Editing Maimonides (section)

====Resurrection====

Religious Jews believed in immortality in a spiritual sense, and most believed that the future would include a messianic era and a resurrection of the dead. This is the subject of [[Jewish eschatology]]. Maimonides wrote much on this topic, but in most cases he wrote about the immortality of the soul for people of perfected intellect; his writings were usually {{em|not}} about the resurrection of dead bodies. Rabbis of his day were critical of this aspect of this thought, and there was controversy over his true views.{{efn|According to Maimonides, certain Jews in Yemen had sent to him a letter in the year 1189, evidently irritated as to why he had not mentioned the physical resurrection of the dead in his {{transliteration|he|Hil. Teshuvah}}, chapter 8, and how that some persons in Yemen had begun to instruct, based on Maimonides' teaching, that when the body dies it will disintegrate and the soul will never return to such bodies after death. Maimonides denied that he ever insinuated such things, and reiterated that the body would indeed resurrect, but that the "world to come" was something different in nature. See: Maimonides' {{transliteration|he|Ma'amar Teḥayyath Hamethim}} (Treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead), published in ''Book of Letters and Responsa'' ({{lang|he|ספר אגרות ותשובות}}), Jerusalem 1978, p. 9 (Hebrew).}}

Eventually, Maimonides felt pressured to write a treatise on the subject, known as "The Treatise on Resurrection." In it, he wrote that those who claimed that he believed the verses of the [[Tanakh|Hebrew Bible]] referring to the resurrection were only allegorical were spreading falsehoods. Maimonides asserts that belief in resurrection is a fundamental truth of Judaism about which there is no disagreement.<ref>Kraemer, 422</ref>

While his position on the [[World to come|World to Come]] (non-corporeal eternal life as described above) may be seen as being in contradiction with his position on bodily resurrection, Maimonides resolved them with a then unique solution: Maimonides believed that the resurrection was not permanent or general. In his view, God never violates the laws of nature. Rather, divine interaction is by way of [[angel]]s, whom Maimonides often regards to be metaphors for the laws of nature, the principles by which the physical universe operates, or Platonic eternal forms.{{efn|This view is not always consistent throughout Maimonides' work; in {{transliteration |he|Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah}}, chapters 2–4, Maimonides describes angels that are actually created beings.}} Thus, if a unique event actually occurs, even if it is perceived as a miracle, it is not a violation of the world's order.<ref>Commentary on the Mishna, Avot 5:6</ref>

In this view, any dead who are resurrected must eventually die again. In his discussion of the [[Jewish principles of faith|13 principles of faith]], the first five deal with knowledge of God, the next four deal with prophecy and the Torah, while the last four deal with reward, punishment and the ultimate redemption. In this discussion Maimonides says nothing of a universal resurrection. All he says it is that whatever resurrection does take place, it will occur at an indeterminate time before the world to come, which he repeatedly states will be purely spiritual.