The Code of Maimonides – Book Eight: The Book of Temple Service (Yale Judaica Series – Volume XII)

Maimonides; Mendell Lewittes (trans.) . The Code of Maimonides – Book Eight: The Book of Temple Service (Yale Judaica Series – Volume XII). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1957. First edition. 8vo. xxvii. 525pp. Maroon cloth with gilt decorated spine in original printed dust jacket. The 8th book of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah describes the architecture of the Jewish temple and the sacrifices conducted there. Head and tail of spine slightly bumped. Some creasing, minor staining and chipping to dj. Dj spine sunned. In very good condition. Hardcover.

R. Moses Maimonides (Rambam) was a 12th century Jewish philosopher and halachic legal scholar. A highly controversial figure, both during his lifetime and after his death, but generally acknowledged as the preeminent Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages. He was born in Córdoba, Spain but fled as a child from the Almohad persecution. He eventually settled in Egypt where he served as a rabbi, physician and philosopher. His fourteen-volume Mishneh Torah, his only work not in Arabic, still carries canonical authority, particularly within the Yemenite Jewish community, as the codification of Talmudic law. His other work includes a commentary on the Mishnah entitled Kitab al-Siraj, Kitab al-Fara’I, a book on precepts, and the philosophical work Dalalat al-Ha’irin, known in Hebrew as the Moreh Nevukhim, The Guide to the Perplexed. The major premise is an attempted philosophical/theological reconciliation of the Hebrew Bible and Greek knowledge. This work came to play a central role in all subsequent major controversies over philosophy within the Jewish community during the Middle Ages.

(14033) $45