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Maimonides, Moses: Middle Ages
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Moses Maimonides is regarded by many as the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. He lived during the 'Golden Age' of Spain in the twelfth century where Jews and Christians lived in peace under Muslim rule.
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Maimonides (1135-1204), or Moses ben Maimon, was the greatest Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. His commentaries on, and codification of, the rabbinic tradition established him as a major religious authority in Judaism.
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As a worthy legacy to the people for whom he has endured unparalleled hardships, Moses in his last days pronounces the three memorable discourses preserved in Deuteronomy. his chief utterance relates to a future Prophet, like to himself, whom the people are to receive. He then bursts forth into a sublime song of praise to Jahweh and adds prophetic blessings for each of the twelve tribes. From Mount Nebo -- on "the top of Phasga" -- Moses views for the last time the Promised Land, and then dies at the age of 120 years. He is buried "in the valley of Moab over against Phogor", but no man "knows his sepulchre". His memory has ever been one of "isolated grandeur". He is the type of Hebrew holiness, so far outshining other models that twelve centuries after his death, the Christ Whom he foreshadowed seemed eclipsed by him in the minds of the learned. It was, humanly speaking, an indispensable providence that represented him in the Transfiguration, side by side with Elias, and quite inferior to the incomparable Antitype whose coming he had predicted.
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Moses was the only child of this lady, who died shortly after his birth. His father lamented her demise for about a year, and then married again, several children being the result of this second union.
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This rationalsitic concept of revelation greatly influenced Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). In the second part of his "Jerusalem or on religious power and on Judaism" (1783), Mendelssohn, philosopher of European enlightenment, pupil of Leibniz-Wolff, holds that the faith of Judaism is identical with universal truth and that the metaphysical themes are common to all men and are universally true. He ... claims that divine legislation alone belongs to the sphere of revelation, whereas universal religious truth does not. Here he bases his philosophy, by and large, on the biblical-rabbinical Noachide theology according to which "the pious of all nations have a share in the world to come."(13) One of the main functions of Jewish legislation is to defend pure monotheism against the inroads of idolatry in it's various forms, because only monotheism can guarantee the eternal truths for the sake of mankind. These eternal truths can be achieved by intellectual endeavour. Judaism, according to Mendelssohn, fulfills all the criteria of reason, unlike Christianity with it's belief in incarnation.
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It is clear that Moses Maimonides was not only a great Jew but a great human being. It is the author’s distinct impression that the spirit of his works when combined with the spirit of the Kabbalah can be used to present Judaism’s best contribution to the emerging Aquarian Age.
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