Renaissance and rebirth : : reincarnation in early modern Italian kabbalah / / by Brian Ogren.

• Superior document: Studies in Jewish history and culture, v. 24
• Author: Ogren, Brian.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in Jewish history and culture ; v. 24.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (332 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Metempsychosis was a prominent element in Renaissance conceptualizations of the human being, the universe, and the place of the human person in the universe. A variety of concepts emerged in debates about metempsychosis: human to human reincarnation, human to vegetal, human to animal, and human to angelic transmigration. As a complex and changing doctrine, metempsychosis gives us a well-placed window for viewing the complex and dynamic contours of Jewish thought in late fifteenth century Italy; as such, it enables us to evaluate Jewish thought in relation to non-Jewish Italian developments. This book addresses the problematic question of the roles and achievements of Jews who lived in Italy in the development of Renaissance culture in its Jewish and its Christian dimensions.

Table of Contents

Metempsychosis, philosophy and Kabbalah : the debate in Candia -- The extra-debatal literature of Candia and questions of Identity -- Philosophical and mystical possibilities of metempsychosis : Isaac Abarbanel -- Spanish and Italian conceptions of metempsychosis in Judah Hayyat -- Elia Hayyim ben Binyamin of Genazzano, Prisca Theologia, and the two ancient paths to metempsychosis -- Unity and diversity in Gilgul : Yohanan Alemanno -- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and the allegorical veridicality of transmigration -- Marsilio Ficino, circularity and rebirth.