Emunoth ve-Deoth

The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (completed 933 CE) is a text written by Saadia Gaon which is the first presentation and philosophic foundation of the dogmas of Judaism.

The work was originally titled The Book of the Articles of Faith and Doctrines of Dogma (Arabic: كتاب الأمانات والاعتقادات‎‎, Kitab al-Amanat wa'l-I'tiqadat), but is better known in the Hebrew translation of Judah ben Saul ibn Tibbon (1186) as Emunot ve-Deot (Hebrew: אמונות ודעות‎‎ Beliefs and Opinions). An unabridged translation into English by Samuel Rosenblatt was published in 1989.

The work is prefaced by an introduction and has ten chapters; it was completed in 933. It is thought that Saadia closely followed the rules of the Muʿtazila - the rationalistic dogmatists of Islam - in the structure of the work, as well as, in part, basing his thesis and arguments on their works.

The work was mainly written as a defence of Rabbinic Judaism against the views of Karaite Judaism, which rejects the oral law (Mishnah and Talmud).

In his detailed introduction, Saadia speaks of the reasons that led him to compose it. His heart was grieved when he saw the confusion concerning matters of religion that prevailed among his contemporaries, finding an unintelligent belief and unenlightened views current among those who professed Judaism, while those who denied the faith triumphantly vaunted their errors. Men were sunken in the sea of doubt and overwhelmed by the waves of spiritual error, and there was none to help them; so that Saadia felt himself called and duty bound to save them from their peril by strengthening the faithful in their belief and by removing the fears of those who were in doubt.

After a general presentation of the causes of infidelity and the essence of belief, Saadia describes the three natural sources of knowledge: namely, the perceptions of the senses, the light of reason, and logical necessity, as well as the fourth source of knowledge possessed by those that fear God, the "veritable revelation" contained in the Scriptures. He shows that a belief in the teachings of revelation does not exclude an independent search for knowledge, but that speculation on religious subjects rather endeavors to prove the truth of the teachings received from the Prophets and to refute attacks upon revealed doctrine, which must be raised by philosophic investigation to the plane of actual knowledge.

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