HUMA1010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Fustat, Ayyubid Dynasty, Apophatic Theology
28 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Maimonides in an Islamic World
Born c. 1135 in Cordova, Spain, d. 1204
•
“From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses.”
•
• Died in Fustat, Egypt (just south of Cairo). It is thought his tomb is now in Tiberias on the Sea
of Galilee.
• Almohad invasion 1148 “no synagogue, no church”
• In general Jews found it more tolerant under Islam than
under Christianity during this time.
• Maimonides’ family flee, wander and end up in Cairo, Egypt
• He eventually becomes court physician in Cairo
• Cairo founded by Fatimid Caliphate, 10th C. (Shia)
The Ayyubid’s (Sunni) invited in to fight off crusaders in
1160 (Muslims control Jerusalem since 638, Pope Urban II calls for crusade in 1095, forced jewish
conversion, a series of campaigns through 1295, 1251 ghettos and dress for Jews, 1306 all Jews
expelled from France)
•
Saladin (Sunni) appointed vizier and ends up as Sultan
•
He realigns the Fatimid empire with the Abbasids in Baghdad
•
Outwardly Islamic (writes in Judeo-Arabic)
•
Sees Averroes (1126-1198) as most reliable commentator of
Aristotle
• Contra Al Ghazali (1058-1111)
•
Critical of Speculative Theology in Islam (Kalam)
•
• World is not amenable to rational analysis because God
can do whatever he wants
• Like Averroes, Maimonides finds this problematic
because it means the world is not intelligible
Maimonides is looking for a way to make sense of the physical world and the Hebrew bible together
• How do you live as a Jewish person in an Islamic world?
Moses, an ideal of human perfection revelation, Torah
•
Aristotle, an ideal beyond the Torah
•
KEY SOURCES
Primary Sources:
Guide of the Perplexed, Chicago Press edition has an introduction by Schlomo Pines that
is widely regarded.
1.
Mishneh Torah (Review of the Torah)
2.
Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader 3.
Secondary Sources:
Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought, Princeton Press. 1.
Isador Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides; Cf.
Studies in Maimonides
2.
Kenneth Seeskin, The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides 3.
Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, Cambridge Companion to
Medieval Jewish Philosophy
4.
Torah, Talmud and Temple
Torah
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
•
613 Commandments (halakhah) (p. 79)
•
Deeds of lovingkindness (mitzvot)
•
Embody justice and mercy
•
Putting the world back together, repairing the world
(tikkun olam)
•
Talmud
Oral Torah
•
Mishnah of Hillel and Shammai (Tannaim - “those who study”)
•
1. agriculture, 2. sabbath and festivals, 3. women and
property, 4. civil and criminal law, 5. laws of conduct for cultic ritual and temple, and 6.
rules for maintaining cultic purity
•
Talmud = Mishnah + Gemara (Amoraim “those who interpret”) (p. 98)
•
6th century codification (conversation lives on)
•
Temple
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to
them or worship them.” -Exodus 20.4-6
Maimonides via Negativa
Please read the first two pages of the Guide of the Perplexed excerpt linked in the course
materials for this week on Blackboard.
What is the purpose of the treatise?
•
Who is perplexed?
•
• Who is perplexed?
• Educated doubter who feels tension between
philosophy and religious teachings
• He wants to provide an alternative to
believing silly things
• What is Maimonides response?
• Reconcile the religious law with philosophical sciences
Guide of the Perplexed
How does Maimonides respond?
• Treats much of scripture as allegorical
Rethinks anthropomorphic Images of God as lordly master
•
Look for the inner truth of a text
•
Reconciles Mosaic Law and Abrahamic “God Most
High (El Elyon)” with the philosophy and science of his day (Gen 14.22)
•
Guide of the Perplexed
• Three parts
Introduces the justification for philosophizing
about religion and guide to understanding
irrational terms applied to deity in Bible
•
Discusses philosophical issues such as proofs
for the existence of God
•
Provides an exposition of esoteric biblical
passages
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via Negativa
Equivocal terms – a term with many meanings for different things with no likeness at all,
e.g. bat, lift, bread
•
Univocal terms – a term with one meaning which includes an essential reference to two
things, e.g. male, animal, existence???
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via negativa
Amphibolous terms – grammatically ambiguous, a term which applies to more than one
thing in an accidental manner and not essentially e.g. white (Guide, 1.56)
•
Aristotle’s accidents: quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation (or
position), action, and passion (being acted upon).
