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Jan 27, 2023
Rewriting Maimonides
Early Commentaries on the Guide of the Perplexed
Summary
Maimonideanism, the intellectual culture inspired by Maimonides’ writings, has received much recent attention. Yet a central aspect of Maimonideanism has been overlooked: the formal reception of the Guide of the Perplexed through commentary.
In Rewriting Maimonides: Early Commentaries on the Guide of the Perplexed (de Gruyter, 2018), Igor H. De Souza offers a comprehensive analysis of six early philosophical commentaries, written in Italy, Spain, and France, by some of Maimonides’ most loyal followers. The early commentaries represent the most creative period of exegesis of the Guide. De Souza’s analysis dispels the notion that the tradition of commentary on the Guide is monolithic. Rather, De Souza’s study illuminates how each commentator offers distinctive readings. Challenging the hierarchy of text and commentary, Rewriting Maimonides studies commentaries on the Guide as texts in their own right.
De Souza approaches the form of commentary as a multifaceted cultural practice. Employing historical, philosophical, and literary methods, this publication fills a lacuna in the history of the Guide through a global perspective on commentary.
This book is available open access here.
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Ari Barbalat
Ari Barbalat holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of California in Los Angeles. He lives in Toronto with his family.
