Dönitz, Saskia

Senior Fellow: October 2021–February 2022

Research Project: Scepticism in Biblical Exegesis—The Reaction to Maimonides among Medieval Jewish Exegetes in the Fourteenth Century

The Guide for the Perplexed, written by Maimonides towards the end of the twelfth century, introduced a radical new reading of the Bible. The application of Aristotelian hermeneutic attitudes and philosophical notions to the Holy Scripture raised a vivid debate among Jewish scholars in both East and West. The translation of Greek philosophy in Arabic garb into Hebrew opened a new chapter in the intellectual history of the Jews in the Middle Ages. But this new material also encountered a broad range of scepticism, sometimes resulting in complete rejection. The waves of the Maimonidean controversies eventuated fierce attacks on Maimonides and his writings. In the thirteenth century, during the first, second, and third controversies, there was resistance to the Great Eagle and his methodology. By the fourteenth century, however, some of the basic Maimonidean assumptions had already penetrated into exegetical attitudes to the Bible. Nevertheless, several of Maimonides’s notions were still disputed. The ambiguity of the statements in the Guide facilitated the use of his arguments in more than one direction, pro as well as contra. The exegetes of the fourteenth century, such as Gersonides, Joseph Kaspi, Judah Romano, Shemarya ha-Iqriti, and others, discussed Maimonides’s notions in a more moderate manner. The process of the adaptation and reception of the sciences into Judaism resulted in the diversification of cultural phenomena: mysticism and Kabbalah, critical philosophical exegesis, and a complete rejection or ignorance of science and philosophy (as in Northern France and Ashkenaz). These same directions can be found among Jewish exegetes in the West as well as in the East; that is, in Byzantium, Palestine, and Egypt.

The project to be carried out at the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies will focus on the sceptical reception of Maimonides in biblical exegesis in Italy and Byzantium in the fourteenth century, with special attention to the subject of creation. In both geographical areas, discussions of Maimonides were characterised by the intellectual context in which the Jewish scholars found themselves. In Italy, the intellectual atmosphere was heavily infused with Scholasticism. The role of the Karaites and their relation to the Rabbanites will be addressed when asking how Maimonides was read and received by Jewish exegetes in the Byzantine Empire (which is still a neglected field of research). Moreover, the relations between Italy and Byzantium will be taken into account, considering the change brought upon the East in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. As a consequence, the stream of knowledge increased and more “Western” literature was received in Byzantium. The reactions to the Maimonidean enterprise and their implications for Bible commentaries will be examined in the context of the exegetical debates held among Jews within the Mediterranean scholarly network as an example of the transfer of knowledge from West to East and vice versa.

Saskia Dönitz is a research associate at the Institute of Judaic Studies at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Germany.