Gersonides

Gersonides was a French Jewish philosopher, biblical commentator, mathematician and astronomer who lived in Provence. His main work, The Wars of the Lord, takes up questions that he thought Maimonides had left unresolved: the immortality of the soul, prophecy, God's knowledge of particular things, providence, the heavens and the creation of the world. A committed Aristotelian, he followed arguments to unusual conclusions, holding that God knows particulars only through their general order, which leaves human choice genuinely open. He also invented an instrument for astronomy and observation, the Jacob's staff.

Key ideas

• God knows particular things only in a general way, through the order of their species, so future human choices are not fixed in advance.
• The world was created by God, but out of an eternal, formless matter rather than from nothing.
• The soul's immortality consists in the knowledge the intellect acquires during life.
• Philosophy and Torah cannot truly conflict, and where they seem to, careful reasoning should guide interpretation.

Major works

• The Wars of the Lord (1317–1329)
• Commentary on the Torah (14th century)
• Maaseh Hoshev (1321)
• On Sines, Chords and Arcs (1342)

In the Book corner

• The Wars of the Lord 1329 · Advanced
  The main philosophical work of Levi ben Gershom, known as Gersonides, a Provençal Jewish philosopher, astronomer and biblical commentator, completed in 1329…

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