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via negativa
• “If Maimonides is right, there can be no plurality of faculties, moral dispositions, or essential
attributes in God. Even to say that God is all-knowing, all- powerful, and all-good is to introduce
plurality, if one means thereby that these qualities are separate attributes. The same is true if
we say that God is a composite of matter and form, genus and specific difference, or essence
and accident. All introduce plurality where none can be tolerated.” -
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/
Guide of the Perplexed • Via Negativa
Transcendence and the failure of language
•
Can’t say anything true about God positively
•
• It puts God on a par with us or other contingent things
• Interprets every reference to God in scripture as concealed negation
God is knowing? No, God is not ignorant
•
God is provident? No, the world is
providently ordered
•
“...Maimonides [follows] a long tradition of religious thinkers by comparing God to the sun. The
sun is hidden from us not because it emits no light but because it emits so much that, when we
try to look at it, we are dazzled by its intensity. By the same token, God is unknowable not
because the divine essence has no content but because it contains so much that we cannot
comprehend it.” - Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, p 101.
Ongoing interest:
Hermeneutics 1.
Negative theology in other traditions:
e.g. Pseudo Dionysius (5th-6th century)
2.
J. Derrida’s différance, deconstruction
and grammatology.
3.
Week 8: Maimonides
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
8:58 am
Maimonides in an Islamic World
Born c. 1135 in Cordova, Spain, d. 1204
•
“From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses.”
•
• Died in Fustat, Egypt (just south of Cairo). It is thought his tomb is now in Tiberias on the Sea
of Galilee.
• Almohad invasion 1148 “no synagogue, no church”
• In general Jews found it more tolerant under Islam than
under Christianity during this time.
• Maimonides’ family flee, wander and end up in Cairo, Egypt
• He eventually becomes court physician in Cairo
• Cairo founded by Fatimid Caliphate, 10th C. (Shia)
The Ayyubid’s (Sunni) invited in to fight off crusaders in
1160 (Muslims control Jerusalem since 638, Pope Urban II calls for crusade in 1095, forced jewish
conversion, a series of campaigns through 1295, 1251 ghettos and dress for Jews, 1306 all Jews
expelled from France)
•
Saladin (Sunni) appointed vizier and ends up as Sultan
•
He realigns the Fatimid empire with the Abbasids in Baghdad
•
Outwardly Islamic (writes in Judeo-Arabic)
•
Sees Averroes (1126-1198) as most reliable commentator of
Aristotle
• Contra Al Ghazali (1058-1111)
•
Critical of Speculative Theology in Islam (Kalam)
•
• World is not amenable to rational analysis because God
can do whatever he wants
• Like Averroes, Maimonides finds this problematic
because it means the world is not intelligible
Maimonides is looking for a way to make sense of the physical world and the Hebrew bible together
• How do you live as a Jewish person in an Islamic world?
Moses, an ideal of human perfection revelation, Torah
•
Aristotle, an ideal beyond the Torah
•
KEY SOURCES
Primary Sources:
Guide of the Perplexed, Chicago Press edition has an introduction by Schlomo Pines that
is widely regarded.
1.
Mishneh Torah (Review of the Torah)
2.
Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader 3.
Secondary Sources:
Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought, Princeton Press. 1.
Isador Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides; Cf.
Studies in Maimonides
2.
Kenneth Seeskin, The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides 3.
Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, Cambridge Companion to
Medieval Jewish Philosophy
4.
Torah, Talmud and Temple
Torah
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
•
613 Commandments (halakhah) (p. 79)
•
Deeds of lovingkindness (mitzvot)
•
Embody justice and mercy
•
Putting the world back together, repairing the world
(tikkun olam)
•
Talmud
Oral Torah
•
Mishnah of Hillel and Shammai (Tannaim - “those who study”)
•
1. agriculture, 2. sabbath and festivals, 3. women and
property, 4. civil and criminal law, 5. laws of conduct for cultic ritual and temple, and 6.
rules for maintaining cultic purity
•
Talmud = Mishnah + Gemara (Amoraim “those who interpret”) (p. 98)
•
6th century codification (conversation lives on)
•
Temple
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to
them or worship them.” -Exodus 20.4-6
Maimonides via Negativa
Please read the first two pages of the Guide of the Perplexed excerpt linked in the course
materials for this week on Blackboard.
What is the purpose of the treatise?
•
Who is perplexed?
•
• Who is perplexed?
• Educated doubter who feels tension between
philosophy and religious teachings
• He wants to provide an alternative to
believing silly things
• What is Maimonides response?
• Reconcile the religious law with philosophical sciences
Guide of the Perplexed
How does Maimonides respond?
