Maimonides

Maimonides (1135-1204) was born in the Spanish city of Cordova but, in order to avoid the wars in the region, migrated to Morocco and then to Old Cairo, or Fostat, in Egypt. His family were traders in precious stones and Maimonides followed this profession until his brother died on a trading trip. After this Maimonides abandoned the business and began to practice medicine. Maimonides first became famous as physician to Saladin's grand vizier, or chief minister. Such a high position within the Islamic government led to his appointment as nagid, or head, of the Jewish community in Egypt. In this capacity Maimonides "gained his reputation as one of the great masters of Jewish law (halakhah)."

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--they stand on their own. But he uses arguments from philosophy to support them. Thus, for example, he argues that the prophecy of Moses is different in quality from that of other prophets and that the Law conveyed by Moses is the only law that ever was or ever will be. The perfection of the Law is, of course, a matter of simple assertion based on the truth of revelation. It was received directly from God and is, therefore, perfect. Maimonides offers, however, a number of scriptural examples of why other laws are imperfect. To do this he interprets the phrasing of the Bible. The other prophets, he notes, "taught the people through being instructors, teachers, and guides" but they did not say, as Moses did, "The Lord said to me: Speak to the sons of so and so." Thus, on the evidence of the holy writings, these prophets could not be the same as Moses. The fact that they were not reported as saying they had spoken directly with God makes it clear, in fact, they had not done so. Then, in addition to this argument from the manifest truth of the sacred texts, Maimonides adds such philosophical-logical arguments as are available to support him. But even if one accepts his premises, as his readers would have, that the Law of
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Approximate Word count = 3508
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page)

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