Daniel J. Lasker

Jewish-Christian Polemics at the Turning Point: Jewish Evidence from the Twelfth Century

In 1968 Amos Funkenstein published an article in Hebrew entitled “Changes in the Patterns of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemics in the 12th Century.” In that article, Funkenstein argues that Christian attitudes toward Jews underwent a change in the twelfth century, a change discernable in the Christian polemical literature of the period. In contrast to the previous Christian strategy of polemicizing against Judaism through a battery of prooftexts, or testimonia , the innovative polemics introduced three important elements—the recourse to reason, the attack on the Talmud, and the use of the Talmud to prove the truth of Christianity. These innovations signaled the beginning of the end of the relative Christian tolerance of Jews and Judaism inspired by the writings of Augustine.

The Impact of the Crusades on the Jewish-Christian Debate

It is well known that Jewish life in western Europe declined greatly in the Middle Ages, as relative tolerance for Jews and Judaism deteriorated into persecution, massacres, forced conversions, and eventual expulsions. Historical events, of course, do not occur in a vacuum, and, therefore, attempts have been made to explain this change for the worse in the Jewish status in Europe. Some historians have looked for a watershed event in the relations between Jews and Christians, while others have talked about gradual changes. It would seem that the Crusades could fit both explanations. The First Crusade was the occasion of the initial widespread massacres of Jews in western Europe and could be seen as a sharp break with the past. Alternately, the Crusading period lasted long enough to fit a theory of incremental transformation as well, if one wanted to see it as the context of the worsening Jewish status. A typical view of the impact of the Crusades on Jewish life is that of Salo W. Baron, who began his discussion of the Age of Crusades in the following manner:

Averroistic Trends in Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Late Middle Ages

A number of historians have asserted that the spread of Jewish Averroism in the late fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries was a major cause of widespread Jewish apostasy in Spain. It was felt that the propagation of a philosophy which maintained that reason is superior to any religion contributed to a weakening of the Jewish resolve to withstand intense conversionary pressure. If all faiths were of equal value, or indeed, of no value, what benefit would accrue to a Jew if he suffered for his Judaism? If he could expect no reward in the next world, as Averroism seemed to preach, would it not be better to enjoy what this world has to offer? Thus, Spanish Jews, who were deeply imbued with philosophical ideas, became Christians in large numbers. This is not the place to enter into the discussion as to whether the Averroists correctly understood Averroes or the historians correctly understood the Averroists. Suffice it to say that most late medieval Jewish philosophers basically agreed with Averroess distinction between demonstrative and dialectical truths and believed that the latter, i.e. the doctrines of religion, could not be proven by the former, i.e. philosophical reasoning.2 This may have led a number of individuals to think that since reason could not demonstrate the truth of any religion, Judaism could not be said to have any

Latin into Hebrew and the Medieval Jewish-Christian Debate

This chapter examines the polemics as an incentive for Jews to study Latin and then turn to the specific use of the Latin language in medieval Jewish polemical treatises. Thus an examination of Jewish polemical works, with their use of Latin terms and texts, indicates that the Jewish-Christian debate was a major motivation for Jewish knowledge of Latin in the High Middle Ages. In the chapter, the author suggests two major reasons for the use of Judeo-Latin in Jewish polemical treatises: first to add authority to the argument; second, to clarify Christian theological terms for which there was no satisfactory Hebrew equivalent. The comments in the chapter are intended to illustrate one aspect of Christian linguistic cultural transference, namely, the important role of polemic as an incentive for Jewish acquisition of mastery of Latin. Keywords: Hebrew; High Middle Ages; Jewish polemical treatises; Jewish-Christian debate; Judeo-Latin

Jewish Knowledge of Christianity in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries

Accessing knowledge is becoming easier and easier as newer technological advances have been applied to the world of learning. In twelfth-century Ashkenaz, Jewish knowledge of Christianity was apparently very limited. The thirteenth century provides much more evidence of Jewish knowledge of Christianity and Latin, and direct Jewish contact with Christian sages and texts, than can be seen previously. Jews in Christian countries began writing specifically anti-Christian polemics only in the generation after Rashbam, and the first such works were written by authors with strong connections to Islamic Andalusia. If the Jews with the most knowledge of Christianity of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were only slightly familiar with contemporary Christian theological developments, it is hardly likely that other Jews had such knowledge. Jews and Christians shared the same vernacular languages and often had the same concerns in terms of economics, health, and personal security. Keywords:anti-Christian polemics; Ashkenaz; Christianity; Islamic Andalusia; Jewish knowledge of Christianity; thirteenth Century; twelfth century

Aaron ben Elijah

This study challenges the oft-repeated assertion that Karaite thought remained unchanged throughout the Middle Ages. It discusses major Karaite thinkers and their writings, in addition to the impact of Karaism on Rabbanite Judaism, especially on the thought of Maimonides.

Karaism and the Jewish-Christian Debate

This study challenges the oft-repeated assertion that Karaite thought remained unchanged throughout the Middle Ages. It discusses major Karaite thinkers and their writings, in addition to the impact of Karaism on Rabbanite Judaism, especially on the thought of Maimonides.

