Scientific Perspectives on Psalm 148 in Medieval Jewish Exegesis

• MARIANO GÓMEZ ARANDA ^[1]
  1. [1] CSIC, Madrid
• Localización: Mediterranea.: International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge, ISSN-e 2445-2378, Nº. 7, 2022, págs. 39-70
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.21071/mijtk.v7i.13637
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen

  • Psalm 148 is a hymn inviting all beings in the celestial world and the earthly world to praise God. Even though the Psalm seems simple and easy to understand, two questions have been raised in the history of the exegesis of this Psalm: why are these specific creatures and not others mentioned in the Psalm, and why are they placed in this particular order? In Ancient Judaism, little attention was given to the explanation of this Psalm from a scientific perspective. Abraham ibn Ezra seems to be the first Jewish exegete to have written a systematic commentary on Psalm 148 to demonstrate that the biblical text describes the structure, composition and laws of the universe according to Aristotelian principles. Ibn Ezra’s scientific comments on this Psalm were the starting point for future scientific analyses by later exegetes in southern France, such as David Qimhi and Menahem ha-Meiri. The latter interpreted this Psalm in the light of Aristotelian cosmology, and, more specifically, in consonance with scientific ideas set forth in Aristotle’s Meteorology. It is the purpose of this article to analyze how Psalm 148 was interpreted by these three Jewish exegetes from a scientific perspective, and to examine how later exegetes explained, developed or even refuted the scientific interpretations of their predecessors. It also examines the sources that Ibn Ezra may have used to learn about Aristotle’s ideas

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