A Defense of Creationism

This untitled Hebrew treatise in defense of creationism criticizes both the ideas that matter is coeternal with God and that the universe lacks a divine maker altogether. The author—who clearly lived in an Arabic-speaking society—attacks Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagoras by name (though, like many of his contemporaries, he seems not to have been particularly familiar with Aristotle). There is significant overlap between the contents of this work and defenses of creation found in the writings of Se‘adya Ga’on, perhaps suggesting that they drew from a common source. The author may have sought to present basic arguments against those who claimed the universe was eternal, and he seems to address traditionalist readers who were less philosophically informed or who were looking for arguments to be used in public debate. This text survives in a fifteenth-century Ashkenazic codex.