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The Guide of the Perplexed

Complete in One Volume

Translated by Shlomo Pines
With an Introduction by Leo Strauss

The classic translation of this most important medieval Jewish text, presented in one volume for the first time.

The twelfth-century Judeo-Arabic text The Guide of the Perplexed is a monument of rabbinical exegesis and one of the most important works in the history of Jewish thought. Written by Moses ben Maimon,commonly known as Maimonides, the Guide aims to liberate people from the perplexities that arise from an understanding of the Bible based only on its literal meaning.

Shlomo Pines’s translation has served students and scholars for decades, and it is presented here, with Leo Strauss’s influential introduction, in one volume for the first time.

Reviews

"Leo Strauss’s penetrating essay alone would give high value to this volume. . . . On the other hand, without this essay the new translation would make this an important volume which is unlikely to be surpassed for a long time.”

Times Literary Supplement

 “This work by Pines and Strauss must be recognized as one of the most important contributions to the study of Maimonides in the present century. The translation is of a quality unequalled in a modern language.”

Journal of the History of Philosophy

"Competent reviewers have without exception praised this translation. . . . As a whole, the book is simply indispensable.” 

Modern Schoolman

Table of Contents

Sponsors
Acknowledgment
Preface
Shlomo Pines and Leo Strauss
How to Begin to Study The Guide of the Perplexed
Leo Strauss
Translator’s Introduction
Shlomo Pines

The Guide of the Perplexed
Part I
Part II
Part III

Glossary
Indexes
Biblical Passages Appearing in the Text
Rabbinic Passages Appearing in the Text
Sects, Communities, and Nonbiblical Writers and Writings

 

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