Description
Book SynopsisThe twelfth and thirteenth centuries witnessed an explosion of Christian interest in the meaning and workings of the natural world—a discovery of nature that profoundly reshaped the intellectual currents and spiritual contours of European society—yet to all appearances, the Jews of medieval northern Europe (Ashkenaz) were oblivious to the shifts reshaping their surrounding culture. Scholars have long assumed that rather than exploring or contemplating the natural world, the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz were preoccupied solely with the supernatural and otherworldly: magic and mysticism, demonology and divination, as well as the zombies, werewolves, dragons, flying camels, and other monstrous and wondrous creatures that destabilized any pretense of a consistent and encompassing natural order.
In A Remembrance of His Wonders, David I. Shyovitz disputes this long-standing and far-reaching consensus. Analyzing a wide array of neglected Ashkenazic writings on the natu
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"Immensely erudite, enlightening, and stimulating, thoroughly researched and lucidly written, a landmark contribution to our understanding of the intellectual and spiritual currents of medieval Ashkenaz." * Association for Jewish Studies Review *
"A meticulously researched study that reflects a highly specialized grasp of the texts and cultures involved, and it is guaranteed to pique the interest of those with a fascination for the phantasmagoric." * American Historical Review *
"Groundbreaking . . . [Shyovitz] provide[s] vital new approaches to understanding medieval conceptions of nature, the supernatural, and the role of theology in the development of scientia." * Comitatus *
"A Remembrance of His Wonders convincingly expresses a group ideology of medieval Ashkenazic pietists toward nature and the human body through an impressive accumulation of manuscript sources as well as a fresh reading of well-known material. . . . Shyovitz deftly presents the polyphonic nature of this corpus . . . [and] weaves disparate topical and textual threads together to present a convincing and enlightening portrayal of Hasidei Ashkenaz. The contextualization of pietism within Jewish and Christian ambiences reminds modern readers that as much as the pietistic orientation sought to isolate medieval Jews from their surroundings, it nevertheless was nourished by those surroundings as well." * Marginalia Review of Books *
"Shyovitz presents a needed corrective to our understanding of the Pietists ideology, namely as active thinkers engaged in inductive and empirical reasoning. . . . Shyovitz aptly counters the presumed parochialism of the Hasidei Ashkenaz, displacing such a view with a more complex and nuanced image of how discourses and cultural practices of inquiry tend to lead to intertwined paths." * Reading Religion *
"A Remembrance of His Wonders is an excellent achievement that deals with central research questions regarding the understanding of the wondrous in nature by the Jews of Ashkenaz. David I. Shyovitz presents fascinating parallels between the writings of the German Pietists and contemporary Christian texts, showing that their understandings of nature are quite similar." * Israel Yuval, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem *
