James A Diamond
Biographic Data
| ID | 3942432 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James A Diamond |
| GIVEN NAMES | James A |
| FAMILY NAME | Diamond |
| SIGNATURE | DIAMOND J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 22 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Raging against Reason
Andalus and Sefarad
D avid I. S hyovitz . A Remembrance of His Wonders
Jewish Theology Unbound
This book challenges the widespread caricature of Judaism as a religion of law as opposed to theology. Broad swaths of rabbinic literature involve not just law but what could be best described as philosophical theology as well. Judaism has never been a dogmatic religion, insisting on a monolithic theology rooted in a uniform metaphysics that would exclude all others. The book engages in close readings of the Bible, classical rabbinic texts, Jewis…
Postscript
The conclusion of this book cursorily looks beyond it by reconvening the encounter between the protagonists of the preceding chapter. It would be blasphemous to consider the establishment of the State of Israel as somehow compensation, or in vulgar terms, a consolation prize for the devastation of the Shoah . However, it would also leave a gaping lacuna for any current Jewish philosophical theology not to at least attempt to theologically engage …
A God That Ceased to Become, a Nation That May Have Ceased to Exist
This chapter responds to the Holocaust, the greatest challenge to any contemporary Jewish philosophical theology. Any Jewish theology that continues to insist on theodicy in the shadow of such an exhaustive obliteration of humanity and the divine Presence, or of any traces of godliness in the world, remains incomplete or worse an utter failure. The two most profound thinkers confronting the challenge are Kalonymous Kalman Shapira (1889–1943), the…
Unbinding Jewish Philosophical Theology
The voluminous corpus of the rabbinic genre known as midrash and aggadah involves not just law ( halakhah ), but also a prolific repository of unrefined philosophical theology. The aggadic and midrashic style encompasses narrative, allegory, and a deeply intimate exegetical engagement with every syllable of the biblical text. It may not correspond neatly to the kinds of systematic treatises, largely identified with the Christian tradition, throug…
God as Liberator and the Slave
This chapter offers a new approach to the moral quandary of the biblical sanctioning of slavery. The chapter argues that the Bible shapes its ideal view of slavery, not simply as deleterious to the human moral condition but as metaphysically injurious as well. It first conducts a methodical narrative analysis of the term ‘eved , the Hebrew word for slave. It then proceeds to examine the Bible’s strict regulation of slavery which is calibrated to …
Isaac Arama’s “Nightmare
Isaac Arama (1420–1494), the most influential preacher in the generation of the expulsion from Spain, attempted a balance between what he considered a foreign Greek body of rational knowledge on the one hand, and a supra-rational revealed knowledge native to Judaism’s prophetic tradition on the other. This article focuses on an aspect of his creative exegesis and in particular his engagement with Maimonides that was powerful enough, in addition t…
Jacob's melancholic descent from the ladder
Maimonides' use of a biblical persona to illustrate various aspects of prophecy or providence offers valuable material for constructing medieval psychological portraits of central biblical characters. Jacob, whose narrative life moves through a series of challenges posed by melancholia to the religious life, is particularly instructive. This study will assemble a Maimonidean construct of Jacob, which embodies Maimonides' juristic and philosophica…
Exegetical Idealization
While Maimonides reread his sources to reconcile biblical and rabbinic texts with the demands of reason, Hermann Cohen, in his construction of a “religion of reason,” rereads Maimonides’ rereadings of those very same texts. Maimonides’ Judaism often bridges the sources toward Cohen’s religion of reason by providing a philological anchor that nudges a term or verse now viewed through a more modern historical and evolutionary lens toward its ultima…
The Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe
Journal Article The Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe: Diverting God’s Gaze from a Utopian End to an Anguished Now Get access James A. Diamond James A. Diamond University of Waterloo [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, Volume 30, Issue 3, October 2010, Pages 299–331, https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/kjq018 Published: 06 August 2010
Nahmanides and Rashi on the One Flesh of Conjugal Union
