Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy includes all philosophy carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until the modern Haskalah and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconcile coherent new ideas into the tradition of Rabbinic Judaism, thus organizing emergent ideas that are not necessarily Jewish into a uniquely Jewish scholastic framework and worldview. With their admission into broader modern society, Jews with secular educations embraced or developed entirely new philosophies to meet the world's demands in which they now found themselves.
Medieval rediscovery of ancient Greek philosophy among the Geonim of 10th-century Babylonian academies brought rationalist philosophy into Biblical-Talmudic Judaism. During the Geonic period, philosophy was generally in competition with Kabbalah. Both schools would become part of classic Rabbinic literature, though the decline of scholastic rationalism coincided with historical events that drew Jews to the Kabbalistic approach. For the Ashkenazi Jews of Western Europe, emancipation and encounters with secular thought from the 18th century onwards altered how philosophy was viewed. Ashkenazi Jews in Eastern Europe and Sephardi communities had comparatively later, more ambivalent interactions with secular cultures than those of Western Europe. In the varied responses to modernity, Jewish philosophical ideas were developed across a range of emerging religious movements. These developments could be seen as either the continuation of or breaks from the canon of Rabbinic philosophy of the Middle Ages and the other historical dialectic aspects of Jewish thought, resulting in diverse contemporary Jewish attitudes to philosophical methods.
Ancient Jewish philosophy
Philo of Alexandria
was a Jewish philosopher of antiquity, active in Alexandria and writing in Greek, who sought to harmonize biblical theology with Greek philosophical traditions, particularly Platonism, Pythagoreanism, and Aristotelianism, though he also drew from other Hellenistic schools. He attempted to fuse and harmonize Greek and Jewish philosophy through allegory, which he learned from Jewish exegesis and Stoicism. Philo attempted to make his philosophy the means of defending and justifying Jewish religious truths. These truths he regarded as fixed and determinate, and philosophy was used as an aid to truth, and a means of arriving at it. To this end Philo chose from philosophical tenets of Greeks, refusing those that did not harmonize with Judaism such as Aristotle's doctrine of the eternity and indestructibility of the world.Central to Philo's thought was the concept of the Logos, a divine intermediary between God and the world, through which he explained creation, providence, and human access to the divine. In his ethical philosophy, Philo interpreted the patriarchs as moral archetypes: Abraham as faith guided by reason, Joseph as the model of a wise and just statesman, and Moses as the ideal leader combining the roles of legislator, priest, and prophet. He envisioned the soul's ascent to God through the cultivation of virtue, contemplation, and the rejection of passions.Book of Sirach
The Book of Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus or The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira, was originally composed in Hebrew in the early 2nd century BCE by Ben Sira in Jerusalem. It is a major example of early Jewish wisdom literature from the Hellenistic period. Rooted in Israel's wisdom tradition, Sirach offers a developed ethical framework for a Jewish population living under foreign influence. Its central concept is the fear of the Lord, described as the foundation of wisdom. This fear manifests in practical ethics: trust, humility, obedience to commandments, and respect for parents and teachers. Wisdom is cultivated through moral discipline, social responsibility, and study of the Law, aimed at aligning life with divine order.Ben Sira closely associates Wisdom with the Torah, presenting the study of the Law as both spiritual practice and intellectual pursuit. This approach recalls Stoic ideals of living in accordance with reason and nature, in a way situated within ancient Israel's covenantal tradition. The figure of the scribe emerges as a teacher and sage, devoted to sacred texts and based in a house of study.
Sirach advocates a this-worldly ethics. It avoids speculation about afterlife, resurrection, or messianic redemption, focusing instead on earthly reward for virtue and the shaping of character through moral choice and tradition. In this respect, the book differs from apocalyptic writings of the Second Temple period. Philosophically, the book is practical rather than speculative. It uses mashal, extended moral reflections, hymns, and praises of creation and wisdom. While heavily reliant on biblical texts, especially Proverbs and Psalms, it also shows influence from Hellenistic sources, including the Wisdom of Ahikar.
Jewish scholarship after destruction of Second Temple
With the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Second Temple Judaism was in disarray. Still, Jewish traditions were preserved especially thanks to the shrewd maneuvers of Johanan ben Zakai, who saved the Sanhedrin and moved it to Yavne. Philosophical speculation was not a central part of Rabbinic Judaism, but some have seen the Mishnah as a philosophical work. Rabbi Akiva has also been viewed as a philosopher figure. He is credited with the following teachings in the Mishnah:- "How favored is man, for he was created in the image ."
