Jewish Philosophy Past and Present
In this innovative volume contemporary philosophers respond to classic works
of Jewish philosophy. For each of twelve central topics in Jewish philosophy,
Jewish philosophical readings, drawn from the medieval period through the
twentieth century, appear alongside an invited contribution that engages both
the readings and the contemporary philosophical literature in a constructive
dialogue. The twelve topics are organized into four parts, and each topic and part
commences with an overview of the ensuing dialogue and concludes with a list
of further readings. The introduction to the volume assesses the current state of
Jewish philosophy and argues for a deeper engagement with analytic philosophy,
Jewish Philosophy Past and Present: Contemporary Responses to Classical
Sources is a cutting edge work of Jewish philosophy, and, at the same time,
an engaging introduction to the issues that animated Jewish philosophers for
centuries and to the texts that they have produced. It is designed to set the agenda
in Jewish philosophy for years to come.
Daniel Frank is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Jewish Studies
Program at Purdue University. He has published widely in Greek and medieval
Jewish philosophy, and his most recent book is Spinoza on Politics (2015).
Aaron Segal is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University,
specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of religion. He has published or
has forthcoming publications in Oxford Studies in Metaphysic, Philosophical
Perspectives, Philosophical Studies.
Jewish Philosophy Past and
Present
Contemporary Responses to Classical
Sources
Edited by
Daniel Frank and Aaron Segal
First published 2017
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Contents
List of Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Jewish Philosophy: Past, Present, and Future
PART I
ix
xi
xiii
1
Language and Interpretation
7
1 Religious Language
9
Howard Wettstein, “Poetic Imagery and Religious
Belief” (1997/2000)
10
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1190), 1.57-8
19
Gersonides, The Wars of the Lord (1329), 3.3
23
Samuel Lebens, “Reconciling Imagery and Doctrine”
25
2 The Interpretation of Scripture
34
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1190),
introduction; 1.1-2; 2.25
35
Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise
(1670), chapter 7
41
Daniel Frank, “Meaning, Truth, and History: Maimonides
and Spinoza on the Interpretation of Scripture”
46
3 Jewish Philosophy and its History
Leon Roth, “Is there a Jewish Philosophy?” (1962)
57
57
vi Contents
Daniel Frank, “What is Jewish Philosophy?” (1997)
61
Leora Batnitzky, “The Nature and History of Jewish Philosophy” 66
PART II
Epistemology and Metaphysics
75
4 Belief, Knowledge, and Theism
77
Saadia Gaon, The Book of Beliefs & Opinions (933),
introductory treatise v, vi; treatise 1 (exordium)
78
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1190), 1.71
83
Judah Halevi, The Book of Refutation and Proof on
Behalf of the Despised Faith (The Kuzari) (c. 1140), 1.11-25
86
(2011)
88
Charles Manekin, “Warrants for Belief, and the
5 Idolatry
110
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1190), 3.29, 32
111
Benedict (Baruck) Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise
(1670), preface; chapter 1
117
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, “Imagination as a
Yitzhak Melamed, “Idolatry and its Premature Rabbinic
Obituary”
6 Human Ontology and Personal Immortality
126
138
Steven Nadler, Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish
Mind (2001)
139
Hasdai Crescas, The Light of the Lord (1410), 2.6.1
147
Aaron Segal, “Immortality: Two Models”
151
Contents vii
PART III
Philosophical Theology
163
7 Divine Justice
165
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1190),
3.17-18, 23
8 Chosenness
174
186
Judah Halevi, The Book of Refutation and Proof on
Behalf of the Despised Faith (The Kuzari) (c. 1140), 1.95
187
Michael Wyschogrod, “A Chosen Nation” (1983)
189
Jerome Gellman, “Halevi, Wyschogrod, and the Chosen
People”
195
9 Redemption and Messianism
203
Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of
Judaism (1919), introduction/B, sections 13-17
204
Lenn Goodman, “Demythologizing the Messiah” (1991)
206
Joseph Soloveitchik, “Moses and the Redemption” (2006)
211
Kenneth Seeskin, “Speedily in Our Time”
217
PART IV
Practical Philosophy
227
10 Ritual and Rationality
229
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed (1190), 3.26-8
231
Daniel Rynhold, “Rationalizing the Commandments: The
Maimonidean Method” (2005)
236
Jed Lewinsohn, “Reasons for Keeping the Commandments:
Maimonides and the Motive of Obedience”
243
viii Contents
11 Repentance and Forgiveness
256
Maimonides, Commentary on the Mishnah, Eight Chapters
(1168), chapter 8
257
David Shatz, “Freedom, Repentance, and Hardening of the
Hearts” (1997, revised 1999)
260
and Forgiveness”
267
12 Religious Pluralism and Toleration
277
Moshe Halbertal, “ ‘Ones Possessed of Religion’: Religious
Tolerance in the Teachings of The Me’iri” (2000)
278
Moses Mendelssohn, Open Letter to Lavater (1769)
286
David Shatz, “Theology, Morality, and Religious Diversity”
290
Bibliography
Index
300
310
Contributors
Leora Batnitzky is Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish Studies, Professor
of Religion, and Chair, Department of Religion, at Princeton University. Her
most recent book is How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to
Modern Jewish Thought (2011).
