Maimonides

Life

Maimonides was born in Córdoba on the Iberian Peninsula, then under Islamic rule. His Hebrew name was Moses ben Maimon, and within Judaism he is known by the acronym "Rambam." When he was a child, the Almohad dynasty, which pursued intolerant religious policies, captured Córdoba. His family then wandered for many years, passing through Fez in North Africa and through Palestine before settling in Fustat (Old Cairo), Egypt, in the mid-1160s. After his brother David, a merchant, perished with his ship in the Indian Ocean, Maimonides supported himself by practicing medicine. He served as a court physician to the Ayyubid dynasty and also acted as a leader of the Jewish community in Egypt. He died in 1204 and, according to tradition, was buried in Tiberias in Galilee.

Works and Achievements

• Commentary on the Mishnah: An Arabic commentary on the Mishnah, the compilation of Jewish oral law. In this work he summarized the core of Jewish belief as the "Thirteen Principles of Faith."
• Mishneh Torah: A legal code in fourteen books, completed around 1180. Written in Hebrew, it organizes the vast legal discussions of the Talmud by subject.
• The Guide for the Perplexed: A philosophical work written in Arabic around 1190. It sought to harmonize Aristotelian philosophy with the faith of the Old Testament. In it he set forth a negative theology, holding that one can speak of God only in terms of what God is not, and he interpreted the anthropomorphic expressions of Scripture (expressions that describe God in human terms) figuratively.
• Transmission of the biblical text: In the Mishneh Torah, in treating the regulations for writing Torah scrolls, he stated that he relied on a manuscript of the Ben Asher family then located in Egypt. This manuscript is known today as the Aleppo Codex. Owing to his authority, it came to be regarded as the standard manuscript of the Masoretic Text.
• He also wrote a number of medical works in Arabic.

Influence on the Korean Church

His direct influence on the Korean church has been limited. He is, however, indirectly connected to it in several ways.

• His name comes up in seminary Old Testament courses when the history of the Hebrew Bible text and the Aleppo Codex are discussed.
• In courses on medieval philosophy and systematic theology, he is introduced through Thomas Aquinas's citations of him under the name "Rabbi Moses."
• His legal code and Thirteen Principles of Faith are frequently mentioned in explanations of how Judaism understands the law.

Assessment

Within Judaism he holds such high authority that he is honored with the saying, "From Moses to Moses there was none like Moses." Nevertheless, he faced criticism both during his lifetime and after his death. Controversy over his philosophical interpretation of Scripture and his understanding of the resurrection led him to write the Treatise on Resurrection around 1191 in his own defense. In the thirteenth century the so-called "Maimonidean Controversy" arose over his writings, and his books are reported to have been burned in France.

His stance toward Christianity was ambivalent. In one passage he classified Christian worship as idolatry. On the other hand, the original text of the Mishneh Torah contains a passage that regards Christianity and Islam as serving to prepare the world for the age of the Messiah; this passage was omitted from many editions as a result of medieval censorship.