- "All things are foreseen , yet the freedom to choose is given , and the world is judged on merits, while everything is according to the preponderance of works."
Who influences whom?
Rabbinic Judaism had limited philosophical activity until it was challenged by Islam, Karaite Judaism, and Christianity—with Tanakh, Mishnah, and Talmud, there was previously no explicit requirement for a philosophic framework. From an economic viewpoint, Radhanite trade dominance was being usurped by coordinated Christian and Islamic forced conversions and torture, compelling Jewish scholars to apprehend nascent economic threats. These investigations yielded intellectual exchange between Jewish and Islamic scholars in jurisprudence, mathematics, astronomy, logic, and philosophy. Jewish scholars influenced Islamic scholars, and Islamic scholars influenced Jewish scholars. Contemporary scholars continue to debate who was Muslim and who was Jewish—some "Islamic scholars" were Jewish scholars prior to forced conversion to Islam, and there were episodic willing conversions of Jewish scholars to Islam. In contrast, others later reverted to Judaism, and still others, born and raised as Jews, were ambiguous in their public religious beliefs, such as ibn al-Rawandi. However, they lived according to the customs of their Muslim neighbors.Around 700 CE, ʿAmr ibn ʿUbayd Abu ʿUthman al-Basri introduced two streams of thought that influenced Jewish, Islamic, and Christian scholars:
- Qadariyah
- Bahshamiyya ''Muʿtazila
Around 733 CE, Mar Natronai ben Habibai moved to Kairouan, then to Spain, transcribing the Talmud Bavli'' for the Academy at Kairouan from memory—later taking a copy with him to Spain.
Karaism
Borrowing from the Mutakallamin of Basra, the Karaites were the first Jewish group to subject Judaism to Muʿtazila. Rejecting the Talmud and Rabbinical tradition, Karaites took radical liberty to reinterpret the Tanakh. This meant abandoning foundational Jewish belief structures. Some scholars suggest that the major impetus for the formation of Karaism was a reaction to the rapid rise of Shia Islam, which recognized Judaism as a fellow monotheistic faith but claimed it detracted from monotheism by deferring to rabbinic authority. Karaites absorbed certain aspects of Jewish sects such as the followers of Abu Isa, Maliki, and Yudghanites, who were influenced by East-Islamic scholarship yet deferred to the Ash'ari when contemplating the sciences.Philosophic synthesis begins
The spread of Islam throughout the Middle East and North Africa rendered Islamic much that was previously Jewish. Greek philosophy, science, medicine, and mathematics were absorbed by Jewish scholars living in the Arab world due to Arabic translations of those texts in remnants of the Library of Alexandria. Early Jewish converts to Islam brought with them stories from Jewish tradition, known as Isra'iliyyat, which told of the Banu Isra'il: the pious men of ancient Israel. One of the most famous early mystics of Sufism, Hasan of Basra, introduced numerous Isra'iliyyat into Islamic scholarship—stories that went on to become representative of Islamic mystical ideas of the piety of Sufism.Hai Gaon of Pumbedita Academy began a new phase in Jewish scholarship and investigation ; Hai Gaon augments Talmudic scholarship with non-Jewish studies. Hai Gaon was a savant with an exact knowledge of the theological movements of his time, so much so that Moses ibn Ezra called him a mutakallim. Hai was competent in arguing with followers of Qadariyyah and Mutazilites, sometimes adopting their polemic methods. Through correspondence with the Talmudic academies of Kairouan, Cordoba, and Lucena, Hai Gaon transmitted his scholarly findings, which influenced the scholars at those centers.
The teachings of the Brethren of Purity were carried to the West by the Cordovan hadith scholar and alchemist Maslama al-Qurtubi, where they would be of central importance to the Jewish philosophers of Islamic Spain. One of the themes emphasized by the Brethren of Purity and adopted by most Spanish Jewish philosophers is the microcosm-macrocosm analogy. From the 10th century on, Spain became a center of philosophical learning as is reflected by the explosion of philosophical inquiry among Jews, Muslims and Christians.