Synopses & Reviews
In this study Oliver Leaman poses two questions: how can a powerful and caring deity allow terrible things to happen to obviously innocent people, and why have the Jewish people been so harshly treated throughout history, given their status as the chosen people? He explores these issues through an analysis of the views of Philo, Saadya, Maimonides, Gersonides, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, and post-Holocaust thinkers.
Review
"...anyone with the most remote interest in suffering will find this perhaps the most important intellectual investigation on the subject in recent years." Theological Studies"The topic may be heavy but the writing is anything but cumbersome. A deft survey of the major Jewish thinkers on this nettlesome problem, with special attention to their view of the book of Job." Sh'ma A Journal of Jewish Responsibility"...anyone with the most remote interest in suffereing will find this perhaps the most important intellectual investigation on the subject in recent years." James F. Keenan, S.J., Theological Studies
Synopsis
A variety of controversial themes that preoccupied such great medieval Islamic philosophers as Farabi, Avicenna, Ghazali, Averroes and Maimonides are considered--the creation of the world out of nothing, immortality, resurrection, the nature of ethics, and the relationship between natural and religious law.
Table of Contents
1. Job; 2. Philo; 3. Saadya; 4. Maimonides; 5. Gersonides; 6. Spinoza; 7. Mendelssohn; 8. Cohen; 9. Buber; 10. The Holocaust; 11. Back to the Bible.