Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe.

The influence of the "rediscovery" of Hebrew and the Jewish mystical tradition on western natural philosophy has been the subject of numerous studies; the influence of western natural philosophy on the European Jewish word has received much less attention. The present state of scholarship does not allow an extensive examination of the question, but Professor Ruderman has begun the task with this book. He does this by noting important shifts in European rabbinic thought from the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century. Despite their isolation - not only from the universities but also from the philosophic communities and intellectual debate - several of the great early modern rabbis studied and appreciated western scientific thought. By the latter half of the sixteenth century, Rabbi Judah Lowe of Prague (the Maharal) and Moses Isserless allowed for integration into the Jewish world of new knowledge gained from the study of nature, though they distinguished it from the higher truths found in the Torah.

Within the framework of rabbinic debate, Ruderman illustrates the encroachment of science into the Jewish world by examining the lives and works of several individuals, including David Gans, who wrote in Hebrew about sixteenth-century astronomy; Tobias Cohen, who presented an encyclopedic text on science and medicine at the beginning of the eighteenth century; and David Nieto, who held a medical degree from the University of Padua, served as a rabbi to London's Sephardic community, and was apparently influenced by English natural philosophy as it found expression in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.

Beyond the importance of Ruderman's glimpses into Jewish assimilation of science are his insights into the importance of Jews studying medicine in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy. These physicians formed an intellectual class of Jews who could appreciate science and believed that their co-religionists could benefit from its study. Although certainly not the first of the Jewish philosopher-physicians, these men were crucial to the development of a tradition of Jewish secular studies.

Ruderman's work is invaluable for those interested in the subject of early modern Jews, the history of science, or the way in which the study of science, or the attempt to assimilate foreign ideas, changed and developed a minority community. Especially important is his bringing together the various strands of modern Jewish historical scholarship. The positioning of Jews and science within the unique context of Jewish life and religious thought in the early modern period could lead historians of science to make some interesting discoveries about the adaptation of science outside its Christian European universe.

Ruderman has tackled a subject that is much more complex than might at first be supposed. Nevertheless, the very breadth of what on its face appears a well-defined topic leads to problems of both over- and under-inclusiveness. Neither problem is terribly serious, and in fact the inclusion of the names of important scientific figures without demonstrating their connection to the development of the thought of a particular Jewish intellectual suggests areas for further study. The neglect of Jewish commentators such as Ovadiah Sforno - whose commentary on Genesis used western chemistry and homocentric astronomy - points to the entire area of religious-secular interaction. Ruderman, or some other scholar, may also want to pursue the question of how the yeshivas taught math and science from quasi-scientific texts like Sefer Habrith.

Ruderman has produced a fine work which will lead to further studies. He has begun to illuminate the influence of science on Jewish thought in the early modern period.

MICHAEL T. WALTON Salt Lake City, Utah