Controversy and Collegiality: A Look at Provence

Gad Freudenthal and I disagree as to the relationship between Jewish anti-Christian polemics and philosophy in the cultural transfer of Andalusian rationalism to Provence. Freudenthal believes that the Jewish need to confront Christianity was one of the factors that led Provencal Jewry to adopt philosophical reasoning that theretofore had been foreign to them. I have argued that Iberian Jewish immigrants to Provence sought out Christian colleagues because of the latter’s interest in philosophy; in order to make sure the boundaries between the religions were maintained, these Jewish intellectuals were motivated to polemicize against Christianity. A central example of our disagreement is the case of Jacob ben Reuben, author of Wars of the Lord (1170), who describes his encounters with a Christian sage who tried to convert him. Freudenthal believes that Jacob learned philosophy in order to find answers to the Christian; but I contend that from Jacob’s description, it is obvious that he had first gone to the Christian’s house to learn philosophy before he was urged by his teacher to convert. Unlike Freudenthal who believes polemics led to philosophy, I argue that philosophy led to polemics.

Two New Invaluable Research Tools: Catalogues of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican and Parma Libraries

Benjamin Richler, ED. Hebrew Manuscript*) in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma, Palaeographical and Codico logical Descriptions by Malachi BeitAne. Jerusalem: The Jewish National and University Library, 2001. Pp. 574 + xxx + (ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.).Benjamin Richler, ed. Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library, Palaeographical and Codicological Descriptions by Malachi Beit- Arie in collaboration with Nurit Pasternak. Citta del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2008. Pp. 679 + xxx + 66* + 16 plates.A LIBRARY CATALOGUE CAN BE LIKE A PHONE BOOK - full of intriguing characters but weak on plot. A great library catalogue, however, not only records the names of the books but also presents the plot in between the lines. The entries for each book can tell a story if the cataloguer is sufficiently adept and if the reader is suitably attentive to the catalogues own narrative. We have before us two examples of exemplary catalogues, executed by leading experts in Jewish manuscripts, Benjamin Richler, the historian of the Jewish book, and Malachi Beit-Arie, the paleographer par excellence. Each book is chock full of very important information, going well beyond just a simple list of manuscripts and the compositions they include.The catalogues under review describe collections of Hebrew manuscripts in two Italian libraries, the Palatine Library in Parma and the Vatican Library in Rome. Each catalogue has a historical introduction explaining how these important collections were purchased over the years, implicitly answering those who assume that non-Jewish libraries of Hebrew manuscripts must have been collected by looting Jewish communities. This claim has been made, especially concerning the Vatican Library, in light of the long history of Catholic antagonism to Jewish books, as expressed among other ways by censorship, book burning, and persecution of the Jewish owners of those books. In addition, a rumor has persisted for years in traditional Jewish circles that the Vatican has Jewish treasures, going back to the Second Temple, which are hidden from the general public.1Although the discussions of the provenance of the collections in general and individual manuscripts in particular will probably not silence the critics who can argue that even if most of the books in the collections were purchased from their Jewish owners, some Jews might have sold their books to Christians under duress, they reflect the issues sensitivity. They also remind the reader of the Jewish worlds debt to non- Jewish libraries for providing respectable homes for Hebrew manuscripts, no matter how they were acquired. If one looks at the history of Jewish manuscript collections in the past century, the picture is not very encouraging. The Saraval manuscript collection at the Breslau Jewish Theological Seminary mostly disappeared during World War II; the Montefiore collection at Jews College in London and the private Sassoon collection have been auctioned off. Other collections have limited access because of budgetary constraints and scholars cannot be assured that these institutions will not sell their manuscripts to cover financial shortfalls. In contrast, the great collections of Parma, the Vatican, Oxford- Bodleian, Cambridge, the British Library, Bibliotheque Nationale, and others are generally maintained effectively and open to scholars.2The first Parma Hebrew manuscript catalogue (1803) was composed by the owner of the vast majority of those manuscripts which now make up the Palatine Librarys collection, Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi (17421831). The first Vatican Hebrew manuscript catalogue was published in 1756. These pioneering works were executed before the monumental cataloguing projects of Moritz Steinschneider in the nineteenth century (e.g., Hebrew books in the Bodleian, 1852-60; Warner-Leiden collection of Hebrew manuscripts in 1858; Hamburg, 1878). Steinschneider revolutionized the writing of Judaica catalogues, mainly by including every fact and reference relevant to each entry. …

Karaism and Christianity: An Evolving Relationship

This paper is a survey of changing Karaite attitudes towards Christianity over the centuries. When Karaites saw themselves as an integral part of Jewish people, sharing the trials and tribulations of Jewish identity with Rabbanite Jews, their approach to Christians, Christianity, and Jesus was almost indistinguishable from that of other Jews. They polemicized against Christianity, and rejected its basic doctrines, especially the messiahship of Jesus. When, Karaites sought to separate themselves from the Jewish people, usually to avoid persecution in various forms, they made an effort to ingratiate themselves to Christian, and also Muslim, authorities by praising Jesus, and Muhammad, and by identifying Rabbanite persecution of Karaites with Rabbanite persecution of Jesus. Karaite attitudes towards Christianity can serve as reliable indicators of the extent of Karaite Jewish identity: the greater the antagonism to Christianity, the stronger their Jewish identity; the greater the acceptance of Christianity, the weaker their Jewish identity. Keywords:Christianity; Jesus; Karaism; Karaite Jews; Rabbanite Jews