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Longue durée Noah J. Efron, Judaism and Science. A Historical Introduction (Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion). Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2007. 348 pp. Bibliography, index.
Judaism and Science* is a collection of separate discussions bearing on two distinct themes: (i) the attitudes of some Jewish intellectuals, down through history, toward science or nature; and (ii) science as a profession in which many Jews excelled during the twentieth century, especially in the United States. Efron says that he is aware of the dangers of "essentialism": he writes that he knows that "it makes little sense to think in general terms about the Jewish engagements with nature and its study" (p. 6), but he tries to do precisely this.
Part I (pp. 13-65) consists of a series of remarks about views of nature in the Bible and the Talmud. Part II (pp. 67-155) considers Jews' involvement with science in the medieval period (chapter 3) and the early modern period (chapter 4). Only in the medieval period was natural philosophy an integral part of the...