Prognostication in Medieval Jewish Law and Legal Thought

Abstract

The three major codes of Jewish law composed during the medieval period, Mishneh Torah by Maimonides (d. 1204, in Egypt), Arba’ah Turim by Jacob ben Asher (d. ca. 1340, in Spain), and Shulḥan ‘Arukh by Joseph Karo (d. 1575, in Israel), all discuss the halakhic status of prognostication as it emerges from biblical verses and talmudic and rabbinic sources. Virtually all forms of prognostication are prohibited according to these highly authoritative authors, although there are differences in the specific texts which they cite to undergird their positions, and in the ways that the prohibitions themselves are formulated.