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Jews and the Natural Sciences: Natural Science

Understanding science in the widest possible sense, this guide offers resources for how Jews investigate, react to, and engage with the physical universe.

Natural Science

Berns, Andrew D.

The Bible and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Italy: Jewish and Christian Physicians in Search of Truth

Cambridge University Press, 2014

Van Pelt Library. BS476 .B475 2015

 

Cantor, Geoffrey and Mark Swetlitz

Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2006

Van Pelt Library. BM538.E8 J49 2006

 

Charpa, Ulrich and Ute Deichmann

Jews and Sciences in German Contexts: Case Studies from the 19th and 20th Centuries

Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2007

Van Pelt Library. Q128 .J498 2007

 

Cherry, Shai

“Three Twentieth-Century Jewish Responses to Evolutionary Theory,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 3 (2003) 247-290

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40385774

 

Clark, Kelly James

“Judaism and Evolution,” pp. 207-222 in, Religion and the Sciences of Origins: Historical and Contemporary Discussions (Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Kelly James Clark

Van Pelt Library. BL263 .C53 2014

 

Efron, Noah J.

“Jews and the Study of Nature,” pp. 79-90 in, The Routledge Companion to Religion and Science (New York:  Routledge, 2012) edd. James Haag, Gregory Peterson and Michael Spezio

Van Pelt Library. BL240.3 .R685 2011

http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017.12/1532546

 

Fontaine, Resianne

“Meteorology and Zoology in Medieval Hebrew Texts,” pp. 217-229 in, Science in medieval Jewish cultures (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011) ed. Gad Freudenthal

Van Pelt Library. Q128 .S35 2011

 

Fontaine, Resianne

“The First Survey of the Metaphysics in Hebrew,” pp. 265-282 in, Studies in the history of culture and science:  a tribute to Gad

Freudenthal (Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2011) ed. Resianne Fontaine

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 S78 2011

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 S78 2011

 

Freudenthal, Gad and Mauro Zonta

“Avicenna among Medieval Jews the Reception of Avicenna’s Philosophical, Scientific and Medical Writings in Jewish Cultures, East and West,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 22 (2912) 217-287

Van Pelt Library. Q127.A5 A733

 

Glasner, Ruth

“The Evolution of the Genre of the Philosophical-Scientific Commentary: Hebrew Supercommentaries on Aristotle’s Physics,” pp. 182–206 in, Science in medieval Jewish cultures (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011) ed. Gad Freudenthal

Van Pelt Library. Q128 .S35 2011

 

Glasner, Ruth

“Two notes on the identification of two anonymous Hebrew commentaries on the Physics,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 9 (2009) 335-344

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

http://www.jstor.org/stable/40385981

 

Goldish, M.

“Newtonian, Converso, and Deist: The Lives of Jacob (Henrique) de Castro Sarmento,” Science in Context 10 (1997) 651-676

Van Pelt Library. Q175.4 .S343

 

Harvey, Warren Zev

“Nicole Oresme and Hasdai Crescas on Many Worlds,” pp. 347-359 in, Studies in the history of culture and science:  a tribute to Gad Freudenthal (Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2011) ed. Resianne Fontaine

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 S78 2011

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 S78 2011

 

Johansson, Nadja

Religion and Science in Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Sefer Ha-Olam (including an English translation of the Hebrew text)

2009

https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/19224/religion.pdf;sequence=2

 

Jungnickel, Christa and Russell McCormmach

Intellectual Mastery of Nature. Theoretical Physics from Ohm to Einstein, Volume 2: The Now Mighty Theoretical Physics, 1870 to 1925

University of Chicago Press, 1990

Van Pelt Library. QC19.7.G3 J86 1986

Kahana-Smilansky, Hagar

“Moses Ibn Tibbon's Answers to Queries on Physics: Sources and Problems,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 12 (2012) 209-241

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/aleph.12.2.209

 

Langermann, Y Tzvi

Avicenna and His Legacy: A Golden Age of Science and Philosophy

Turnhout :  Brepols, 2009

Van Pelt Library. B751.Z7 A897 2009

 

Langton, Daniel

“Jewish religious thought, the Holocaust, and Darwinism:  a comparison of Hans Jonas and Mordecai Kaplan,” Aleph 13 (2013) 311-348

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/523713/pdf

 

Matt, Daniel

God & the Big Bang : discovering harmony between science and spirituality

Woodstock, Vt. : Jewish Lights Pub., c1996

Van Pelt Library. BM723 .M384 1996

 

Murdoch, Dugald

Niels Bohr's Philosophy of Physics

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987

Math/Physics/Astronomy Library. QC16.B63 M87 1987

 

Nelson, David W.