Daniel Frank is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Jewish Studies
Program at Purdue University. His most recent book, with Jason Waller, is
Spinoza on Politics (2015).
Jerome Gellman is Professor of Philosophy (emeritus) at Ben-Gurion University
of the Negev. His most recent book is God’s Kindness Has Overwhelmed Us:
A Contemporary Doctrine of the Jews as the Chosen People (2013).
Edward Halper is Distinguished Research Professor, Department of Philosophy,
at the University of Georgia. He has recently completed a three-volume study
on Aristotle’s Metaphysics: One and Many in Aristotle’s Metaphysics.
Jonathan Jacobs is Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy, at John
Jay College, CUNY. His most recent book is Law, Reason, and Morality in
Medieval Jewish Philosophy (2010).
Samuel Lebens is a postdoctoral fellow at the Rutgers Center for the Philosophy
of Religion. He has published a number of articles on the history of analytic
philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion.
Jed Lewinsohn is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh
and currently a member of the Harvard Society of Fellows. He has published
on Jewish philosophy and works on moral, political, and legal philosophy.
Charles Manekin
Center of Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland. He has edited
Medieval Jewish Philosophical Writings in Cambridge Texts in the History of
Philosophy (2007).
x List of Contributors
Yitzhak Melamed is Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. His
most recent book is Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought (2013).
Aaron Segal is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University
and from 2016 will be Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. He has published a number of articles on metaphysics
and philosophy of religion.
Kenneth Seeskin
Civilization, Professor of Philosophy, and Chair, Department of Religious
Studies, at Northwestern University. His most recent book is Jewish Messianic
Thoughts in an Age of Despair (2012).
David Shatz
at Yeshiva University. His most recent book is Jewish Thought in Dialogue:
Essays on Thinkers, Theologies, and Moral Theories (2009).
Preface
The genesis of this volume gives the clearest indication of its nature, and its aims
and goals. When we commenced work on a text devoted to key topics in the
history of Jewish philosophy we had in mind a home in the recently launched
Routledge series, Key Debates in the History of Philosophy (https://www.
routledge.com/series/DHP). This series presents topical debates ranging across
the entire history of philosophy via discussions by notable contemporary scholars
Debates in Modern Philosophy a set of lively
debates on Hume on miracles and on causation, Locke on personal identity, and
Kant on the synthetic a priori. The volumes that have so far appeared in the series
are engaging. We hoped we would be able do the same for Jewish philosophy.
But it was not possible to do so, and it is important to understand the reason why.
