Jewish Averroism in the Renaissance

Abstract

On Jewish Averroism (see Renan 1925; Hayoun 1991) was a trend that played an important role in Jewish philosophy from the end of the thirteenth to the end of the fifteenth century. This school of thought flourished primarily in Spain, Provence, and Italy and counted among its adherents many important rabbis, such as Isaac Albalag, Isaac Pulgar, Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Levi ben Avraham, Nissim of Marseille, Moses of Narbonne, and Elia del Medigo. These rabbi-philosophers wrote essentially philosophical (or theological – the distinction does not exist in Jewish philosophy) books and supercommentaries on Averroes’ commentaries on Aristotle. They also wrote Bible commentaries as well as books that explain the art of biblical exegesis, though none wrote books on Jewish Law (Halacha).

Perhaps the most striking feature of Jewish Averroism is its radicalism. This trend in Jewish thought advanced an extreme philosophical and naturalist interpretation of Judaism and its canonical texts. The radicalism of Jewish Averroism can be seen, for example, in its being the only medieval movement in Jewish thought to completely deny the existence of any kind of life after death. One of the movement’s qualities that evinces its radicalism is the willingness of its proponents to expose their radical opinions in a much more explicit and hence comprehensible way than, say, a Maimonides. Interestingly, it was this very openness that allowed the Jewish Averroists to have some influence on the Latin Averroists, who initially found Averroes’ writings (including those of dubious attribution) to be mostly inaccessible until Hebrew translations of the original Arabic were made available for secondary translation into Latin.