Who was Maimonides?

To what source then are we to attribute these unbelieving speculations? It would seem mainly to Moses Maimonides (A.D. 1131-1204), from whom B. Spinoza borrowed much, followed in that at least by Le Clerc, as Grotius derived it directly from Jewish channels. In his "Moreh Nebochim" Maimonides conceives eleven "degrees of Prophecy." These the Portuguese Jew, Abarbanel (A.D. 1437-1508), melted into three degrees of inspiration for the O.T., answering to the three divisions of the sanctuary and its court: the Thorah, the Nebiim, and the Ketubhim, the Law, the Prophets, and the rest of the O.T. or Hagiographa. That Moses personally enjoyed the divine Presence, as no ordinary prophet did, is certain: Num. 12 and Deut. 34 are as to this explicit. John the Baptist (and we have our Lord's authority for it) was a prophet, and greater than a prophet. None of woman-born was greater than he; yet he neither wrote a line nor wrought a miracle. But whosoever wrote, inspiration is a fact, and admits of no varying measures. "Every scripture is God-inspired;" and God is equally true at all times and by all persons He employed to write or even speak His word. It was certainly a monstrous position of the Jewish scheme that the lowest in the scale of the inspired should be assigned to the Holy Spirit; for He, as we know, is the divine agent in man of all divine inspiration, and He does not differ from Himself.

The Rabbinical commentators such as Rashi (eleventh century), Maimonides (eleventh century), Ibn Ezra and Kimchi (thirteenth century), and Abarbanel (fifteenth century), generally follow the common Text. Ibn Ezra's and Kimchi's annotations are of most value: the influence of Kimchi's may be seen in our Authorised Version. They are in Rabbinical Bibles, as Buxtorf's, at the side of or underlying the text. Samples of such comments, with a vocabulary, may be found in Winer's 'Talmudic and Rabbinic Chrestomathy' and Bernard's 'Selections from Maimonides,' containing a Digest of Rabbinical phrases and abbreviations, is a most useful book. The language of the Mishna and Gemara has been shortly described by Renan, 'Histoire' (pp.157-61). There is no good English book upon the grammar of either, but there is one in German for the Mishna, by Geiger; and Samuel David Luzzatto, Professor at the Rabbinical Institute of Padua, wrote in Italian a Grammar of the Babylonian Gemara (1865), of which there has appeared a German edition by Kruger.

The best Lexicon for the Talmud and Rabbinic is Buxtorf's, edited by Fischer. Ibn Ezra on Isaiah has been translated by Friedlander, Kimchi on Zechariah by McCaul; whilst the commentaries of the latter on the Psalms and on Isaiah are available in Latin. The 'Yalkut' on Zechariah, being a collection of Rabbinical 'Hints' for interpretation, has been translated by King (1882). This last contains interesting appendices, 'A' being on 'Messiah ben Joseph' (see Gen. 49:22-26), and 'B' on 'The Jerusalem of the World to come' (cf. Ezek. 41), with elucidation of Eph. 2:14, 20-22.

Further, it has often been said that the Jews received their proselytes by baptism. Of this we have no record in the O.T., and Josephus, who details the rites necessary for the reception of a proselyte, makes no mention of baptism. It is true that Maimonides says that proselytes were thus received; but he was not born till A.D. 1135, and was thus far too late to know what took place so long before when contemporary writers are silent on the subject.

When the Arabs conquered those parts of the world where these learned Jews were chiefly settled, and when the earlier Caliphs in the eighth and ninth centuries patronised all kinds of learning;— a great impulse was given to the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature, and to the critical study of the Bible. A succession of Jewish doctors then flourished in the East, who are styled the Masoretes, because their collection of writings is called the masorah or tradition. They directed their attention almost exclusively to the text of the Bible, selecting the best manuscripts, and rejecting what was corrupt. The scrupulous care they took may be judged from the fact that they have counted the number of words, and the number of letters in the Bible or in any particular parts. They have left on record what is the middle word, or the middle letter of the entire book; how many words begin with a particular letter, and many other minute labours of the same kind, trifling indeed, but still showing most remarkably how careful they were of even words and letters.

