Definition
Maimonides (1138-1204), also known by the Hebrew acronym Rambam, was a Jewish philosopher, legal scholar, and court physician who lived in Spain, Morocco, and Egypt during the height of the Islamic Golden Age. He is regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in Jewish history.
His two towering works are the Mishneh Torah, a comprehensive code of Jewish law that organized centuries of rabbinic rulings into a clear system, and the Guide for the Perplexed, a philosophical treatise that sought to harmonize reason with revealed religion.
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Maimonides applied the logic of Aristotle, transmitted through Arabic translations and commentators, to questions of Jewish theology. He argued that scripture, when read carefully, did not conflict with reason, and that apparent contradictions arose from literal misreadings of metaphorical text. As a physician he served the court of Saladin, and as a community leader he answered legal questions from Jewish populations across the Mediterranean. His thought influenced later Christian scholastics, including Thomas Aquinas.