NASHVILLE, Tenn. ñ He argued against the conventional wisdom that
religion and science are at odds, wrote a landmark legal document and
practiced medicine in a way that combined scientific and humanistic
values ñ a Renaissance man centuries before the Renaissance.
The enduring influence of Maimonides will be examined during a
conference on Sunday, Nov. 14, and Monday, Nov. 15. Experts from all
over the world will gather in Alumni Hall on the Vanderbilt campus to
present insights into a man who has fascinated scholars and continues
to influence the world 800 years after his death.
"There are still plenty of people today who think that faith and reason
can’t go together, that we all must defer to one or the other when push
comes to shove," said Lenn E. Goodman, professor of philosophy and
Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt and
co-organizer of the "Maimonides and His Milieu" conference.
"Maimonides wrote the Guide to the Perplexed to show how faith and reason could go hand-in-hand.
"Because of his conception of that kind of unity, he became an
exemplary figure for Muslims, Christians and Jews and for anyone
interested in the relationship between faith and reason. That endures
to this day," said Goodman.
The conference will begin at 9 a.m. each day and feature scholars
including Paul Mendes-Flohr, professor of modern Jewish thought in the
Divinity School of the University of Chicago, and Menachem Kellner, the
Sir Isaac and Lady Edith Wolfson Professor of Jewish Religious Thought
at the University of Haifa. Speakers from Vanderbilt include Goodman;
David J. Wasserstein, professor of history and Jewish studies; and
Richard McGregor, assistant professor of religious studies.
The conference is free and open to the public. Parking will be
available in the Terrace Place Garage on Terrace Place between 20th
Avenue South and 21st Avenue South.
Maimonides was born in 1138 in Cordoba in what is now Spain, then under
Moslem rule. His plan to become a scholar was complicated by the death
of his merchant brother in a shipwreck. Needing to support his family,
Maimonides practiced medicine in Egypt in the court of the Sultan
Saladin.
His major contribution to the field of law was a 14-volume codification
of Jewish law which remains authoritative. Although his work in
medicine was less influential, Maimonides insisted that health not be
an end in itself, but a means to fulfill one’s potential.
Guide to the Perplexed stands as a landmark of the movement to find a common ground between faith and reason.
"That requires a very creative way of reading scripture and a very
creative way of understanding the demands of rationality and logic,"
Goodman said. "That’s what he did in Guide to the Perplexed."
The keynote speech of the conference will be given at 5:15 p.m. Sunday,
Nov. 14, by David Novak, who holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff
Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.
The topic will be "Can We Be Maimonideans Today?"
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu