Zera Yacob · Philosophy
Zera Yacob turns his criterion on the religious law itself: fasting that starves the poor, monastic celibacy against the created order, the subordination of women, and slavery - testing each against reason to separate what is God’s from what is only human addition.
You learned that Zera Yacob judged the received laws of religion by reason and the created order, defending marriage and the equality of man and woman while rejecting harmful fasting, the superiority of monasticism, the impurity rules that burden women, and slavery, on the ground that God’s law cannot contradict…
Leads to Baruch Spinoza.
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