres of Jewish life. In addition, some notable non-Jewish sources provide a wider context for the discourse than is often the case.

Over the centuries, the messianic tradition has provided the language through which modern Jewish philosophers, socialists, and Zionists envisioned a utopian future. Michael L. Morgan, Steven Weitzman, and an international group of leading scholars ask new questions and provide new ways of thinking about this enduring Jewish idea. Using the writings of Gershom Scholem, which ranged over the history of messianic belief and its conflicted role in the Jewish imagination, these essays put aside the boundaries that divide history from philosophy and religion to offer new perspectives on the role and relevance of messianism today.