Rashi and Maimonides

Rashi

Rashi is considered to be one of the most influential medieval scholars.

He produced commentaries on the whole of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud.

Many Jews have a copy of the Chumash which includes the first five books of the Tanakh with Rashi's commentary.

The way that he has gained this insight in his commntary is through looking at texts from the peshat point of view (look at the blog post about midrash when it comes up), or the literal meaning.

Rashi's commentary preserves rabbinic interpretations of the plain meaning of the Bible.

He writes in a clear, concise and readable Hebrew prose.

He also has considerable knowledge of Hebrew grammar which is present in his commntary where he exaplins it.

Rashi iluustrates his points from the derash outlook, or using parables.

He also influenced Christian students of the Bible.

An example of his work is where Exodus talks about not boiling a calf in its mother's milk. He widened this to talk about meat in general and established the idea of kosher.

He supports his interpretation with linguistics analysis and takes the reader thriough the text phrase by phrase.

He beleived that creation was 'de novo' or from pre existing matter.

Maimonides

Maimonides is probably the most famous for the '13 Principles of Faith'. This is known as the unofficial creed in Judaism and has subsequently been made into hymns and songs such as the yigdal.

He also produced a definitve study of the 613 mitzvot.

His work is both Halakahic (concerning legal work and commnetary on the mishnah. THis includes the 13 principles) and Philosophical.

The Mishneh Torah was written by Maimonides to condense the talmud, tanakah and midrashic literature into one.

There are 14 books dealing a seperate subject in the Jewish legal system. The contents of the 14 books fall into 4 categories; 1) God and humans, 2) life of the individual 3) religion and ritual 4) civil and criminal law. He rejected rabninic ideas that he beleived were supserstitious such as demons as well as astrology.

He also wrote the Guide for the PErplexed which aimed to make sense of Greek philosophy in the context of Judaism.

He blended the teachings of Aristotle. However, many scholars were shocked at this. However Solomon calls this a 'philosophyical masterpiece'. Central to the Guide for the Perplexed is Maimonides exploring who God is. He said God was a perfect unity, and the only way to desrcibe God is to say what he is not.

He beleived that creation was 'ex nihilo' which is considered to be his greatest achievment.