MAIMONIDES: MEDIEVAL MODERNIST

The subject of this study, the great twelfth century Spanish Jewish philosopher, contributed immensely to the future development of both Gentile Christian and Jewish faiths--to the one by the part he performed in the recovery of the philosophy of Aristotle, upon which medieval Catholicism was to develop, and to the other through the clarification and release of Judaism from an excessive Talmudic obscurantism. The second of these achievements has been studied at length, but little attention has been paid to the first. Professor Bratton undertakes to restore a balance and to rehabilitate the fame of Maimonides in this brief but well-informed and thoroughly readable study. He gives a vivid account of the ""golden era"" of Moorish Spain and the philosophical questions which preoccupied Averroes and his contemporaries. Against this scene, various aspects of Maimonidos' life and work are described, and his relevance to our own times then pointed out. Though of greater appeal to the student of philosophy and religion, also for the lay reader of serious interests.