The Other God of Judaism

Seekers of Unity

Looking at the Seeds of Jewish Pantheism in the Bible, Philo, and the Rabbis.

We begin by distinguishing between pantheism and panentheism and suggest why those terms may be worthless but necessary. We then briefly quote some key biblical verses that went on to inspire and define the parameters of Jewish theological immanence and pantheologies. We then speak of the clash of culture that occurred under the Greek influence on the Jewish Hellenized community of Alexandria, and one philosopher who typifies that culture clash, Philo of Alexandria, and the seeds he lays to undermine his own transcendent God. We then take a quick tour through some classic Rabbinic explorations of God’s relationship with the world, God as the place of the world and God as the soul of the world. Followed finally by a look at later Rabbinic philosophers, Ibn Ezra and more extensively, Maimonides and his conception of the unity of God, and the world or the human and God, via the act of intellection, the unity of the knower, the known and the knowing.