Bibles, Study Guides, and Accessories
Deciding which bibles and bible references and bible commentaries to stock is a challenge. I attempt a historical and a critical approach. We begin with the Hebrew and Greek originals. We move through the significant translations chronologically: the Geneva (with its sharp and learned Calvinist notes), the King James (safer for its sponsor), the New Revised Standard, and the excellent harvest of translations in the late 20th Century -- the New International, the English Standard, and the Common English.
Our dictionaries and handbooks tend to be a little conservative, mostly because I am skeptical of the confidence and the imagination of modern liberal scholars. Two thousand years of brilliant minds have thought about and written about scriptures (longer and more in the case of the Hebrew scriptures), and the humble approach with that perspective is useful and wise. The best approach is to begin with the basics and go from there.
On a less controversial note, protect your treasure of wisdom with a book cover or tote. We have several designs with neat features.
The Guide for the Perplexed [Dover edition]
The Guide for the Perplexed [Dover edition]
This is the full, unabridged text of one of the greatest philosophic works of all time. Written by a 12th- century thinker who was equally active as an original philosopher and as a Biblical and Talmudic scholar, it is both a classic of great historical importance and a work of living significance today.
The Guide for the Perplexed was written for scholars who were bewildered by the conflict between religion and the scientific and philosophic thought of the day. It is concerned, basically, with finding a concord between the religion of the Old Testament and its commentaries, and Aristotelian philosophy. After analyzing the ideas of the Old Testament by means of "homonyms," Maimonides examines other reconciliations of religion and philosophy (the Moslem rationalists) and then proposes his own resolution with contemporary Aristotelianism.
The Guide for the Perplexed was at once recognized as a masterwork, and it strongly influenced Jewish, Christian, and Moslem thought of the Middle Ages. It is necessary reading for any full comprehension of the thought of such scholastics as Aquinas and Scotus, and indispensable for everyone interested in the Middle Ages, Judaism, medieval philosophy, or the larger problems which Maimonides discusses.
Reprint of the second revised edition.