Research Paper on:
Divine Command and the Mosaic Tradition: Maimonides, Al-Ghazali and Augustine

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
authorship of faith. The divine commands include moral and religious commands; positive and negative commands; generic and specific commands; universal and limited commands; and temporal and permanent commands.  In each of these groupings, though, the application of external directives, including the Mosaic tradition, plays a role in shaping the significance and longevity of the command. For example,  the Biblical command: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" (Ex. 20:8) was not created as a permanent command, but instead one that was directly related to the  application of the laws of Moses (Jackson, 1999). Essentially, the Mosaic system was created as a basis for instructing the Jewish nation, and the Gentiles by extension, in their  preparation for the coming of the Messiah (Jackson, 1999). The coming of Christ in the Christian tradition, then, defined the end of Mosaic law, thereby putting an end to  the requirement that religious participation resulted in the maintaining of the Sabbath (Jackson, 1999). Religious scholars, including Maimonides, Al-Ghazali and Augustine have created bodies of authorship on the issues  relative to divine command, Mosaic tradition and the temporal nature of some of the commands within the scope of the Bible, Torah and Quran. Variations in the assessment of  the divine commands and the application of Mosaic tradition require a comparative view of these authors, their underlying purpose, the significance of variations in these traditions, and the impacts of  their authorship over time. Research Questions This study will assess the following research questions: 1. What are the views of divine commands presented by  Maimonides, Al-Ghazali and Augustine and related to the Torah, the Quran and the Bible? 2. How does an assessment of the qualities of these commands relate to the Mosaic