On March 22, 2023, Yonatan Shemesh, 2023 Warren and Susan Stern New Perspectives in Jewish Studies Award recipient—and the Postdoctoral Associate in Jewish Thought in the Judaic Studies Program and the Philosophy Department at Yale University—joined us for a lecture at the Institute.
Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed resists classification. In modern scholarship, it is sometimes described as a work of philosophy, sometimes as a work of theology, and sometimes as a work of biblical exegesis. Yet the book does not fit neatly into any of these genres. This talk addresses the literary character of the Guide by exploring the perspective of the fourteen-century Jewish philosopher Moses Narboni, whose commentary on the Guide greatly influenced the interpretation of the book for centuries. The talk examines how Narboni classifies the Guide within the medieval Aristotelian framework as a work of dialectic, and then considers how that classification helps explain the book’s primary purpose and the specific senses in which it is a work of philosophy, theology, and exegesis.
Yonatan Shemesh is a Postdoctoral Associate in Jewish Thought in the Judaic Studies Program and the Philosophy Department at Yale University. He is a scholar of medieval Jewish philosophy and intellectual history, with a focus on texts and ideas that originated in the Islamic world and later transformed the Jewish communities of Christian Europe. Yonatan received his MA in Religion and PhD in the History of Judaism from the University of Chicago Divinity School, and his BA in History from Bowdoin College.
Supported by the generosity of Warren and Susan Stern and the Radov family.
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