אימות הנבואה בפילוסופיה היהודית של ימי-הביניים

A major problem with which the medieval Jewish philosophers had to grapple was defining the relationship between God and the world. Is the divine activity confined to the impersonal natural order, or does God also act directly in history? The views presented by the philosophers regarding the verification of prophecy were based, in large part, on the positions they adopted on this question. The biblical view underscores the role of the miracle as a mode of verifying prophecy. The underlying assumption is that God knows each individual and has the power to intervene in history. The same position was adopted by Saadiah in his treatment of the subject. For him, though not without some equivocation on his part, the miracle is a reliable method for the verification of the prophetic mission. The miracle is empirically verifiable, the senses providing a reliable source of information according to Saadiah, and reason, in his view, indicates that God alone can be its Author. The tendency in medieval Jewish philosophy to diminish the importance of the miracle in verifying prophecy gained momentum with the growing influence of Aristotelian philosophy. The denial of any immediate connection between God and history by the Aristotelian philosophers, and the naturalistic explanations advanced by them to explain miracles, destroyed the traditional foundation upon which was based the role of the miracle in confirming the prophetic message. Moreover, the stress on reason as the ultimate judge of truth led to a reevaluation of the role of the sensible "sign" which bears no intrinsic connection to the prophetic message itself. The view that prophecy is a natural phenomenon allowed for a close scrutiny of the characteristics of the prophet himself, in addition to the contents of his message, as a method for ascertaining the truth of his mission. A negative attitude to the role of miracles in the verification of prophecy marks Maimonides' treatment of the subject. Maimonides goes so far as to hint that the acceptance of the Law at Sinai was due to prophetic illumination rather than the miraculous occurrence of God's immediate presence in history. The criteria presented by Maimonides for validating the prophetic claim, though supported by traditional sources, are primarily based upon his understanding of how the natural order operates. The claimant to prophecy must possess all the necessary qualifications to naturally receive prophecy, hence his character traits are carefully checked. Furthermore, since an ability attained by the prophet is the accurate prediction of the future, the claimant is required to successfully demonstrate this ability. Maimonides' diminishing of the role of miracles in the verification of prophecy sharply curtails the realm of the immediate activity of God vis-à-vis history in his thought, if he accepted such realm at all. While most medieval Jewish philosophers adopted Maimonides' approach, there was hardly universal agreement in this area. The miracle was held to serve as a basis for validating the prophetic mission even among some who regarded it as a natural phenomenon. Gersonides, for example, treats the miracle as a reliable sign of the trustworthiness of the messenger. Only the most perfect of individuals reach the level of meriting the impersonal overflow which results in miracles. On the other hand, there were also those, such as Kalonymos and Crescas, who rejected the Aristotelian philosophers' completely naturalistic view of God's activity, in light of the occurrence of miracles. Not only does the miracle, for them, confirm the prophetic message, but it proves God's ability to suspend the natural order in order to accomplish His purpose in history.