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Moses Ben Maimonides Research Paper

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Rabbi Moses ben Maimonides: Tackling Atheism
“From Moses to Moses, there arose none like Moses” is the great epitaph marking a grave in the city of Tiberius in the holy land. Moses Maimonides is regarded by many as the greatest Jewish philosopher ever, and his influence on the Jewish people approaches the influence of the first Moses (of the Torah or Old Testament). As a rabbi, Halachist, Physician, religious scholar, communal leader, and commentator on the art of medicine, his influence has spanned centuries and cultures. He was born Moshe ben Maimon, in March of 1138 in Cordoba Spain; in Hebrew he is known by the acronym of Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, Rambam, and to the world at large as “Maimonides”. He obtained a portion of his education from …show more content…

It is fourteen volumes of biblical and rabbinic law, coded and compiled; basically, it is the encyclopedia of Jewish law and tradition. His intention was to create a book that would guide Jews on how to behave in all situations just by reading the Torah and his code, without the extreme amount of time it takes to research everything to get through the Talmud. Before the Mishnah Torah, Jews needed to learn the entire Talmud in order to understand all of Jewish law, but such a task was very difficult because it was unorganized. Maimonides simply did all of the research and created a logical and systematic work of what was already being taught. His second most influential work, Guide of the Perplexed, used philosophical reasoning to argue that the Bible and Jewish faith did not conflict with Aristotle’s popular system of thought. At that time, there were a great many Jewish (and non-Jewish) people who were immersed in the Aristotelian philosophy, and Maimonides wrote this book to give the lost a rational underpinning for their faith. The gist of the guide is to demonstrate that all truth is one so that the Bible, containing the revealed work of God, has to be interpreted not to be in conflict but to be in harmony with reason. Maimonides first work was written in Arabic with Hebrew lettering to help people grasp the Mishnah. The commentary to the …show more content…

So many notions that Americans embrace emanate from Jewish history, tradition and culture: independence, individualism, fairness, decency, justice, charity and even several values on business practices. It has even been said the struggle of the ancient Hebrews against the Pharaoh came to embody the struggle of the colonist against English tyranny. The earliest legislation of the colonies of New England was all determined by Scripture, and the Hebrew Bible was seen as the original and pure source of Christian values; therefore that was the guide for all legalistic and ritualistic activities. The Bible even played a central role in the curriculum of all institutions of higher education with both Hebrew and Bible studies offered as required courses. Many of our earliest colleges even adopted some Hebrew word or phrase as part of their official emblem or seal. It is evident with the birth of American democracy, Jewish ethical ideas were legally enshrined into the laws of a non-Jewish nation. Isn’t it interesting that the Ten Commandments is a mix of laws that are the foundations of almost every legal system (murder, theft, bearing false witness) with laws that are religious (idolatry, observing Sabbath) and with the Tenth Commandment dealing with “coveting” and “desiring”. Jewish culture, values and ideas have even permeated many aspects of modern

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