The purpose of the Maimonides Group at Yahoo Groups is to support slow readings of works by Maimonides. For a brief discussion of "slow reading," please see Lance Fletcher’s essay at http://www.freelance-academy.org/slowread.htm.

This is one of a group of lists hosted by The Free Lance Academy, whose main purpose is to create opportunities for serious, committed intellectual inquiry outside the university, primarily by means of online media such as internet mailing lists.

The discussion leader for the Maimonides list is Scott Michael Alexander [[email protected]] who has provided the following introduction for Maimonides:

Moses Ben Maimon, known in the West as Maimonides, (1137-8 to 1204), the greatest Jewish philosopher, was born in Islamic Cordova, in Spanish Andalusia. Apart from being a philosopher, he was famous as a jurist; physician; international leader of the Jewish community; prose stylist in Arabic and Hebrew; in short, a man of innumerable accomplishments.

In his eternal monument, the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides codified the entire corpus Judaica, including the vast repositories of Biblical, Talmudic and Rabbinic lore. The Guide of the Perplexed was his statement of "the science of the law in its true sense," that is, the examination of divine purpose in divine law. The Guide searches for the meaning of prophecy, and it was meant to be a curriculum for all future prophets.

The discussion of this List should examine the Guide, as well his other philosophic writings, including The Book of Knowledge section of the Mishneh Torah, The Treatise on Resurrection, The Eight Chapters, and others. Even his apparently non-philosophic writings display philosophical and theological truths.

We welcome all contributions, including and especially pre-publication efforts.

Keywords: The Free Lance Academy, freelance, freelance-academy, philosophy, slow reading, Maimonides, Jewish studies, theology