When the Turks overpowered Western Asia in the eleventh century, they commenced a systematic persecution against the Jews, broke up their schools, and killed or banished their leaders. The doctors fled chiefly into Spain, where there was still a Caliph at Cordova: and to the adjoining provinces in the South of France. Here Aben‑Ezra, Maimonides, Kimchi, and others, preserved the learning of the Eastern Jews. But, when the fierce persecution of Ferdinand and Isabella, in the fifteenth century, drove all the Jews out of Spain, they carried with them, into more favourable countries, the valuable treasures they possessed; and therefore in the next or sixteenth century, when learning revived, and the reformation arose, then the Hebrew MSS. of the Jews were at hand, and were soon put into print, by means of which the Bible was corrected, and brought back, as nearly as possible, to its original condition.

We cannot but admire the providential ordering of events, which overruled the cruel and iniquitous persecutions raised against the learned Jews, first by the Turkish sultans in Asia, and then by the christian sovereigns of Spain, bringing to us the Hebrew MSS. of the Bible, which otherwise we might have sought in vain.

When the Arabs conquered those parts of the world where these learned Jews were chiefly settled, and when the earlier Caliphs in the eighth and ninth centuries patronised all kinds of learning;— a great impulse was given to the cultivation of the Hebrew language and literature, and to the critical study of the Bible. A succession of Jewish doctors then flourished in the East, who are styled the Masoretes, because their collection of writings is called the masorah or tradition. They directed their attention almost exclusively to the text of the Bible, selecting the best manuscripts, and rejecting what was corrupt. The scrupulous care they took may be judged from the fact that they have counted the number of words, and the number of letters in the Bible or in any particular parts. They have left on record what is the middle word, or the middle letter of the entire book; how many words begin with a particular letter, and many other minute labours of the same kind, trifling indeed, but still showing most remarkably how careful they were of even words and letters.

When the Turks overpowered Western Asia in the eleventh century, they commenced a systematic persecution against the Jews, broke up their schools, and killed or banished their leaders. The doctors fled chiefly into Spain, where there was still a Caliph at Cordova: and to the adjoining provinces in the South of France. Here Aben-Ezra, Maimonides, Kimchi, and others, preserved the learning of the Eastern Jews. But, when the fierce persecution of Ferdinand and Isabella, in the fifteenth century, drove all the Jews out of Spain, they carried with them, into more favourable countries, the valuable treasures they possessed; and therefore in the next or sixteenth century, when learning revived, and the reformation arose, then the Hebrew MSS. of the Jews were at hand, and were soon put into print, by means of which the Bible was corrected, and brought back, as nearly as possible, to its original condition.

We cannot but admire the providential ordering of events, which overruled the cruel and iniquitous persecutions raised against the learned Jews, first by the Turkish sultans in Asia, and then by the christian sovereigns of Spain, bringing to us the Hebrew MSS. of the Bible, which otherwise we might have sought in vain.

It must be also mentioned that we do not depend solely upon these Asiatic and Spanish Jews for our MSS. There existed from time immemorial in Poland and Germany, another separate community of Jews, whose traditions and schools of learning were quite independent of their brethren; and from them we have MSS. agreeing indeed in all essential respects with the others, but still so far varying as to show they come to us through different channels.

