The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167}}}1900 [Hardcover]

This book approaches Judah Halevi's Book of the Kuzari by focusing on its reception.Adam Shear examines the ways that the twelfth-century Book of the Kuzari became a classic of Jewish thought. Contrary to modern perceptions, Shear shows that it was often read as a way toward reconciling reason and faith and of negotiating between particularism and universalism.Adam Shear examines the ways that the twelfth-century Book of the Kuzari became a classic of Jewish thought. Contrary to modern perceptions, Shear shows that it was often read as a way toward reconciling reason and faith and of negotiating between particularism and universalism.Judah Halevis Book of the Kuzari is a defense of Judaism that has enjoyed an almost continuous transmission since its composition in the twelfth century. By surveying the activities of readers, commentators, copyists, and printers for more than 700 years, Adam Shear examines the ways that the Kuzari became a classic of Jewish thought. Today, the Kuzari is usually understood as the major statement of an anti-rationalist and ethnocentric approach to Judaism and is often contrasted with the rationalism and universalism of Maimonidess Guide of the Perplexed. But this conception must be seen as a modern construction, and the reception history of the Kuzari demonstrates that many earlier readers of the work understood it as offering a way toward reconciling reason and faith and of negotiating between particularism and universalism.Introduction; 1. Texts and contexts: pre-modern dissemination and transmission; 2. The image and function of the Kuzari in the Late Middle Ages; 3. The Kuzari in Renaissance Italy; 4. Judah Moscato's project and the making of an authoritative work; 5. The image and function of the Kuzari in early modern Europe; 6. The creation of an Enlightenment Kuzari; 7. Continuity and change in the nineteenth century; Conclusion: the emergence of late modern dichotomies. ...high scientific quality...[Shear's] history of receptlƒÔ