@article{ref1,
title="Not in the Heavens: The Premodern Roots of Jewish Secularism",
journal="Religion compass",
year="2008",
author="Biale, David",
volume="2",
number="3",
pages="340-364",
abstract="The relationship between religion and secularism has become a central question in the study of religion. But secularism is just as diverse as religion. This article treats Jewish secularism as a phenomenon with its own unique characteristics derived in part from the religious tradition against which it revolted. Within premodern Judaism – the Bible, Talmud, and medieval philosophy – one finds precursors to modern secular ideas. The article demonstrates how the cardinal categories of Judaism invented by modern religious thinkers – God, Torah, and Israel – were adopted by secular Jews, such as Baruch Spinoza, emptied of traditional meaning and turned into a ‘secular theology’.<p />",
language="",
issn="1749-8171",
doi="10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00070.x",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00070.x"
}