The Medieval Church · 933
The Book of Beliefs and Opinions
Kitab al-Amanat wa-l-I'tiqadat
Saadia Gaon · 882 – 942
What it is
The first systematic Jewish theology, arguing that reason and revelation cannot conflict because both come from God, that the world was created from nothing, and that scripture must be read figuratively wherever the plain sense contradicts reason or another verse.
Why it lasted
The book that made philosophical theology a Jewish enterprise, and the model Maimonides worked against two centuries later. Its rule for when to read figuratively is close enough to Augustine's that Christian scholastics found it usable, and used it.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
This work is in the public domain and can be read in full, free, at the archives below.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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