Prophecy The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy »

Medieval Jewish philosophers took the divine nature of prophecy as an established reality, yet strove to understand it in as human a way as possible. Kreisel (Ben Gurion U. of the Negev, Israel) separately examines five of the major texts on prophecy, summarizing and commenting on each. The works explored are Gaon's Book of Beliefs and Opinion, Halevi's Book of the Kuzari, Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed, ben Gershom's Wars of the Lord and Crescas' Light of the Lord. In addition Albo's Book of Principles and Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus are included in the discussion despite the fact that they fall outside the spectrum of the other works. Kreisel argues that there is nothing definitive in the story he tells, but hopes that the many "faces" of the topic will be of interest to the reader, just as Jewish philosophers argued that the Torah had many faces worthy of examination.

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