Joseph Ibn Kaspi – is the Book of Job a Critique of Jewish Theology?

• In Event: Artistic, Literary, and Philosophical Consequences of the Book of Job

Abstract

Joseph Ibn Kaspi (b. Provence 1280; d. Majorca 1345) was a philosopher and commentator on various texts, including the Bible and Maimonides's GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED, who used commentary as a medium for his philosophy. His playful and cryptic style foreshadows the controversial interpretations of Leo Strauss, who invokes Kaspi as a precedent for his reading of Maimonides in PERSECUTION AND THE ART OF WRITING (1952). Kaspi's two commentaries on the Book of Job (published together under the title SHULḤAN KESEF by Last in 1905), were critiques of the chapters which Maimonides devotes to Job in the GUIDE, and were the subject of studies by Kasher (1988) and Eisen (2006). Following Kasher's assertion that Kaspi wrote differently for different audiences, Eisen made an important observation: Kaspi offers criticisms of Maimonides which, when read carefully, conceal his agreement with the Instructive Master.
In the current paper I apply a method which is similar to that of Eisen: I view Kaspi’s criticisms as opportunities to expose radical implications in Maimonides’s statements, suggesting his agreement with them. Specifically, I focus on how Kaspi views the status of the Jewish people as possessors of "a correct religion." A key to this is the role of Moses as a uniquely perfect individual who (unlike Job) enjoys the complete individual providence described by Maimonides in GUIDE 3:51. Eisen (following Dimant 1979) dismissed Kaspi's statements about the perfection of Moses as exoteric lip-service intended for the Jewish masses. I believe, however, that Kaspi's take on Moses resembles the understanding of GUIDE 3:51 put forth by his younger contemporary, Moses Narboni, and has philosophical significance. The fact that it is Moses (an individual) and not an entire nation that achieves intellectual perfection (which for Maimonides is the same thing as divine providence), is consistent with other statements on the part of Kaspi which may imply a Spinozistic view that nations are constructions and are not real the way that individuals are.

Author

• Gadi Charles William Weber, Bar-Ilan University