Judaism, physics, and God - searching for sacred metaphors in a post-Einstein world

Woodstock, VT:  Jewish Lights Publishing, 2006

Available via BorrowDirect from Yale, Princeton and Harvard Universities

 

Ochs, Peter

“Judaism and Physics,” pp. 58-71 in, Judaism and Science, Special Issue of CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly (Winter 2012) edd. Philip Cohen and Hava Tirosh-Samuelson

Katz Center - Stacks. BM197.A1 C2

 

Orlanda, Lucia

“Physics in the 1930s: Jewish Physicists' Contribution to the Realization of the "New Tasks" of Physics in Italy,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 29 (1998) 141-181 

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27757806

 

Pear, Rachel S. A.

“Differences over Darwinism:  American Orthodox Jewish responses to evolution in the 1920s,” Aleph 15 (2015) 343-387

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/590706/pdf

 

Rigden, John S.

“Copernicus comes to Brooklyn,” pp. 17-29 in, Rabi, Scientist and Citizen (New York : Basic Books, Inc., c1987)

Van Pelt Library. QC16.R2 R54 1987

 

Romano D.

“La transmission des sciences arabes par les juifs en Languedoc,” pp. 363-386 in, Juifs et judaïsme de Languedoc, XIIIe siècle-début XIVe siècle (Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 1977) edd. M.H. Vicaire M. H. and B. Blumenkranz

Katz Center - Stacks. DS135.F85 L36 V53 1977

 

Rutman, Joel Yehudah

Why Evolution Matters: A Jewish Approach

London :  Vallentine Mitchell, 2014

Research Annex (LIBRA). BM538.E8 R88 2014

 

Schweber, Sylvan S.

“Physics, Community and the Crisis in Physical Theory,” pp. 125-152 in, Physics, Philosophy and the Scientific Community : essays in the philosophy and history of the natural sciences and mathematics in honor of Robert S. Cohen

 (Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic, 1995) edd. Kōstas Gavrolglu, John Stachel and Marx W.  Wartofsky

Research Annex (LIBRA). Q126.8 .P48 1995

 

Sela, Shlomo

Abraham Ibn Ezra and the Rise of Medieval Hebrew Science

Leiden ; Boston, MA : Brill, 2003

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 S45 2003

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 S45 2003

 

Sela, Shlomo

Abraham Ibn Ezra, the Book of the World: A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Two Versions of the Text

Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2010

Katz Center - Stacks. QB26 .I323513 2010

 

Shyovitz, David I.

A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz

Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017

Katz Center - Stacks. BM316 .S59 2017

https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/488735

 

Stachel, J.

“Einstein’s Jewish identity,” pp. 57–83 in, Einstein from’ B’ to’ Z’ (Boston; Basel: Birkhäuser, 2002)

Research Annex (LIBRA). QC16.E5 S73 2002

 

Unguru, Sabetai, ed.

Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy 1300-1700:  tension and accommodation

Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991

Research Annex (LIBRA). Q174 .B67 v.126

 

Wolfson, Harry Austryn

Crescas' Critique of Aristotle: Problems of Aristotle's Physics in Jewish and Arabic Philosophy

Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1929

Katz Center - Stacks. B485.C7 W6 1929

Van Pelt Library. B485.C7 W6

 

Zadik, Shalom

“Rabbi Ḫasdai Crescas' Critique of Aristotelian Science and the Lost Book of Abner of Burgos,” [Hebrew] Tarbiz 77 (2007) 133-155

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23607180         

 

Zonta, Mauro

“Two implicit sources of Judah Messer Leon's commentary on Physics 1-4,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 12 (2012) 189-208

Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447

Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/472831

 

Zonta, Mauro

“About Todros Todrosi’s Medieval Hebrew Translation of Al-Fārābī’s Lost Commentary/Gloss-Commentary on Aristotle’s Topic, Book VII,” History and Philosophy of Logic 32 (2011) 37-45

Van Pelt Library. BC1 .H57

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01445340.2010.506093

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