Renaissance Philosophy in Jewish Garb: Foundations and Challenges in Judaism on the Eve of Modernity » (Supplement)

Giuseppe Veltri, is Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Halle-Wittenberg and Director of the Zunz Centre (Halle). He has published widely in the subjects of hermeneutics and philosophy including Magie und Halakha (1997), Gegenwart der Tradition (2002), Cultural Intermediaries (2004 with D. Ruderman); Libraries, Translation and "Canonic texts" (2006); The Jewish Body (2008, with M. Diemling).

Based on several years of research on Jewish intellectual life in the Renaissance, this book tries to distinguish the coordinates of “modernity” as premises of Jewish philosophy, and vice versa. In the first part, it is concerned with the foundations of Jewish philosophy, its nature as philosophical science and as wisdom. The second part is devoted to certain elements and challenges of the humanist and Renaissance period as reflected in Judaism: historical consciousness and the sciences, utopian tradition, the legal status of the Jews in Christian political tradition and in Jewish political thought, aesthetic concepts of the body and conversion.

Introduction In Search of a Jewish Renaissance 1

Ch. 1 Jewish Philosophy: Humanist Roots of a Contradiction in Terms 11

Ch. 2 The Prophetic-Poetic Dimension of Philosophy: The An' Poetica and Immanuel of Rome 39

Ch. 3 Leone Ebreo's Concept of Jewish Philosophy 60

Ch. 4 Conceptions of History: Azariah de' Rossi 73

Ch. 5 Scientific Thought and the Exegetical Mind, with an Essay on the Life and Works of Rabbi Judah Loew 97

Ch. 6 Mathematical and Biblical Exegesis: Jewish Sources of Athanasius Kircher's Musical Theory 129

Ch. 7 Creating Geographical and Political Utopias: The Ten Lost Tribes and the East 144

Ch. 8 Ceremonial Law: History of a Philosophical-Political Concept 169

Ch. 9 The City and the Ghetto: Simone Luzzatto and the Development of Jewish Political Thought 195

Ch. 10 Body of Conversion and Immortality of the Soul: Sara Copio Sullam, the "Beautiful Jewess" 226

Postface 249

Documentation Style, Transliteration, and References 253

Select Bibliography 255

Index 271