Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The History of Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- Part I The Greek-Arabic Scientific Tradition and Its Appropriation, Adaptation, and Development in Medieval Jewish Cultures, East and West
- Part II Individual Sciences as Studied and Practiced by Medieval Jews
- 5 Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture
- 6 Astronomy among Jews in the Middle Ages
- 7 Interactions between Jewish and Christian Astronomers in the Iberian Peninsula
- 8 The Hebrew Mathematics Culture (Twelfth–Sixteenth Centuries)
- 9 Mathematical and Physical Optics in Medieval Jewish Scientific Thought
- 10 The Evolution of the Genre of the Philosophical-Scientific Commentary
- 11 Latin Scholastic Influences on Late Medieval Hebrew Physics
- 12 Meteorology and Zoology in Medieval Hebrew Texts
- 13 The Mental Faculties and the Psychology of Sleep and Dreams
- 14 Toward a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature
- 15 Astrology in Medieval Jewish Thought (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)
- 16 Astral Magic and Specific Properties (Segullot) in Medieval Jewish Thought
- 17 Medicine among Medieval Jews
- 18 Alchemy in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- 19 The Science of Language among Medieval Jews
- Part III Scientific Knowledge in Context
- Name Index*
- Subject Index*
- References
15 - Astrology in Medieval Jewish Thought (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)
from Part II - Individual Sciences as Studied and Practiced by Medieval Jews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The History of Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- Part I The Greek-Arabic Scientific Tradition and Its Appropriation, Adaptation, and Development in Medieval Jewish Cultures, East and West
- Part II Individual Sciences as Studied and Practiced by Medieval Jews
- 5 Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture
- 6 Astronomy among Jews in the Middle Ages
- 7 Interactions between Jewish and Christian Astronomers in the Iberian Peninsula
- 8 The Hebrew Mathematics Culture (Twelfth–Sixteenth Centuries)
- 9 Mathematical and Physical Optics in Medieval Jewish Scientific Thought
- 10 The Evolution of the Genre of the Philosophical-Scientific Commentary
- 11 Latin Scholastic Influences on Late Medieval Hebrew Physics
- 12 Meteorology and Zoology in Medieval Hebrew Texts
- 13 The Mental Faculties and the Psychology of Sleep and Dreams
- 14 Toward a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature
- 15 Astrology in Medieval Jewish Thought (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)
- 16 Astral Magic and Specific Properties (Segullot) in Medieval Jewish Thought
- 17 Medicine among Medieval Jews
- 18 Alchemy in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- 19 The Science of Language among Medieval Jews
- Part III Scientific Knowledge in Context
- Name Index*
- Subject Index*
- References
Summary
The purpose of this chapter is to draw the main contours of what we may call the Hebrew astrological landscape. I briefly present the main figures and their works and point out the more general cultural tendencies within which they worked. My focus is on Jewish thought expressed in Hebrew between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries and exclusively in the discipline of astrology, rather than the philosophical or other discussions of its implications.
In the medieval period, Jewish adherents of astrology often invoked the Bible in support of their beliefs. However, there is no explicit mention of astrology in the Bible, although a few verses do refer to diviners, soothsayers, and the effects of the stars while discussing propitiatory rituals and omens of several types. Later, in the talmudic period, Jewish society accommodated Hellenistic astrology to some extent. The astrologer is known in talmudic sources as astrologos or kalday (i.e., Chaldean) and astrology as ʾiṣṭagninut or ʾastrologiyyah – all words with a Greek origin. The discussions related to astrology in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, which bear on the relationship among the stars, human fate, and religious belief, also depend on astrological doctrines of Greek or Babylonian origin. From the transitional period between Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages, we have two Hebrew texts in which astrological themes loom large – the Baraita de-Šemuʾel and the Baraita de-Mazzalot – both of which draw on Hellenistic astrology and use Greek terminology. Significant astrological contents are also included in two Hebrew works by Shabbetai Donnolo (913–ca. 982): Sefer Ḥaḵmoni and Sefer ha-Mazzalot.
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- Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures , pp. 292 - 300Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012