{"collection":"Texts of Judaism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_studies_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_jud_studies_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_jud_studies_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/jud/studies.htm","summary":"This is a scholarly theological essay, likely from the late nineteenth century, that opens a historical survey of Jewish dogmas \u2014 beginning with Scripture and working toward Maimonides and beyond. Its central argument challenges the then-dominant claim, attributed to Moses Mendelssohn's *Jerusalem*, that Judaism has no dogmas; the author demonstrates that Mendelssohn himself was inconsistent on this point, and that the \"dogma of dogmalessness\" has been uncritically repeated rather than examined. The essay argues that the neglect of theological speculation in favor of historical scholarship, particularly in England, has left Jewish thinkers unable to defend Judaism against its own hollowing-out \u2014 a tendency the author attacks sharply, accusing modernizing theologians of reducing Judaism to hygiene, political economy, or \"enlightened Hedonism\" by stripping it of genuine belief. Against this, the author insists that Faith and Hope \u2014 a strong belief in God and confidence in God's universal sovereignty \u2014 are the defining characteristics of Judaism, not mere ethical conformity or social convention. The essay then turns to the Bible to show that while explicit commands to believe are sparse, the entire scriptural worldview presupposes God's existence so thoroughly that denial was not even a live danger; the real biblical concern was wrong belief (polytheism, false attributes) rather than unbelief. The piece is distinctive for its polemical edge: it frames the question of Jewish dogma not as an antiquarian problem but as an urgent defense against what the author sees as the intellectual and spiritual dissolution of modern Judaism.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"Solomon Schechter - Studies in Judaism - The Dogmas of Ju...","tradition":"Texts of Judaism","translated_text":null,"word_count":8253}