An Attack on the Christian Reading of Scripture

Se‘adya Ga’on’s influential Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Pentateuch, which seems to have covered only the first thirty-two chapters of Genesis, all of Exodus and Leviticus, and Deuteronomy 32, contains many lengthy excurses that tackle theological, methodological, and other issues of concern. (Se‘adya’s verbose comments were famously criticized by Abraham Ibn Ezra in the introduction to the latter’s biblical commentary.) In the passage here, Se‘adya outlines some of his disagreements with Christian Trinitarianism, which he also criticized at length in his philosophical treatise, the Book of Beliefs and Opinions. Echoing earlier rabbinic responses to “heretical” understandings of the biblical phrase “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26), Se‘adya denies that the plurals indicate multiple divine forces. This kind of polemical evaluation of other traditions was common in Se‘adya’s theological environment, which was shaped by methods of kalām (rationalist Islamic theology).