Essays in Jewish Intellectual History.

From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Slightly discolored and frayed dust jacket, otherwise very good and clean. / Leicht verf�ter und angefranster Umschlag, sonst sehr gut und sauber. - One of the world�s outstanding Jewish scholars offers here a selection that demonstrates the range of his thought, stretching across the entire spectrum of Jewish creativity from the Hellenistic to the modern period. The essays were chosen with the intent of providing a glimpse at the variety of ways in which Jews responded to the pervasive influence of the cultures to which they have been exposed over the last two millennia of their history. Significant in the selections is the openness with which the Jewish mind encountered each period, assimilated what was suitable, thus articulating new modes of human thought. Each of the fourteen pieces, revised and updated since its original appearance, deals with a theme characteristic of the period concerned. The book ranges from the Gnostic Adam legends of early rabbinic literature to modern attempts to resuscitate the lost tradition of Jewish mysticism. Essays center on such themes from medieval Judeo-Arabic philosophy as creation, free will, the perfection of man, and prophecy. The role of ars rhetorica as a tool for understanding biblical and rabbinic texts is one Renaissance theme which is developed. And from the modern Enlightenment period Moses Mendelssohn is analyzed from several perspectives. The last essays highlight the changes in spiritual fiber that characterize modern Judaism in the preZionist German sector. Alexander Altmann�s works have been characterized as �seminal contributions to all areas of Jewish thought� and �uniformly significant and exciting� by his colleagues, who will join others interested in theology in welcoming this new collection of important work. - Alexander Altmann received his Ph.D. from Berlin University and a Rabbinical Diploma from Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin. Since 1959 he has been at Brandeis University where he is presently Philip W. Lown Professor of Jewish Philosophy and History of Ideas, Emeritus and Associate of the Harvard University Center of Jewish Studies. He was editor of Oxford University Press�s Scripta Judaica series and of the Lown Institute Studies and Texts series published by Harvard University Press, as well as the ongoing multivolume work Moses Mendelssohn Gesammelte Schriften Jubil�sausgabe. He has written Studies in Religious Philosophy and Mysticism (1969) and Moses Mendelssohns Fr�hschriften zur Metaphysik (1969) and is co-author with S. M. Stern of Isaac Israeli, A Neoplatonic Philosopher of the Early Tenth Century (1958). His Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study (1973) was hailed as �monumental� and �the definitive work on the subject.� ISBN 9780874511925