The uses of Maimonides by twentieth-century Jewry

Abstract

The influence of iconic figures and texts can be complex to the point of inscrutability. We all know, for example, that the Devil can quote Scripture; what, then, does this tell us about the influence of Scripture? On the one hand, believers feel bound by Scriptural teachings; on the other, this very loyalty can lead them to force Scripture to say what they badly want to do or believe on other grounds. To cite a sharp pre-modern observation of this point in an area of great relevance to Maimonidean studies, R Isaac Arama, a distinguished fifteenth- century Spanish thinker, asked why certain philosophers need the Bible at all. After all, their modus operandi appears to be as follows: If the Bible agrees with their philosophical views, they interpret it literally; if it does not, they interpret it allegorically or symbolically so that it is made to agree with those views. In what sense, then, are they bound or even influenced by the Bible?