Given the relative unfamiliarity of Jewish philosophy and its history, we could not
reasonably ground our volume on secondary texts devoted to familiar issues in the
history of philosophy. Rather, taking nothing for granted, we decided to present as
and then, and only then, on this foundation to turn to important recently published
scholarly work and specially commissioned new essays responding to that work
and to the ‘essential readings’ as well. Proceeding as we do, by not detouring
around the classic texts, but by debating with them, we hope to establish a certain
agenda in engaging with the Jewish philosophical tradition. The tradition is a
history of Jewish philosophy and, in keeping with the spirit of the Key Debates
series, “[t]he result is a new kind of introduction—one that enables students to
understand philosophy’s history as a still-living debate.”
introduction and concludes with a short list of further readings, inclusive of both
Jewish and non-Jewish sources. We have been determined from the outset to set
Jewish philosophy in the context of general philosophy, so as to overcome any
parochialism that might hover over the project.
xii Preface
Our task has been facilitated by the timeliness of our contributors and
their enthusiasm for the project. DF assembled the sections on Language and
Interpretation, and Practical Philosophy, while AS put together the sections on
vetted the whole and inspected each other’s work.
A stalwart quartet of Yeshiva University students deserve special mention for
their help on the volume: David Naggarpowers and Daniel Rhodes assisted with
the further readings and the general bibliography, and Benjamin Apfel and Doron
Levine prepared the previously published material and compiled the index. We
would like to express our deep appreciation for the award of a Dr. Kenneth Chelst
Routledge (New York) has been a pleasure to work with, and we signal the
special assistance and encouragement of Andy Beck.
Daniel Frank and Aaron Segal
October 2015
Cheshvan 5776
Acknowledgments
The editors and publishers wish to thank the following for permission to use
copyright material:
Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. S.
Kaplan, 1995. Reprinted with permission of Scholars Press, Atlanta.
Hasdai Crescas, The Light of the Lord, trans. W. Z. Harvey, 1973. Reprinted with
permission of the translator.
Daniel Frank, “What is Jewish Philosophy?” 1997. Reprinted with permission of
the author.
Gersonides, The Wars of the Lord, trans. S. Feldman, 1987. Reprinted with
permission of the Jewish Publication Society.
On Justice: An Essay in Jewish Philosophy (2nd ed.), 2008.
Reprinted with permission of Yale University Press, New Haven.
Moshe Halbertal, “ ‘Ones Possessed of Religion’: Religious Tolerance in the
Teachings of The Me’iri,” 2000. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry,1992. Reprinted with permission
of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Judah Halevi, The Book of Refutation and Proof on Behalf of the Despised Faith
(The Kuzari), trans. B. Kogan and L. Berman, 2000. Reprinted with permission
of the translator.
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. S. Pines, 1963. Reprinted
with permission of University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Moses Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, abridged J. Guttmann, trans. C.
Rabin, 1995. Reprinted with permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Moses Maimonides, Shemonah Perakim (Eight Chapters), trans. R. Weiss and C.
Butterworth, 1983. Reprinted with permission of Dover Publications, Mineola.
Moses Mendelssohn, Open Letter to Lavater, in M. Gottlieb (ed.), Moses
Mendelssohn: Writings on Judaism, Christianity, and the Bible, 2011.
Steven Nadler, Spinoza’s Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind, 2001.
Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press, New York.
xiv Acknowledgments
Leon Roth, “Is there a Jewish Philosophy?” in Roth, Is There a Jewish Philosophy?
Rethinking Fundamentals, 1999. Reprinted with permission of Littman Library
of Jewish Civilization.
Daniel Rynhold, Two Models of Jewish Philosophy: Justifying One’s Practices,
2005. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press, New York.
Saadia Gaon, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. S. Rosenblatt, 1948/1976.
Reprinted with permission of Yale University Press, New Haven.
of SUNY Press, Albany.
David Shatz, “Freedom, Repentance, and Hardening of the Hearts,” 1997.
Reprinted with permission of Faith and Philosophy, Wilmore.
Joseph Soloveitchik, “Moses and the Redemption,” 2006. Reprinted with
permission of Toras HoRav Foundation.
Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise
Reprinted with permission of Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Howard Wettstein, “Poetic Imagery and Religious Belief,” in D. Shatz (ed.),
Philosophy and Faith: A Philosophy of Religion Reader, 2002. Reprinted with
, 2012. Reprinted with permission of
Oxford University Press, New York.
Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith: God in the People Israel, 1983.
Reprinted with permission of the author.
