Dante certainly made quite a study of theology, but even without a direct influence, the amount of cross-pollination between the two religions is huge.
The most obvious of these is the appropriation of the Torah to serve as Christianity's Old Testament, but even beyond that, there is the strong oral tradition that was associated with the Torah. Now, during the many Jewish exiles, it became clear to the leaders of the Jewish community that these oral traditions were in danger of being lost, and so they were recorded in the Mishnah and the Gemora (see this link for more information.)
Because the Mishnah and the Gemora were not written until after the Common Era, they do not exist in a written form in Christianity. However, as the early Christians were almost exclusively converted Jews, it is not surprising that much of the Jewish oral tradition would have been carried with them into the newly-forming Christian theology.
So, the idea that Jewish concepts and traditions are deeply embedded in Christian philosophy is fairly plausible, and certainly Dante could have picked up such concepts in his studies even without making a direct study of Judaism.
Amusingly, Jewish theology was not immune to outside influences either. The Ramban, one of the most widely-read and respected commentators on the Torah, presents an intricate commentary in Bereshis (Genesis) on the creation of the world. In this commentary, he explains creation in the context of an Aristotelian/Ptolemaic model of the universe, which had the heavens circling the earth on crystalline spheres.
Unfortunately, Orthodox Jews as a community are not disposed to discounting a commentary from the Ramban, even one so obviously based on archaic science. So to this day, Rebbes are earnestly teaching the theory of crystalline spheres to high school students in Jewish communities all over the world.
(And every once in a long while, they will have the misfortune to encounter a student like me, who will object strongly to the explanation of creation that had the sun orbiting the earth.)
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Date: 2003-05-03 02:40 pm (UTC)Dante certainly made quite a study of theology, but even without a direct influence, the amount of cross-pollination between the two religions is huge.
The most obvious of these is the appropriation of the Torah to serve as Christianity's Old Testament, but even beyond that, there is the strong oral tradition that was associated with the Torah. Now, during the many Jewish exiles, it became clear to the leaders of the Jewish community that these oral traditions were in danger of being lost, and so they were recorded in the Mishnah and the Gemora (see this link for more information.)
Because the Mishnah and the Gemora were not written until after the Common Era, they do not exist in a written form in Christianity. However, as the early Christians were almost exclusively converted Jews, it is not surprising that much of the Jewish oral tradition would have been carried with them into the newly-forming Christian theology.
So, the idea that Jewish concepts and traditions are deeply embedded in Christian philosophy is fairly plausible, and certainly Dante could have picked up such concepts in his studies even without making a direct study of Judaism.
Amusingly, Jewish theology was not immune to outside influences either. The Ramban, one of the most widely-read and respected commentators on the Torah, presents an intricate commentary in Bereshis (Genesis) on the creation of the world. In this commentary, he explains creation in the context of an Aristotelian/Ptolemaic model of the universe, which had the heavens circling the earth on crystalline spheres.
Unfortunately, Orthodox Jews as a community are not disposed to discounting a commentary from the Ramban, even one so obviously based on archaic science. So to this day, Rebbes are earnestly teaching the theory of crystalline spheres to high school students in Jewish communities all over the world.
(And every once in a long while, they will have the misfortune to encounter a student like me, who will object strongly to the explanation of creation that had the sun orbiting the earth.)