Talmudology

“This fascinating volume offers both a definitive history of the Jewish encounter with Copernican thought and a carefully-nuanced analysis of how religion and science interact. A model study.”

“New Heavens and a New Earth presents a fascinating study of a major subject of early modern and modern Jewish intellectual history. Jeremy Brown has written a comprehensive, intelligent, well researched, and well-written survey of the long history of Jewish responses to Copernicus. His masterful treatment of the subject is clearly the best written to date, revising, correcting, and significantly enlarging all previous accounts. Brown’s work is a major contribution not only to the history of Jewish thought on cosmology and science but is also important in providing scholars a comparative lens through which to consider Jewish responses with those already well-known within the Christian world and beyond.”

“Reams have been written about the gradual acceptance of Copernicus’s sun-centered system, but this book blazes a new trail: the Jewish reception of heliocentric cosmology. A moving earth challenged the tenets of the Jewish faith, and, as in Catholic and Protestant circles, it took centuries to shake off a strictly literal reading of the Torah. Brown’s volume now makes it easy to examine the similarities and differences of these faith traditions on a critical scientific hinge point.”

“...a major work of historical scholarship which is sure to provide a vital point of reference in the science-religion debate for years to come.”

“To present this topic requires deep knowledge of traditional Jewish texts, mathematics, and both premodern and modern astronomy as well as the ability to present complex issues clearly so that they can be understood by non-experts. Brown has done exactly this in his book. It offers fascinating insights into religious responses to new worlds of knowledge and of the ways Jewish reactions to Copernicus were similar to and different from other religious reactions. The importance of this book for understanding early modern and modern Jewish religion and for comparative studies is obvious. ”

“Très bien documenté et très dense tout en restant très agréable à lire et très accessible, rempli de bon sens et de pondération dans ses analyses et ses conclusions, très utile pour notre temps...”