Granted that Josephus seems to have read these pregnant words as unintelligently as a heathen, divorcing them from the solemn fact of the temptation and the fall just before, ignoring Jehovah Elohim as the speaker and the judge, and utterly dark as to the purpose of God gradually glowing into fuller clearness throughout till Himself came, the true Light. Was it the place for nothing more than a commonplace on natural history? on the relative position of the serpent henceforth? on its hostility to the human race, provoking no less in turn? on its aptness to bite heels and in retaliation to have its head crushed? This may satisfy those erudite critics who are bent as far as they can on reducing the holy letters to a compilation of legendary tales or myths. But the irrationalism as well as the impiety of these sceptics of Christendom is self-evident to every believer; and the inspired word, though it may by grace convert the worst infidel, is addressed to faith, and given first to Israel, and now, that they are for the time Lo-ammi and worse, to the church of God. Even an unbelieving Jew may not be so blind to the depths of what was meant to arouse enquiry and awaken a blessed hope, as well as search the conscience; as we may unhesitatingly say such a God must do if He spoke to man at all in the circumstances. Hence Maimonides (More Nevochim ii. 30) owns that this is one of the passages in scripture which is most wonderful, and not to be understood according to the letter, but contains great wisdom in it. He too was struck by the mention of the woman's Seed rather than the man's as the bruiser of the serpent's Head; and both Targums openly point to Christ, Whom we know to be none other than Jesus, not Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben Judah, but one and the same Christ, come and coming again to complete in manifested power and glory what He has already done in the efficacy of His reconciliation-work in death and resurrection. His second advent is as sure as His first.

In vain, then, do Rabbins reason on the unchangeableness of the law given by Moses: their own prophets refute them. And so the famous D. Kimchi owns in his comment on our prophet, as Albo and Nachmanides acknowledge also against the absolute claim of immutability. Indeed Albo expressly refutes the use Maimonides makes of Deuteronomy 12:22 to the contrary, showing that the real bearing of Moses' warning is to restrain the Israelites from arbitrarily or in self-will presuming to add to or take from the law. In no way did Moses mean to deny the authority of a prophet to do so, especially in view of the vast change to be introduced by the presence of a reigning Messiah and the new covenant. Ezekiel predicts some strikingly characteristic changes when Israel are restored and the theocracy is once more in force, the details of which will appear as we pass through the book.

330 Even in Old Testament times there were different characters of inspiration. "If there be a prophet … the LORD … will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so, … with him will I speak mouth to mouth," etc. (Num. 12:6-8). But while there is this difference in character, there arises no question as to authority. The Jews did make a difference, for they had the Mosaic degree, and the prophetic degree, and the "Bath Col," or daughter of the voice - the writings or Kethubim.

(The Targum of Jonathan says on Hosea 3:5: "This is the King Messiah; whether he be from among the living or from the dead. His name is Messiah. The same explanation is given by the mystical books Zohar, Midrash Shemuel and Tanchuma. The greatest authorities among the Jews are one in declaring that 'the last days' mean the days of the Messiah; we have reference to Kirnchi, Abarbanel, Moses Ben Nacham and many others.)

The unbelieving Jews sought to solve the difficulty by the fiction of two Messiahs: one the son of Joseph, of the tribe of Ephraim; the other the son of David, of the tribe of Judah; the first, to contend and suffer death; the second, to conquer and reign gloriously and for ever. The Talmud taught it; the later Targum applied it to Cant. 4:5, Cant. 7:3; and the Rabbins Solomon Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and D. Kimchi popularised it. Now we know that the O. Testament leaves no conceivable opening for two such personages, but lays the utmost stress on their being different states of the same Anointed of Jehovah. He was indeed the Son of David, not through Mary only as in Luke 3, but legally too through Joseph who was of Solomon's royal stem as in Matt. 1. And, what was of immeasurably deeper importance, He and He only of David's sons was David's Lord, as in Ps. 110:1 cited by Himself to confound the haughty adversaries who doubted and despised Him. The crowd then, and probably their leader, had not yet invented the delusion of a double Messiah; but they left no room for His sufferings, and cared only for His earthly glory as their vested right. Hence when He said (John 12:32), "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all to me" (this He said signifying by what death He was about to die), they answered, "We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?"