Introduction
Jewish Philosophy: Past, Present, and Future
I
This volume is designed to simulate one conversation and to stimulate two others.
It simulates a conversation between the Jewish philosophical past and its present.
For each of twelve topics in Jewish philosophy, a contemporary philosopher
contributes an original response to several classic works of Jewish philosophy,
engages in the twin tasks of clarifying the opposing views of his/her predecessors
works is treated as a museum piece, and none as a mere mouthpiece. Jewish
philosophy is presented here as a living, growing enterprise.
At the same time, we would like to stimulate two related conversations, one
between Jewish philosophers and the wider Anglophone philosophical community,
and the other among Jewish philosophers themselves. Ph.D.-granting philosophy
departments in North America, the United Kingdom, and Australia have long
been dominated by so-called analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy is itself
a rather diverse discipline. Practitioners hold widely divergent views on matters
of substance: empiricism, rationalism, skepticism, utilitarianism, deontologism,
virtue ethics, idealism, theism, physicalism, platonism, nominalism, moral realism,
and moral anti-realism are just some of the views that have prominent adherents.
And there is no consensus on proper philosophical methodology: some analytic
philosophers champion linguistic or conceptual analysis, while others deride it
(as many have noted, ‘analytic philosophy’ is something of a misnomer!); some
construct and select philosophical theories based on their explanatory power,
while others eschew explanation entirely. Notwithstanding that diversity, analytic
a set of prized virtues, and a group of philosophical role-models.1 The objective, at
least usually, is to get to the bottom of some relatively general feature of reality: to
determine whether anything has that feature, what it consists in, and what its scope
is. The manner of philosophizing at least ideally involves putting forward theses
2 Introduction
considering objections. Clarity, rigor, and literal expression are usually thought to
be virtues rather than vices. And those prominent philosophers, particularly from
the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who share the same objective, philosophize
in roughly the same manner, and prize the same philosophical virtues, constitute
philosophical role-models.
Few Jewish philosophers, however, have ‘done’ Jewish philosophy in the
analytic mode or interacted substantially with the work of analytic philosophers.
For the last century or more, Jewish philosophy has almost exclusively consisted
either in contextualizing and explicating its own history – it has been, to use
Bernard Williams’s (2006) distinction, more history of ideas than history of
philosophy – or in so-called Continental philosophy, or in a combination of
both. It is open to speculation as to why this is so, but it is hard to deny that it
is so. Over twenty years ago Kenneth Seeskin (1991) noted that the “analytic
movement that dominated Anglo-American departments for the greater part of
this century had little impact on Jewish thought. There is no one who stands to
Jewish philosophy as Alvin Plantinga, Philip Quinn, or Ninian Smart stand to
Christian.” Not much has changed since then. One would be hard pressed to
Journal of Jewish Thought and
Philosophy or DAAT, two leading journals in Jewish thought and philosophy.
The annual Association for Jewish Studies conference and the quadrennial World
Congress of Jewish Studies regularly host sessions on Jewish philosophy, but
analytic philosophy rarely makes an appearance; at the American Philosophical
Association divisional meetings and the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society
and the Mind Association, on the other hand, where analytic philosophy is de
rigueur, papers on Jewish philosophy are hard to come by.
To be sure, there have long been pockets of analytic Jewish philosophy, and such
pockets are slowly growing. Without mentioning names, for fear of inadvertently
omitting some who ought to be mentioned, a handful of senior philosophers have over
several decades done substantial and important work in analytic Jewish philosophy.
some monographs and edited collections dedicated to analytic Jewish philosophy.
(Nearly all of these works are cited in the essays in this volume or appear in the
lists of further readings after each subsection.) More recently, a younger cohort
of analytically-trained Jewish philosophers has coalesced around the Association
for the Philosophy of Judaism, a nascent organization that has sponsored several
conferences, symposia, and essay prizes to promote analytic Jewish philosophy
(http://www.theapj.com/). But a conversation between Jewish philosophy and the
broader Anglophone philosophical community is still in its infancy. Analytic Jewish
philosophy lags behind its Christian counterpart in both scope and sophistication.
