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1 - Reading Epistemology in the Tanakh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2020

Douglas Yoder
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Summary

A life without mystery is a life without hope or expectation, perhaps without kindness, and “epistemology” is a word that seems to have no mystery in it. Knowledge makes the unknown known. Knowledge seeks out the mysterious to tame it (philosophy brings wonder to an end for Aristotle) or to make good use of it. Activities like these appear suspicious to those drawn less to the known than to its limits or to the depths, to the hidden paths of a Brahms symphony in the autumn twilight or to how small fingers wend their way around a larger hand to hold on tight. Curiosity, mystery, poetry, innocence – does knowledge bring these to an end? Yet clarity, logic, precision, insight – without them will we be deceived? What is it to know? What is it to be human?

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Tanakh Epistemology
Knowledge and Power, Religious and Secular
 , pp. 13 - 39
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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