Judaism And Science: A Historical Introduction

Judaism and Science canvases three millennia of Jewish attitudes towards nature and its study. It answers many questions about the complex relationship of religion and science. How did religious attitudes and dogmas affect Jewish attitudes towards natural knowledge? How was Jewish interest in science reflected, and was facilitated by, links with other cultures - Egypt and Assyria and Babylon in ancient times, Moslem culture in medieval times, and Christian culture during the Renaissance and since? How did science serve as a bridge between religious communities that were otherwise estranged and embattled? How did science serve as a vehicle of assimilation into the wider intellectual culture in which Jews found themselves? The book considers the attitudes and work of particular Jews in different epochs. It takes an "eagle's-eye view" of its subject, considering broad themes from a high vantage, but also swooping down to consider particular individuals at high focus, and in detail.

Noah J. Efron chairs the Graduate Program in Science, Technology and Society at Bar Ilan University, in Israel. He is also President of the Israeli Society for the History and Philosophy of Science. Efron has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Science in Princeton, a fellow of the Dibner Institute for History of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, and a fellow at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous scholarly essays about Jewish Natural Philosophy in early modern Europe, and his essays on the politics of religion and the politics of science have appeared inThe Jerusalem Report, Midstream, Tikkun, Jewish Action,Hadassah Magazine, The World Jewish Digest, and the Boston Book Review.