Samuel Rapaport

I think that what put me off of this collection was first of all what I find problematic about any collection of works purporting to be the classics of any religion or philosophy: You cannot summarize all of the minority opinions in one sampling of books or works, as something must be left out. The issue here is not knowing the internal biases of the compilers. Yet, this is a good start on the classic works of Judaism (and I will admit to having found the comments about Kabalah a bit distressing, in terms of scholars searching for magic and mechanical riddles). I also feel strongly that one must do one's best to read any given work in the original language in which it was written, so I prefer to put my time into my Hebrew study to come back to most of these works (and yes, Arabic is also on my list for the Rambam's works originally written in that language) later, InshAllah.… (meer)

I think that what put me off of this collection was first of all what I find problematic about any collection of works purporting to be the classics of any religion or philosophy: You cannot summarize all of the minority opinions in one sampling of books or works, as something must be left out. The issue here is not knowing the internal biases of the compilers. Yet, this is a good start on the classic works of Judaism (and I will admit to having found the comments about Kabalah a bit distressing, in terms of scholars searching for magic and mechanical riddles). I also feel strongly that one must do one's best to read any given work in the original language in which it was written, so I prefer to put my time into my Hebrew study to come back to most of these works (and yes, Arabic is also on my list for the Rambam's works originally written in that language) later, InshAllah.… (meer)