• Treats much of scripture as allegorical
Rethinks anthropomorphic Images of God as lordly master
•
Look for the inner truth of a text
•
Reconciles Mosaic Law and Abrahamic “God Most
High (El Elyon)” with the philosophy and science of his day (Gen 14.22)
•
Guide of the Perplexed
• Three parts
Introduces the justification for philosophizing
about religion and guide to understanding
irrational terms applied to deity in Bible
•
Discusses philosophical issues such as proofs
for the existence of God
•
Provides an exposition of esoteric biblical
passages
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via Negativa
Equivocal terms – a term with many meanings for different things with no likeness at all,
e.g. bat, lift, bread
•
Univocal terms – a term with one meaning which includes an essential reference to two
things, e.g. male, animal, existence???
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via negativa
Amphibolous terms – grammatically ambiguous, a term which applies to more than one
thing in an accidental manner and not essentially e.g. white (Guide, 1.56)
•
Aristotle’s accidents: quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation (or
position), action, and passion (being acted upon).
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via negativa
• “If Maimonides is right, there can be no plurality of faculties, moral dispositions, or essential
attributes in God. Even to say that God is all-knowing, all- powerful, and all-good is to introduce
plurality, if one means thereby that these qualities are separate attributes. The same is true if
we say that God is a composite of matter and form, genus and specific difference, or essence
and accident. All introduce plurality where none can be tolerated.” -
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/
Guide of the Perplexed • Via Negativa
Transcendence and the failure of language
•
Can’t say anything true about God positively
•
• It puts God on a par with us or other contingent things
• Interprets every reference to God in scripture as concealed negation
God is knowing? No, God is not ignorant
•
God is provident? No, the world is
providently ordered
•
“...Maimonides [follows] a long tradition of religious thinkers by comparing God to the sun. The
sun is hidden from us not because it emits no light but because it emits so much that, when we
try to look at it, we are dazzled by its intensity. By the same token, God is unknowable not
because the divine essence has no content but because it contains so much that we cannot
comprehend it.” - Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, p 101.
Ongoing interest:
Hermeneutics 1.
Negative theology in other traditions:
e.g. Pseudo Dionysius (5th-6th century)
2.
J. Derrida’s différance, deconstruction
and grammatology.
3.
Week 8: Maimonides
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
8:58 am
Maimonides in an Islamic World
Born c. 1135 in Cordova, Spain, d. 1204
•
“From Moses to Moses there arose none like Moses.”
•
• Died in Fustat, Egypt (just south of Cairo). It is thought his tomb is now in Tiberias on the Sea
of Galilee.
• Almohad invasion 1148 “no synagogue, no church”
• In general Jews found it more tolerant under Islam than
under Christianity during this time.
• Maimonides’ family flee, wander and end up in Cairo, Egypt
• He eventually becomes court physician in Cairo
• Cairo founded by Fatimid Caliphate, 10th C. (Shia)
The Ayyubid’s (Sunni) invited in to fight off crusaders in
1160 (Muslims control Jerusalem since 638, Pope Urban II calls for crusade in 1095, forced jewish
conversion, a series of campaigns through 1295, 1251 ghettos and dress for Jews, 1306 all Jews
expelled from France)
•
Saladin (Sunni) appointed vizier and ends up as Sultan
•
He realigns the Fatimid empire with the Abbasids in Baghdad
•
Outwardly Islamic (writes in Judeo-Arabic)
•
Sees Averroes (1126-1198) as most reliable commentator of
Aristotle
• Contra Al Ghazali (1058-1111)
•
Critical of Speculative Theology in Islam (Kalam)
•
• World is not amenable to rational analysis because God
can do whatever he wants
• Like Averroes, Maimonides finds this problematic
because it means the world is not intelligible
Maimonides is looking for a way to make sense of the physical world and the Hebrew bible together
• How do you live as a Jewish person in an Islamic world?
Moses, an ideal of human perfection revelation, Torah
•
Aristotle, an ideal beyond the Torah
•
KEY SOURCES
Primary Sources:
Guide of the Perplexed, Chicago Press edition has an introduction by Schlomo Pines that
is widely regarded.
1.
Mishneh Torah (Review of the Torah)
2.
Isadore Twersky, A Maimonides Reader
3.
Secondary Sources:
Moshe Halbertal, Maimonides: Life and Thought, Princeton Press.
1.
Isador Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides; Cf.
Studies in Maimonides
2.
Kenneth Seeskin, The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides
3.
Daniel Frank and Oliver Leaman, Cambridge Companion to
Medieval Jewish Philosophy
4.