We wish to deepen the dialogue between Jewish philosophy and analytic
philosophy, and this volume is intended to be a substantial step in that direction. The
classic selections are drawn primarily from outside the contemporary Continental
canon of Jewish philosophy (Rosenzweig, Buber, Cohen, Levinas, etc.), and, as
Introduction
3
the search for the truth about philosophical matters, rather than as mere historical
artifacts. Most of the invited contributions are written in an analytic mode and many
of them explicitly engage with an analytic literature. It is hopefully not unreasonable
to expect, therefore, that much of this volume will speak to such philosophers
in a ‘language’ that they can understand and address questions they share. Our
intended scholarly audience decidedly encompasses analytic philosophers of many
backgrounds, including those who are unfamiliar with Jewish philosophy.
But our intended audience also encompasses Jewish philosophers, including
those who are unfamiliar with, or perhaps even dismissive of, analytic philosophy.
We want to spark a conversation about the direction Jewish philosophy ought to
many of us do at present. In particular, we stand to gain a wealth of insights by
attending to what has been the regnant form of philosophy in much of the world
for the past century; and we have much to lose by essentially ignoring it. The
essays collected here give some sense of what is to be gained. More work will
hopefully give an even better sense.
II
As noted, it is open to speculation as to why Jewish philosophy has eschewed
analytic trends. Part of the answer is historical and we suspect that another part is
rooted in the propensity to perpetuate the status quo and cleave to the familiar. As
for history, modern academic Jewish philosophy (maybe even “Jewish philosophy”
century movement known as Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Science of Judaism”) –
a movement that featured close historical and philological analysis of classical texts –
and it grew up together with post-Kantian German philosophy. As a result, historicist
and Continental trends played a formative role in modern Jewish philosophy.
contemporaries, repudiated the medieval philosophical project. Modern science
dealt a decisive blow to medieval Aristotelianism, and Kant was widely held to
have rendered natural theology and metaphysics impracticable. With medieval
Jewish philosophy in disrepute, modern Jewish philosophers naturally turned to
the Hebrew Bible and, to a much lesser extent, the Rabbinic corpus.2 The Hebrew
Bible is, however, pre-philosophical. It evinces little concern for careful doctrinal
formulations, or consistency, with respect to the nature of ultimate reality and our
knowledge of it. The text is shot through with evocative imagery, symbolism, and
narrative, and its subject matter is often the interpersonal relationships between
God and humans and among humans themselves.3 The Hebrew Bible was thus a
fertile ground for phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, and typological
interpretation, less so for a rigorous defense of a carefully expressed thesis about
some general feature of reality.4 Compounding matters, a substantial majority of
modern Jews abandoned traditional religion while remaining squarely within the
Jewish community. This made it wholly unclear what would count as a ‘Jewish
4 Introduction
thesis’ worth defending, and reduced the number of Jewish philosophers who had
‘Jewish theses’ to defend. The entrenchment of a turn to the Hebrew Bible and an
abandonment of traditional doctrines thus conspired to make analytic philosophy
singularly unwelcome when it came on the scene. There were simply too few
theses to defend and too few philosophers to defend them. By contrast, scholarly
history of medieval philosophy, shorn of any commitment to its truth, and the
phenomenological, existentialist, and hermeneutical streams of Continental
philosophy thrived.
Finally, the current academic zeitgeist probably plays a role. As several
leading Christian analytic philosophers note with some dismay, many of their coreligionists in theology and religion departments have resisted the introduction
of analytic philosophy into Christian theology. This resistance appears to be at
least partly based on a commitment to a thoroughgoing, global anti-realism and
relativism, a commitment shared by many in the humanities and perceived to
be inimical to analytic philosophy.5 (Very roughly, anti-realism is the view that
everything is the way it is in part due to how we think about it, and relativism is
the view that nothing is true tout-court, only relative to a given point-of-view.)
Many contemporary academic Jewish philosophers hold these views as well, with
a resulting antipathy to analytic modes of philosophizing.
