The Bible and Philosophy: Rethinking the Fundamentals

Philosophers have gradually become accustomed to the idea that the classic texts of Indian and Chinese religion can be fruitfully interrogated for insights in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and other fields. But the classical texts of the Hebrew Bible remain largely outside the scope of philosophical discourse.

To be sure, there is a rich tradition of "theistic" philosophy, which begins with the medieval thesis that the God of the Bible is "the most perfect being". But in recent years, philosophers, theologians and scholars of Bible have asked whether this tradition accurately reflects the worldview(s) of the biblical authors; and whether this discourse exhausts the possible subjects for fruitful philosophical investigation of the biblical texts.

To begin to address this vast field the department of Philosophy, Political Theory and Religion (PPR) at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem convened an international conference on "The Bible and Philosophy: Rethinking the Fundamentals" in Jerusalem on October 25-28, 2009.

Participants included:

Thomas Bolin (St. Norbert College)

James Diamond (University of Waterloo)

Etan Dor-Shav (Jerusalem)

Michael Fagenblat (Monash University)

Lenn Goodman (Vanderbilt University)

Edward L. Greenstein (Bar-Ilan University)

Steven Grosby (Clemson University)

Edward C. Halper (University of Georgia)

Hannah Hashkes (The Shalem Center)

Yoram Hazony (The Shalem Center)

Steven Horst (Wesleyan University)

Jacob Howland (university of Tulsa)

Jonathan Jacobs (Colgate University)

Dru Johnson (University of St. Andrews)

Menachem Kellner (University of Haifa)

Renée Köhler Ryan (Catholic University of Leuven)

Joseph Isaac Lifshitz (The Shalem Center)

JeeLoo Liu (California State University)

Alan Mittleman (Jewish Theological Seminary)

Katherine Munn (Oxford University)

Dalit Rom-Shiloni (Tel-Aviv University)

David-Hillel Ruben (Birkbeck College, London)

Robert Segal (University of Aberdeen)

Suzanne Stone (Cardozo Law School; The Shalem Center)

Joshua Weinstein (The Shalem Center)

Howard Wettstein (UC Riverside)

Shira Wolosky (Hebrew University)

Tamra Wright (London School of Jewish Studies)

To view the conference program click here.