Torah, Talmud and Temple
Torah
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
•
613 Commandments (halakhah) (p. 79)
•
Deeds of lovingkindness (mitzvot)
•
Embody justice and mercy
•
Putting the world back together, repairing the world
(tikkun olam)
•
Talmud
Oral Torah
•
Mishnah of Hillel and Shammai (Tannaim - “those who study”)
•
1. agriculture, 2. sabbath and festivals, 3. women and
property, 4. civil and criminal law, 5. laws of conduct for cultic ritual and temple, and 6.
rules for maintaining cultic purity
•
Talmud = Mishnah + Gemara (Amoraim “those who interpret”) (p. 98)
•
6th century codification (conversation lives on)
•
Temple
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to
them or worship them.” -Exodus 20.4-6
Maimonides via Negativa
Please read the first two pages of the Guide of the Perplexed excerpt linked in the course
materials for this week on Blackboard.
What is the purpose of the treatise?
•
Who is perplexed?
•
• Who is perplexed?
• Educated doubter who feels tension between
philosophy and religious teachings
• He wants to provide an alternative to
believing silly things
• What is Maimonides response?
• Reconcile the religious law with philosophical sciences
Guide of the Perplexed
How does Maimonides respond?
• Treats much of scripture as allegorical
Rethinks anthropomorphic Images of God as lordly master
•
Look for the inner truth of a text
•
Reconciles Mosaic Law and Abrahamic “God Most
High (El Elyon)” with the philosophy and science of his day (Gen 14.22)
•
Guide of the Perplexed
• Three parts
Introduces the justification for philosophizing
about religion and guide to understanding
irrational terms applied to deity in Bible
•
Discusses philosophical issues such as proofs
for the existence of God
•
Provides an exposition of esoteric biblical
passages
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via Negativa
Equivocal terms – a term with many meanings for different things with no likeness at all,
e.g. bat, lift, bread
•
Univocal terms – a term with one meaning which includes an essential reference to two
things, e.g. male, animal, existence???
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via negativa
Amphibolous terms – grammatically ambiguous, a term which applies to more than one
thing in an accidental manner and not essentially e.g. white (Guide, 1.56)
•
Aristotle’s accidents: quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation (or
position), action, and passion (being acted upon).
•
Guide of the Perplexed • Via negativa
• “If Maimonides is right, there can be no plurality of faculties, moral dispositions, or essential
attributes in God. Even to say that God is all-knowing, all- powerful, and all-good is to introduce
plurality, if one means thereby that these qualities are separate attributes. The same is true if
we say that God is a composite of matter and form, genus and specific difference, or essence
and accident. All introduce plurality where none can be tolerated.” -
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/
Guide of the Perplexed • Via Negativa
Transcendence and the failure of language
•
Can’t say anything true about God positively
•
• It puts God on a par with us or other contingent things
• Interprets every reference to God in scripture as concealed negation
God is knowing? No, God is not ignorant
•
God is provident? No, the world is
providently ordered
•
“...Maimonides [follows] a long tradition of religious thinkers by comparing God to the sun. The
sun is hidden from us not because it emits no light but because it emits so much that, when we
try to look at it, we are dazzled by its intensity. By the same token, God is unknowable not
because the divine essence has no content but because it contains so much that we cannot
comprehend it.” - Cambridge Companion to Maimonides, p 101.
Ongoing interest:
Hermeneutics 1.
Negative theology in other traditions:
e.g. Pseudo Dionysius (5th-6th century)
2.
J. Derrida’s différance, deconstruction
and grammatology.
3.
Week 8: Maimonides
Wednesday, 26 April 2017 8:58 am
Document Summary
Born c. 1135 in cordova, spain, d. 1204. From moses to moses there arose none like moses. : died in fustat, egypt (just south of cairo). The ayyubid"s (sunni) invited in to fight off crusaders in. 1160 (muslims control jerusalem since 638, pope urban ii calls for crusade in 1 conversion, a series of campaigns through 1295, 1251 ghettos and dress for jew expelled from france) Saladin (sunni) appointed vizier and ends up as sultan. He realigns the fatimid empire with the abbasids in baghdad. Sees averroes (1126-1198) as most reliable commentator of. Critical of speculative theology in islam (kalam: world is not amenable to rational analysis because god can do whatever he wants, like averroes, maimonides finds this problematic because it means the world is not intelligible. Moses, an ideal of human perfection revelation, torah. Guide of the perplexed, chicago press edition has an introduction by schlomo is widely regarded.
