Thus, in fifteenth century Italy and Spain there came into being what we may call a "Hebrew Scholasticism": Jewish authors composed philosophical treatises in which they discussed the same questions and used the same methods as contemporary Christian Schoolmen. These thinkers were not simply influenced by Scholasticism: they were real Schoolmen who tried to participate (in a different language) in the philosophical debate of contemporary Europe. A history of "Hebrew Scholasticism" in the fifteenth century is yet to be written. Most of the sources themselves remain unpublished, and their contents and relationship to Latin sources have not yet been studied in detail. What is needed is to present, edit, translate and comment on some of the most significant texts of "Hebrew Scholasticism", so that scholars can attain a more precise idea of its extent and character. This book aims to respond to this need.

In Beyond Faith: Belief, Morality and Memory in a Fifteenth-Century Judeo-Iberian Manuscript, Michelle M. Hamilton sheds light on the concerns of Jewish and converso readers of the generation before the Expulsion. Using a mid-fifteenth-century collection of Iberian vernacular literary, philosophical and religious texts (MS Parm. 2666) recorded in Hebrew characters as a lens, Hamilton explores how its compiler or compilers were forging a particular form of personal, individual religious belief, based not only on the Judeo-Andalusi philosophical tradition of medieval Iberia, but also on the Latinate humanism of late 14th and early 15th-century Europe. The form/s such expressions take reveal the contingent and specific engagement of learned Iberian Jews and conversos with the larger Iberian, European and Arab Mediterranean cultures of the 15th-century.

Provides the first comprehensive overview by world-renowned experts of what we know today of medieval Jews' engagement with the sciences.

This Handbook shows the links between medieval and contemporary philosophy. Topic-based essays on all areas of philosophy explore this relationship and introduce the main themes of medieval philosophy. They are preceded by the fullest chronological survey now available of the different traditions: Latin and Greek, Islamic and Jewish.

This two-volume work, Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies sheds new light on an under-investigated phenomenon of European medieval intellectual history: the transmission of knowledge and texts from Latin into Hebrew between the twelfth and the fifteenth century. Because medieval Jewish philosophy and science in Christian Europe drew mostly on Hebrew translations from Arabic, the significance of the input from the Christian majority culture has been neglected. Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies redresses the balance. It highlights the various phases of Latin-into-Hebrew translations and considers their disparity in time, place, and motivations. Special emphasis is put on the singular role of the translations of Latin medical and philosophical literature. Volume One: Studies, offers 18 studies and Volume Two: Texts in Contexts, includes editions and analyses of hitherto unpublished texts of medieval Latin-into-Hebrew translations. Both volumes are available separately or together as a set. This groundbreaking work is indispensable for any scholar interested in the history of medieval philosophic and scientific thought in Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic in relationship to the vicissitudes of Jewish-Christian relations.

“This well-written, accessible [essay] collection demonstrates a maturation in Jewish studies and medieval philosophy” (Choice). Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for example, and made conscious efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced.