a comparison of the views of saadia gaon and moses maimonides in the bodily or spiritual interpretation of the afterlife

The immortality of the soul and the afterlife is amongst the fundamental issues of the three abrahamic religions. there is no doubt that these religions believe in the immortality of soul and the afterlife, but there are some basic differences between the muslim, christian and jewish scholars on how they interpret the resurrection and the afterlife. the present article’s main question belongs to the interpretation of the medieval jewish thinkers of immortality of human soul, especially the two great jewish scholars of this period, saadia gaon and moses maimonides that, from their point of view, is the afterlife bodily-spiritual or merely spiritual. according to the author’s researches, the jewish scholars of medieval centuries were completely influenced by the muslim scholars of this period and, following the important islamic trends that existed in that period, in the medieval judaism, which mainly were writing in arabic, there are also five main trends consist in: the kalāmī trend influenced by the muslim mu’tazilites that saadia gaon is its main representative; the peripatetic philosophical trend influenced by the muslim peripatetic philosophers that moses maimonides is its main representative; the neo-platonic philosophical trend influenced by the muslim neo-platonists especially the isma’iliyyah which isaac israeli is its main representative; the narration-oriented and critic of the peripatetic philosophy trend influenced by the muslim ash’arites which baḥya ibn pakuda and jahuda halevi are its most important representatives and finally the rational and biblical oriented trend negating oral tradition and talmud, that is the qara’im school which was influenced by the muslim hanafi school of aṣḥāb al-ra’y (the people of opinions) which ‘annan ibn david and benjamin nahavandi were its representatives. with a descriptive-analytic method, the present article only compares the viewpoints of the main representatives of two trends of these five major trends that there are clear conflicts in their views on the important theological issues including the issue of human immortality and the afterlife. the result is that saadia gaon as the main representative of the kalāmī trend influenced by the muslim mu’tazilites, exactly like the mu’tazilites, interprets the human immortality as the immortality of both body and soul and believes that the spirit will be accompanied by the body in the afterlife. moses maimonides as the main representative of the aristotelian philosophical school, in the contrary, merely believes in the spiritual afterlife and does not consider the afterlife as a bodily one. the arguments of both sides are also influenced by the muslims. influenced by the mu’tazilite scholars, gaon argues by both narrated and rational reasons to prove the bodily-spiritual resurrection, but maimonides to follow avicenna, argues mainly with rational reasons.