Between Worlds: The Life and Thought of Rabbi David ben Judah Messer LeonIt is a work of sound scholarship dealing with an interesting historical figure and his unique cultural world. The author focuses correctly on the transition from Italian to Ottoman Jewish culture in the life of David Messer Leon and reveals much about the continuities and discontinuities between both societies. He nicely fuses social and intellectual history, and uses a life to illuminate a number of interesting and important cultural trends among early modern Jews, particularly the integration of kabbalah and philosophy, Humanism and Thomism. The presentation of the symbiotic nature of Jewish culture with contemporary intellectual trends and the appropriation of Christian theological strategies by a Jewish thinker to explain Judaism make this study a fascinating one. |
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Abraham Bibago according Alemanno Aquinas Aristotelian Aristotle Ashkenazic authority Averroës belief Bonfil Capsali cause Chapter Christian cited Commentary conception Constantinople creation Crescas culture David ben Judah defended discussion divine attributes divine revelation dogmas edited Emunah eternal existence fifteenth century Gersonides God's essence ha-Qore halakhah Hebrew History human reason humanists ibid ibn Shem Tov Idel intellectual interpretation Isaac Abravanel Isaac Arama Israel Italian Jews Jacob Jerusalem Jewish community Jewish Philosophy Jewish scholars Jewry Judah Messer Leon Kabbalah Kabbalistic knowledge Leon's Magen David Maimonidean Maimonides Medieval Jewish Medigo metaphysics miracles Moses Moses Capsali Muslim Naples nature Neoplatonic Ottoman Empire Padua perfection philoso Plato prophecy prophet rabbinic Judaism rational reason and faith religion religious Renaissance humanism Renaissance Italy rhetoric Romanyot Salonika scholastic secular Sefer Sefirot Sephardic Shevah ha-Nashim sixteenth Spain spiritual Talmud teachings Tehillah le-David theology things Thirteen Principles tion Torah tradition truths University Press Yehiel
References to this book
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy Daniel H. Frank,Oliver Leaman Limited preview - 2003 |