Talk:Abulafia (surname)

Copyvio
The previous edits of this article appear to have been copied from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=699&letter=A. While this was not a simple cut-and-paste (which would have unquestionably been a copyvio), the editor didn't bother to put the text in his or her own words, either. Instead it seemed like various (seemingly random) sentences were pasted in, often without their context. Thus I've reverted to an earlier edit, and attempted to incorporate the non-copyvio edits that followed. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

WONDER OF WONDERS - HOW FROM AN ARTICLE THE STUB CAN DEVELOP !
I, as the original author of this article (written mainly for Abulafia connection with the otherwise deserted island of Comino in the Maltese archipelago), am without words. Do we attempt to have Wikipedia SHORTER, stub-like or we wish to have it as a source of more comprehensive information ?! Copyvio explanation of Gyrofrog certainly is not directed at me. I never touched jewishencyclopedia, mind you. So, dear editors, do your work. Otherwise I will not hide my bitter aftertaste... Radoneme

Move this page?
I believe this article should be moved to "Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia," and the content about Abulafia in Foucault's Pendulum (about which the article was originally written) should be incorporated into the article. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 22:00, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm a little confused - what do you want to happen to the Foucault's Pendulum sentence? It's already in this article, right? DenisMoskowitz 01:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Maybe it should just stay like it is. I had thought about deleting the hard rule and placing the sentence with the rest of the text. But no point in rewording the sentence itself, so leave it as-is. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 13:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Stub
<< Umm, if anyone wants to expand the stub on him, I would be glad to help. randyjg2 (at) yahoo (dot) com

Actually, the Jewish encyclopedia article is pretty revisionist, AFAIK. He is generally credited with introducing Hindu concepts into both Judaism and Christianity ("The Jewish Mind" Raphael Patai, ISBN: 081432651X), either converting or attempting to convert a Pope, and various other actions that got the Church very upset with him for the next 8 centuries. He was pretty much a 13th century "Indiana Jones".

There is a lot better articles on the Net on him, few of them balanced, though, because he is considered a "false messiah" in the Jewish tradition, and a madman in the Christian tradition. Close study, however, reveals that all he was trying to do was show that Jewish, Hindu and Christian traditions had the same underlying concepts.

THe article is revisionistic because, during the 1970's, the "folk" story about him converting a Pope who died the next day was changed to the Pope dying before he met with him, in order to not upset relationships between the Jewish and Christian communities. (It is quite possible he did convince the Pope of his views. In all fairness, it was a time of very weak Popes, and all Abulafia was doing was preaching tolerance of other religions as variant forms of Christianity. In addition, the Abulafias were thought to be descended from members of the Davidic court, which would have given him some extra authority.)

Some of what he wrote about now appears to be a precursor of cognitive science, couched in metaphors common at the time.


 * http://www.learnkabbalah.com/abraham_abulafia/
 * http://www.tomblock.com/abulafia.htm
 * http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/990909_RomanHoliday.html