The seminal thirteenth century Geronese kabbalist, Talmudist, and exegete Moses Nahmanides (Moses b. Naḥman, 1194–c.1270) perceived the physical world as a mirror for the internal workings of the divine world. For him the Bible “relates about the lower matters and alludes to the upper,” 1 rendering its apparently mundane legal, historical, and ethical dimensions a record of the inner variegated life of God. At the very inception of the world, eac…
Converts, Heretics, and Lepers
Converts, Heretics, and Lepers
James Diamond's new book consists of a series of studies addressing Moses Maimonides' (1138-1204) appropriation of marginal figures--lepers, converts, heretics, and others--normally considered on the fringes of society and religion. Each chapter focuses on a type or character that, in Maimonides' hands, becomes a metaphor for a larger, more substantive theological and philosophical issue. Diamond offers a close reading of key texts, such as the G…
Maimonides on Kingship the Ethics of Imperial Humility
In his adoption of the Maimonidean guidelines for extreme humility, the king acts as the supreme existential model for imitatio dei . Imperial governance, when filtered through the prism of Maimonidean humility, results in a regime that most closely resembles a divine one. Using those who occupy the very bottom of the social and political hierarchy (slaves and orphans) as models, the king projects his own sense of “lowliness” to the people. The k…
The Failed Theodicy of a Rabbinic Pariah
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
Maimonides on the "Decline of the Generations" and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority
Jacob vs. The Married Harlot
“Trial” as Esoteric Preface in Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
The Use of Midrash in Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
In the introduction to his philosophical magnum opus, the Guide of the Perplexed , Maimonides provides us with a rationale for the composition of this work as well as instructions for the targeted reader on how to decipher its elusive and enigmatic style. Such devices as contradiction, diffuse and seemingly discordant treatment of subject matter, and deliberate ruses are employed to accommodate both halakhic legal constraints on the overt teachin…
Talmudic Jurisprudence, Equity, and the Concept of Lifnim Meshurat Hadin
withstand this (as a blueprint for its existence), He tempered Law with the attribute of Mercy.' Without justice, life would not be possible and, even if it were, it would not be worthwhile.
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Talmudic Jurisprudence, Equity, and the Concept of Lifnim Meshurat Hadin
withstand this (as a blueprint for its existence), He tempered Law with the attribute of Mercy.' Without justice, life would not be possible and, even if it were, it would not be worthwhile.
The Use of Midrash in Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
In the introduction to his philosophical magnum opus, the Guide of the Perplexed , Maimonides provides us with a rationale for the composition of this work as well as instructions for the targeted reader on how to decipher its elusive and enigmatic style. Such devices as contradiction, diffuse and seemingly discordant treatment of subject matter, and deliberate ruses are employed to accommodate both halakhic legal constraints on the overt teachin…
“Trial” as Esoteric Preface in Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed
Jacob vs. The Married Harlot
Maimonides on the "Decline of the Generations" and the Nature of Rabbinic Authority
The Failed Theodicy of a Rabbinic Pariah
»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495
Maimonides on Kingship the Ethics of Imperial Humility
In his adoption of the Maimonidean guidelines for extreme humility, the king acts as the supreme existential model for imitatio dei . Imperial governance, when filtered through the prism of Maimonidean humility, results in a regime that most closely resembles a divine one. Using those who occupy the very bottom of the social and political hierarchy (slaves and orphans) as models, the king projects his own sense of “lowliness” to the people. The k…
Converts, Heretics, and Lepers
Converts, Heretics, and Lepers
James Diamond's new book consists of a series of studies addressing Moses Maimonides' (1138-1204) appropriation of marginal figures--lepers, converts, heretics, and others--normally considered on the fringes of society and religion. Each chapter focuses on a type or character that, in Maimonides' hands, becomes a metaphor for a larger, more substantive theological and philosophical issue. Diamond offers a close reading of key texts, such as the G…
Nahmanides and Rashi on the One Flesh of Conjugal Union
The seminal thirteenth century Geronese kabbalist, Talmudist, and exegete Moses Nahmanides (Moses b. Naḥman, 1194–c.1270) perceived the physical world as a mirror for the internal workings of the divine world. For him the Bible “relates about the lower matters and alludes to the upper,” 1 rendering its apparently mundane legal, historical, and ethical dimensions a record of the inner variegated life of God. At the very inception of the world, eac…
