Guide for the Perplexed

The complete philosophical masterwork of Moses Maimonides — known as the Rambam — in M. Friedländer's careful 1881–1885 English translation, single-volume revised form of 1910.

Maimonides wrote the Guide in Arabic in late twelfth-century Egypt for a single reader: his most gifted pupil, Joseph ben Judah, who had been schooled in both the philosophical sciences and the Torah and had begun to feel a tension between them. Part I treats the language of the Bible — what it can and cannot mean when it speaks of God in human terms. Part II argues for a created (rather than eternal) world and for the reality of prophecy. Part III addresses providence, evil, and the rational basis of the commandments. Throughout, Maimonides holds that the truths reason is reaching toward and the truths the Torah carries in narrative dress are the same truths.

This edition includes the Directions for the Study of This Work, the Introductory Remarks on the seven causes of contradiction, and the complete text of all three Parts. A short editor's preface places the book in its biographical and historical context.