Weaning Away from Idolatry: Maimonides on the Purpose of Ritual Sacrifices
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
There are two substantive problems with this article, which are interrelated:
1) It does not take non-monotheistic religion seriously. The claim (at the end) that "There were an awful lot of idolaters over the course of history, and collectively they would purposely do or not just about everything imaginable" is both facile and irrelevant. For thinking about biblical religion, the relevant question is the practices in Mesopotamia, the Levant, perhaps Anatolia, and Egypt. The religious beliefs and practices of these societies are known, to a greater and lesser degree, and can be used to assess much of the general claims made in the paper.
There is a large literature both on the ways in which biblical religion reacts to the religious traditions of the Near East, and on the way this trope has been used by writers from antiquity through modern times. I would recommend having a look at Jan Assmann's Moses the Egyptian as a starting point for the latter.
2) The article is written as a discussion of Maimonides' view, from the perspective of a committed Jew, rather than from the perspective of an intellectual historian. This is clear both in matters of style (who is quoted, how various rabbis are referred to, etc.) and of substance (much of the paper is whether and how to defend Maimonides from his critics). It becomes clear at the end, though, that the author wants to use this to address a central question in biblical studies, not in medieval studies. This muddies the analysis. The author should focus on what the article is about, be clear about the central question from the beginning, and organize everything around that question.
Author Response
1. This paper "does not take non-monotheistic religion seriously" because it serves as an exposition on Maimonides' stance, and Maimonides' himself does not take those religions seriously. I will concede that a more anthropological analysis of ancient paganism would be able to pin down more clearly the religious beliefs and practices of those societies (not just in the ancient Near East but also regarding Ancient Meso-American cults and even Eastern religions), but this paper focuses on the perspective of Maimonides who lumped all those different cults into one category: "idolatry." The more we know about those different cults, the more we see how pervasive their rites and beliefs were, such that almost everything everything gains omnisignificance. I am familiar with Assmann's work and especially with his claim of the Mosaic Distinction introduced by the Bible. In fact, I am working on a different paper that addresses that from a traditionalist perspective.
2. This point is true, but does not detract from the importance of the paper. The main thrust of my argument is to expose the various holes in Maimonides' theory, the ramifications of that for Biblical Studies are only a side point that I mentioned in my conclusion as an unintended consequence of my study.
Reviewer 2 Report
As admirable as I find the focus of this essay--its refusal to enter into the larger question of sacrifice in Judaism as practiced today and its concentration on a single viewpoint in Maimonides--I would wonder if it would not be worth providing a footnote to a work that undertakes such a major scholarly task.
Author Response
Sacrifice in contemporary times is a difficult and complex issue, I'd rather not get into that controversy because it will take away from the focus of this paper. Instead, I've alluded to the issue in several footnotes and I think that is sufficient.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I see the author's comments. I have nothing further to say, since the author stood by their original position. It is now up to the editors whether to accept the paper or require the major revisions that I think are necessary.
