Divide into groups of 2 or 3. Each group will be responsible for developing a response to question number 4 and one other of the following five questions. The response should be based on the Maimonides material we have studied. Make sure that your group has at least one copy of the Guide and at least one copy of Strauss's Persecution.
Delegate a member (or members) of your group to
1) report to the class on your group's response to its question; and
2) prepare and turn in (within one week) a brief typed summary (no
longer than 1 page) outlining your group's best response(s),
to be distributed to the class. (Group members should be credited in
this summary.)
Discuss the following six questions.
1. What is Maimonides' external teaching concerning the nature of women and their competence to do philosophy? How does this square with his remarks about Miriam on pp. 390-391? What does your group think of this?
2. Discuss Maimonides' procedure for evaluating the words of the prophets as set forth in part III, Ch. 14. Compare this to his instructions on pp.8-9. What do the members of your group think as a result of your comparison?
3. Using the text to support your view, describe Maimonides' attitude toward the body. What, according to Maimonides, is the relationship between health and the capacity for prophecy? What do the members of your group think to be Maimonides true teaching concerning the body? Why?
4.Consider the following passage from Maimonides' Mishneh Torah:
2) What is the way to love and fear God? Whenever one contemplates the great wonders of God's works and creations, and one sees that they are a product of a wisdom that has no bounds or limits, one will immediately love, laud and glorify [God] with an immense passion to know the Great Name, like David has said, "My soul thirsts for God, for the living God".When one thinks about these matters one will feel a great fear and trepidation,and one will know that one is a low and insignificant creation, with hardly an iota of intelligence compared to that of God, like David has said, "When I observe Your heavens, the work of Your fingers...what is man, that You are heedful of him?". Bearing these things in mind, I shall explain important concepts of the Creator's work, as a guide to understanding and loving God. Concerning this love the Sages said that from it [one] will come to know God.What does this statement suggest to you about Maimonides' views on the importance of scientific study for religious education? Why?
(From IMMANUEL M. O'LEVY's translation of the Mishneh Torah,1993; the text can be found at http://webserver.lemoyne.edu/~kagan/YESODEI.html.)
5. What in Maimonides seems most appropriate for Judaism? Least appropriate?Why?
6. What do you think Maimonides thinks of other philosophical religious faiths? (See his discussion of "faith" in CH. L, p. 67, of Friedlander's translation of the Guide.
M, Kagan, PHL 335/ REL 383, March 1998; minor changes in March, 2007.
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