Attempts formally to expound the theology of rabbinic Judaism are found for the first time in the gaonic period. Philo had listed principles of biblical faith but his discussion does not fall within our purview here for two reasons: he did not operate within the context of rabbinic Judaism as it had developed to his day and he certainly made no direct contributions to its further development.

Once Sa'adia Gaon had for the first time methodically expounded the beliefs of Judaism in the tenth century, systematic theology became a standard and widely accepted branch of Jewish intellectual endeavour. It was not until the twelfth century, however, that we find the first comprehensive account of the dogmas of Judaism. Maimonides (1135–1204) was the first non Karaite Jewish author systematically, self-consciously, and explicitly to posit specific beliefs which all Jews qua Jews had to accept. In the two centuries following the publication of Maimonides' principles the question of the dogmas of Judaism received almost no attention. The fifteenth century saw intensive interest in the subject; with the close of that century, however, the subject disappeared almost entirely from the agenda of Jewish intellectuals, to resurface only in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

This study will examine the dogmatic systems of Maimonides and of those post-Maimonidean medieval Jewish thinkers who wrote on the subject in a sustained and orderly fashion; it will compare and contrast those systems; it will demonstrate Maimonides' all-pervasive influence; it will argue that the plethora of competing systems reflects not conflicting views of the nature of Judaism, but a dispute concerning the nature of dogmas or principles of faith; it will seek to explain why the subject was dropped after Maimonides and only picked up again after two centuries had elapsed; finally, it will suggest that the whole project of creed formulation is basically alien to biblical-rabbinic Judaism.

Maimonides’ innovation did not occur in a vacuum. In this introduction I wish to describe briefly and generally the Muslim, Jewish, and Karaite background against which Maimonides elaborated his principles. But first it is necessary to explain, if only briefly, why systematic theology was not attempted by Jews until after the talmudic period.