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Article: The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Shofar
- Article date:
- January 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 University of Nebraska Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Philosopher-King in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Thought, by Abraham Melamed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. 269 pp. $25.95.
Abraham Melamed presents his book as a study of Jewish political thought in the medieval and Renaissance periods. However, it is also, to my mind primarily, a study in Jewish theology focusing on issues of prophecy and revealed law. As such it is the more valuable to a contemporary student of Jewish religious thought. After all, Jews were stateless in these periods, and problems of political theory had no application in reality. Melamed argues that Plato's Philosopher-King theory was applied first by Muslim ...