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In this innovative intellectual biography, Oded Yisraeli offers an unprecedented, comprehensive portrait of Rabbi Moses b. Nahman, or Nahmanides (1194ca. 1270), one of the greatest Jewish thinkers and writers of the Middle Ages. Nahmanides' creative energy spanned his long life, covering diverse fields—Talmudic and halakhic exegesis, biblical commentary, Kabbalah, homiletics, polemics, and poetry—that have all individually been the object of extensive scholarly study. This book brings the many facets of Nahmanides' work together, and breaks new ground by relating the circumstances of his life to the long arc of his intellectual career.
Yisraeli examines Nahmanides' oeuvre in light of his time and place, reading his writings as a discourse with both movements within the Jewish world of his day and the lively scholasticism of thirteenth-century Western Europe. He takes account of changes over time both in the religious world around Nahmanides, and in his doctrine throughout his career, raising new questions about Nahmanides' work and the influences on his thought. Rooted in deep historical research and attention to social context, this book offers a new historical and biographical perspective that illuminates Nahmanides' religious and intellectual world.
"Refusing to reduce his perspective on Nahmanides—talmudist, polemicist, poet, community leader, exegete, and kabbalist—to one discipline or another, Yisraeli portrays a figure who leads, explores, and changes course over a remarkable lifetime. The most important rabbi of the thirteenth century, Nahmanides has finally gotten his biographical due."—Joel Hecker, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College
"Yisraeli writes with complexity yet with clarity, guiding the reader through dense texts. The emphasis on creating abiographical portrait gives the book the coherence needed to be an important analysis of acritical figure in Judaism's intellectual tradition." —Jonathan Fass, Jewish Book Council
Introduction
1. Historical Context and Biographical Sketch
2. The Early Period: Talmudic and Halakhic Scholarship
3. In the Eye of the Storm: The Maimonidean Controversy and the Pivot to Theology
4. The Biblical Turn: Nahmanides's Scriptural Interpretation
5. Between Concealment and Disclosure: The Kabbalah of Nahmanides
6. Satisfying the Divine Need: Divine Service in Nahmanides's Thought
7. In the Thick of Jewish-Christian Polemics: The Barcelona Disputation and Nahmanides's Eschatology
8. Nahmanides in the Land of Israel: Continuity and Creativity
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index