Our historical explanation of the current state of Jewish philosophy may of
quo. But is it a good reason? Should the status quo, which has too little engaged
with analytic trends in general philosophy and with the rich argumentative
veins in the medieval Jewish philosophical tradition, be perpetuated? These are
normative questions and answers will depend on what Jewish philosophers aim
at, or ought to aim at. But if even Yitzhak Melamed’s very broad suggestion, that
the aim of Jewish philosophy is “to provide a well-argued and informed account
of Jewish religious and cultural beliefs and practices,” is deemed reasonable,6
then we see no reason not to broaden the scope of Jewish philosophy so as to
include constructive, philosophical-truth-seeking interaction with both analytic
philosophy and the entirety of the Jewish philosophical tradition.
Jewish religious and cultural beliefs and practices have evolved over the history
of Judaism, a history that was not arrested after the close of the Biblical period.
Of course, Jewish intellectual, religious, and cultural history includes the Hebrew
Bible, and it cannot be ignored in giving a philosophical account of Judaism.
But that history includes much else – halakha (Jewish law), medieval Jewish
philosophy, and works of mussar (19th and 20th century ethical literature), for
example – and these other elements cannot be ignored, at the risk of unmooring
Jewish philosophy from Judaism. Halakha is ripe for exploration using the tools of
analytic philosophy, as several recent essays have demonstrated.7 Medieval Jewish
philosophy, like medieval philosophy more generally, is in many ways continuous
with contemporary analytic philosophy, especially given the resurgence over
the past four decades of grand-old metaphysical theorizing: even Aristotelian
teleology has made a comeback!8 And a classical mussar text can be the source of
rich philosophical insight in the hands of a brilliant analytic philosopher.9 There
Introduction
5
might not be “thirteen principles” at the core of Judaism, but there are plenty of
claims and practices that were or are central to the way Jews experienced their
Judaism for an extended period of time. A well-argued reconstruction of any of
them would be aided by employing analytical philosophical tools and methods.
We believe that the methodology regnant in Jewish philosophy at present
comes at a considerable cost. The cost is a manifest loss of the kind of clarity and
argumentative rigor that is the hallmark of the analytic tradition, and even more
importantly of the greatest Jewish philosophers themselves, such as Maimonides.
In our work we treat Maimonides as our contemporary interlocutor, precisely
debar him from participation in a dialogue with analytic thinkers focusing on
canonical issues in religious language, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical
theology, and moral and political philosophy. Not to participate in such dialogue
is to marginalize the best minds in the Jewish philosophical tradition from broader
philosophical trends.
Our aim in this volume is partisan, but it is not parochial. We do not intend
a conversation about the nature and future of Jewish philosophy. Indeed, we
commentator in certain ways opposes the general perspective that we are delineating
in this introduction. The future of Jewish philosophy and philosophizing is openended, and our goal is an inclusive one, to encourage the development of rigorous
analytic Jewish philosophy. If this volume is able not only to display to analytic
philosophers some of the richness of the Jewish philosophical tradition but also
to encourage future Jewish philosophers to expand the literature with which they
interact and the range of modes in which to philosophize, our purposes will have
been served well enough.
Notes
1 See Soames 2003, Rea 2009, and Zimmerman 2007.
2 See Melamed 2009 who argues that the Protestantization of modern German Jewish
intellectuals led to a nearly exclusive focus on the Bible as a source of philosophical
3 See Wyschogrod 1983 and Wettstein 2002 (reprinted in this volume).
4 We do not mean to imply that it is impossible to read the Hebrew Bible philosophically
in an analytic mode and informed by contemporary analytic philosophy. It can be
done, and done well; see, e.g., Stump 2010. But it does not come naturally. (See
also Samuel Lebens’s contribution to this volume, in which he explicitly attempts to
portrayal of God.)
5 See the essays collected in Wainwright 1996, along with Zimmerman 2007 and Rea
2009. Note that some of their discussion is focused on analytic theology, which forms
but a part of what analytic Jewish (or Christian) philosophy is and can be.
7 See Lewinsohn 2006-7, Hirsch 1999 and 2006.
8 See Nagel 2012 and Kroll (forthcoming)
9 See Steiner 2000.