Exegetical Idealization
While Maimonides reread his sources to reconcile biblical and rabbinic texts with the demands of reason, Hermann Cohen, in his construction of a “religion of reason,” rereads Maimonides’ rereadings of those very same texts. Maimonides’ Judaism often bridges the sources toward Cohen’s religion of reason by providing a philological anchor that nudges a term or verse now viewed through a more modern historical and evolutionary lens toward its ultima…
The Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe
Journal Article The Warsaw Ghetto Rebbe: Diverting God’s Gaze from a Utopian End to an Anguished Now Get access James A. Diamond James A. Diamond University of Waterloo [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, Volume 30, Issue 3, October 2010, Pages 299–331, https://doi.org/10.1093/mj/kjq018 Published: 06 August 2010
Jacob's melancholic descent from the ladder
Maimonides' use of a biblical persona to illustrate various aspects of prophecy or providence offers valuable material for constructing medieval psychological portraits of central biblical characters. Jacob, whose narrative life moves through a series of challenges posed by melancholia to the religious life, is particularly instructive. This study will assemble a Maimonidean construct of Jacob, which embodies Maimonides' juristic and philosophica…
Isaac Arama’s “Nightmare
Isaac Arama (1420–1494), the most influential preacher in the generation of the expulsion from Spain, attempted a balance between what he considered a foreign Greek body of rational knowledge on the one hand, and a supra-rational revealed knowledge native to Judaism’s prophetic tradition on the other. This article focuses on an aspect of his creative exegesis and in particular his engagement with Maimonides that was powerful enough, in addition t…
Jewish Theology Unbound
This book challenges the widespread caricature of Judaism as a religion of law as opposed to theology. Broad swaths of rabbinic literature involve not just law but what could be best described as philosophical theology as well. Judaism has never been a dogmatic religion, insisting on a monolithic theology rooted in a uniform metaphysics that would exclude all others. The book engages in close readings of the Bible, classical rabbinic texts, Jewis…
Postscript
The conclusion of this book cursorily looks beyond it by reconvening the encounter between the protagonists of the preceding chapter. It would be blasphemous to consider the establishment of the State of Israel as somehow compensation, or in vulgar terms, a consolation prize for the devastation of the Shoah . However, it would also leave a gaping lacuna for any current Jewish philosophical theology not to at least attempt to theologically engage …
A God That Ceased to Become, a Nation That May Have Ceased to Exist
This chapter responds to the Holocaust, the greatest challenge to any contemporary Jewish philosophical theology. Any Jewish theology that continues to insist on theodicy in the shadow of such an exhaustive obliteration of humanity and the divine Presence, or of any traces of godliness in the world, remains incomplete or worse an utter failure. The two most profound thinkers confronting the challenge are Kalonymous Kalman Shapira (1889–1943), the…
Unbinding Jewish Philosophical Theology
The voluminous corpus of the rabbinic genre known as midrash and aggadah involves not just law ( halakhah ), but also a prolific repository of unrefined philosophical theology. The aggadic and midrashic style encompasses narrative, allegory, and a deeply intimate exegetical engagement with every syllable of the biblical text. It may not correspond neatly to the kinds of systematic treatises, largely identified with the Christian tradition, throug…
God as Liberator and the Slave
This chapter offers a new approach to the moral quandary of the biblical sanctioning of slavery. The chapter argues that the Bible shapes its ideal view of slavery, not simply as deleterious to the human moral condition but as metaphysically injurious as well. It first conducts a methodical narrative analysis of the term ‘eved , the Hebrew word for slave. It then proceeds to examine the Bible’s strict regulation of slavery which is calibrated to …
D avid I. S hyovitz . A Remembrance of His Wonders
Raging against Reason
Andalus and Sefarad
Philosophy (15 works) · Theology (12 works) · Medieval and Classical Philosophy (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Literature (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · History (8 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (8 works) · Judaism (8 works) · Biblical Studies and Interpretation (7 works)