Jewish Scholarship After Destruction of Second Temple
With the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Second Temple Judaism was in disarray, but Jewish traditions were preserved especially thanks to the shrewd maneuvers of Yochanan Ben Zakkai, who saved the Sanhedrin and moved it to Yavne. Philosophical speculation was not a central part of Rabbinic Judaism, although some have seen the Mishnah as a philosophical work. Rabbi Akiva ben Joseph has also been viewed as a philosophical figure: his statements include 1.) "How favored is man, for he was created after an image "for in an image, Elokim made man" (Gen. ix. 6)", 2.) "Everything is foreseen; but freedom is given to every man", 3.) "The world is governed by mercy... but the divine decision is made by the preponderance of the good or bad in one's actions".
After the Bar Kochba Revolt, Rabbinic scholars gathered in Tiberias and Safed to re-assemble and re-assess Judaism, its laws, theology, liturgy, beliefs and leadership structure. In 219 CE, the Sura Academy (from which Jewish Kalam emerged many centuries later) was founded by Abba Arika. For the next five centuries, Talmudic academies focused upon reconstituting Judaism and little, if any, philosophic investigation was pursued.
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“The ceaseless, senseless demand for original scholarship in a number of fields, where only erudition is now possible, has led either to sheer irrelevancy, the famous knowing of more and more about less and less, or to the development of a pseudo- scholarship which actually destroys its object.”
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