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Chapter 18 - Non-Rabbinic and Non-Karaite Religious Movements

from Part III - Spiritual and Intellectual History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2021

By
Fred Astren
Edited by
Phillip I. Lieberman
Phillip I. Lieberman
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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Summary

The range of Jewish religious variety in medieval Islamic societies was shaped both by elements innate to Judaism and by the contemporaneous historical environment. Two perennial forces typically shaped modes of difference. Messianic and prophetic claims date back to at least the Hellenistic era, and coupled with apocalypticism promised Jews a final resolution to fundamental problems (in this period, specifically, the problems of Jewish powerlessness and dispersion). Older still was interpretive disagreement over matters of Scripture and law, based on the idea that Jews constitute a scriptural community whose covenantal obligation is to understand and necessarily interpret Scripture in order to live according to its guiding principles. Messianism and interpretive diversity are pervasive, if not intrinsic, to Judaism, yet they act as key components of religious and social movements only in certain historical moments, two of which emerged in the Islamic Middle Ages.

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The Cambridge History of Judaism , pp. 606 - 633
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

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