Response to Three Comments on Jew and Philosopher
Kenneth Hart Green’s Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss by Laurence Berns
In his book on Leo Strauss, Jew and Philosopher…, Kenneth Hart Green has provided the first serious study of the development ofStrauss’s thought. Strauss’s fundamental thought that revealed theology and philosophy are mutually irrefutable takes the form in Maimonides of a cosmological opposition between creation and eternity. Philosophy’s incapacity to refute its revealed counterpart requires recognition of that counterpart as a possibility. Green’s Strauss’s Maimonides’ prophetology articulates human perfection as a reconciliation of reason and revelation, a reconciliation of prophet and philosopher-king.
Kenneth Hart Green’s Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss
Are philosophy and biblical faith compatible? Early, Strauss wrote that in every attempt to harmonize them, one of the two is sacrificed to the other. Later, he seemed to think that the two can co-exist peacefully, each learning from the other. I argue that there is no place for revelation in the life of reason. Because Maimonides was primarily a philosopher, he argued that
there were rational grounds for all the commandments. Philosphy thus enslaves revelation instead of co-existing peacefully with it.
Kenneth Hart Green’s Jew and Philosopher: The Return to Maimonides in the Jewish Thought of Leo Strauss
Are philosophy and biblical faith compatible? Early, Strauss wrote that in every attempt to harmonize them, one of the two is sacrificed to the other. Later, he seemed to think that the two can co-exist peacefully, each learning from the other. I argue that there is no place for revelation in the life of reason. Because Maimonides was primarily a philosopher, he argued that there were rational grounds for all the commandments. Philosphy thus enslaves revelation instead of co-existing peacefully with it.
An Inquiry into the Foundations of Law: J. Locke’s Natural Right in the Biblical Scholarship of J. Wellhausen and C.E.B. Cranfield by Terence Kleven
This essay is a critical evaluation of John Locke’s account of natural right as it is manifest in the biblical scholarship of J. Wellhausen and CE.B. Cranfield. It provides a summary of
the accounts of law given by Wellhausen and Cranfield respectively in order to show that certain views of law, that is, certain theological-political teachings, have been central to the emergence of modern biblical scholarship.
The Theology of Toleration: A Reading of Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity
This study offers a new, more political, view of the intentions, structure, and meaning of Locke’s masterpiece The Reasonableness of Christianity. It argues that Locke’s work is not to be viewed as another in a long line of seventeenth century works purporting to offer a “rational” basis for the Christian religion. Rather Locke’s purpose is to reinterpret Christian doctrine in order to make it “safe” for liberal regimes. Locke’s Jesus is not the Divine mediator nor focus of God’s revelation to humankind. Rather he is a moral teacher who provides the religious imprimatur for the virtuous behavior of the masses that liberalism requires.
Notes for Reading the Bible with John Locke by George Gross
The preference for republican government over monarchy in the He brew Bible appears to be revisited in the writings of the modern political philosophers, especially John Locke. The revival of this preference in the teaching of the moderns occurs in the mode of ideology, and rests upon a new epistemology that skirts the classic contention about the relationship of knowledge and virtue. Even so, the modern teaching is at once an interpretation and a qualified revival of the Scriptural teaching that man is to “be fruitful and multiply, abound in the earth, conquer it and rule” (Genesis 1:28).
The German Jewish Community: Between Adjustment and Ambivilance
The WZO Elections – A New Beginning?
A Jewish Perspective on Modern Environmentalism
The Problems in Being a Jewish State
Saudi Arabia in the 1990s: Stability and Foreign Policy
The stability of Saudi Arabia (and the Persian Gulf as a whole) is crucially important to the world’s industrial countries. According to the Gulf Center of Strategic Studies, "oil is expected to account for 38 percent of all the world consumption of energy until 2015, compared to 39 percent in 1993.
Strengthening the Ties Between the American Jewish Community and the States
Reappraising Jafi’s Missions in Israel
Demarcating an Israeli-Palestinian Border: Geographic Considerations
Maps are a very important part of the political process of conflict resolution known as the peace process. Maps are important parts of all territorial conflicts. We often walk around with the idea of a map in our head and think we know what we are talking about, but often we do not.
