Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in The Guide of the Perplexed

Examines how Maimonides integrates scriptural and rabbinic literature into his magnum opus, The Guide of the Perplexed.

Winner of the 2003 Nachman Sokol-Mollie Halberstadt Prize in Biblical/Rabbinic Scholarship presented by the Canadian Jewish Book Awards

Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment demonstrates the type of hermeneutic that the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138–1204) engaged in throughout his treatise, The Guide of the Perplexed. By comprehensively analyzing Maimonides' use of rabbinic and scriptural sources, James Arthur Diamond argues that, far from being merely prooftexts, they are in fact essential components of Maimonides' esoteric stratagem. Diamond's close reading of biblical and rabbinic citations in the Guide not only penetrates its multilayered structure to arrive at its core meaning, but also distinguishes Maimonides as a singular contributor to the Jewish exegetical tradition.

James Arthur Diamond is Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Waterloo.