Abstract
One of the major differences between medieval, northern European, Jewish anti-Christian polemic (written in France and Germany) and similar literature written in southern Europe (Iberia, Provence, and Italy) is the almost total lack of philosophical argumentation in the former. In a previous discussion of this phenomenon, I argued that northern European Jewish polemicists were familiar with philosophical argumentation against Christianity, but they generally eschewed its use in their polemical treatises. I used the following formulation: “Most Ashkenazic Jews were not familiar with ‘Greek wisdom’; even the intellectuals among them were generally not f luent in philosophy. There is no reason to believe that a polemicist, addressing his book to a Jewish audience which itself was not philosophically sophisticated, would use arguments which even he would regard as foreign.”1 In a second article, I gave a reason why Ashkenazic polemicists eschewed philosophical polemics, asserting that they acted not so much out of their own mindsets or ignorance of these arguments but because their audiences would not have been receptive.2
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Notes
Daniel J. Lasker, “Jewish Philosophical Polemics in Ashkenaz,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics Between Jews and Christians, ed. Ora Limor and Guy Stroumsa (Tübingen, 1996), 195–213.
See David Berger, “Polemic, Exegesis, Philosophy, and Science: On the Tenacity of Ashkenazic Modes of Thought,” Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook 8 (2009): 29–32.
See David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages: A Critical Edition of the Nitsahon Vetus with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (Philadelphia, 1979).
Ephraim Elimelekh Urbach, “Etudes sur la literature polèmique au Moyen-Age,” Revue des études juives 100 (1935): 49–77.
Joseph Kimḥi, Sefer ha-berit u-vikkuḥé Radak ‘im ha-natsrut, ed. Ephraim Talmage (Jerusalem, 1974), 56–68. The French provenance of the book can be seen by the author’s mention of his grandfather, apparently Eliezer of Metz, and the citation from Rabbi Joseph Kara (p. 57).
See also Joseph Shatzmiller, La deuxième controverse de Paris (Paris-Louvain, 1994), 56, n. 187.
Judah Rosenthal, ed., Meḥkarim u-mekorot (Jerusalem, 1967), 1: 368–372. The author mentions Isaac of Troyes, but the date of the work is unknown.
The attribution of the account of the Paris disputation to Joseph Official is based on a colophon in the Paris manuscript of the disputation; see Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanné, 141. There is no adequate edition of the Disputation of Paris. See S. Grünbaum, ed., Vikkuaḥ Rabbenu Yeḥi’el mi-Paris (Thorn, 1873); Vikkuaḥ Rabbenu Yeḥi’el mi-Paris, ed. Reuven Margaliot (Lvov, [n.d.]). Piero Capelli is preparing a critical edition of the Disputation, and I thank him for sharing his work with me.
For the possibility that the Moscow manuscript is superior to the Paris manuscript, see Judah Galinsky, “The Different Hebrew Versions of the ‘Talmud Trial’ of 1240 in Paris,” in New Perspectives on Jewish-Christian Relations: In Honor of David Berger, ed. Elisheva Carlebach and Jacob J. Schacter (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 109–140.
Ḥizuk emunah (Strengthening of Faith), ed. David Deutsch (Sohrau/Breslau [s.n.], 1873); on the work and its context, see, for example, Golda Akhiezer, “The Karaite Isaac ben Abraham of Troki and his Polemics against Rabbanites,” in Tradition, Heterodoxy and Religious Culture: Judaism and Christianity in the Early Modern Period, ed. Chanita Goodblatt and Howard Kreisel (Be’er Sheva, 2007), 437–468.
Judah Rosenthal, “Sifrut ha-vikkuaḥ ha-‘anti-notsrit ‘ad sof ha-me’ah ha-shemoneh-‘esreh,” Areshet 2 (1960): 130–179.
See Daniel J. Lasker, “The Jewish Critique of Christianity Under Islam in the Middle Ages,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, 57 (1991): 121–153.
For a discussion of the impact of Arabic literature on the new Jewish genres, see Rina Drory, Models and Contacts. Arabic Literature and its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden, Boston, Köln, 2000), esp. 126–146.
Daniel J. Lasker, “The Jewish-Christian Debate in Transition: From the Lands of Ishmael to the Lands of Edom,” in Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Interaction, and Communication, ed. Benjamin Hary, et al. (Leiden and Boston, 2000), 53–65.
See, for example, Daniel J. Lasker, “The Impact of Interreligious Polemic on Medieval Philosophy,” in Beyond Religious Borders: Interaction and Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval Islamic World, ed. David M. Freidenreich and Miriam Goldstein (Philadelphia, 2012), 115–123; 200–203.
Bekhor Shor was also the French exegete most influenced by French rationalism; see Meir (Martin I.) Lockshin, “Ha’im Yosef Bekhor Shor pashtan?,” in Iggud; mivḥar ma’amarim be-madd‘é ha-yahadut, 1 (2007): 161–172;
and see Avraham Grossman, Ḥakhmé tsarfat ha-rishonim (Jerusalem, 1995), 472.
Both Jacob ben Reuben’s Milḥamot ha-Shem and Joseph Kimḥi’s Sefer ha-berit are in the form of dialogues. On the connection between dialogue and philosophy, see Aaron W. Hughes, The Art of the Dialogue in Jewish Philosophy (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2008).
On Joseph’s lineage and family, see Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanné, xx–xxiv, based on Zadoq Kahn, “Etude sur le livre de Joseph le Zélateur,” Revue des études juives 1 (1880): 234–246.
On Provençal traditions in northern European polemics, see Joel E. Rembaum, “A Reevaluation of a Medieval Polemical Manuscript,” AJS Review 5 (1980): 81–99.
See Kristen Fudeman, Vernacular Voices (Philadelphia and Oxford, 2010).
The connection between the Provençal background of the Official family and the arrival of the polemical genre in northern Europe is also suggested by Jeremy Cohen, “Towards a Functional Classification of Jewish anti-Christian Polemic in the High Middle Ages,” in Religionsgespräche in Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner (Wiesbaden, 1992), 103.
Vikkuaḥ Rabbenu Yeḥi’el mi-Paris, 15; See Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial (Rutherford, NJ, 1982), 156 (who mistranslates the passage).
See Daniel J. Lasker, “Latin into Hebrew and the Medieval Jewish-Christian Debate,” in Latin-into-Hebrew. Volume 1: Studies, ed. Gad Freudenthal and Resianne Fontaine (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 333–347. For a new discussion and translation of the disputation, see The Trial of the Talmud: Paris, 1240. Hebrew texts translated by John Friedman; Latin texts translated by Jean Connell Hoff; historical essay by Robert Chazan (Toronto, 2012).
Saadia’s work was available to Joseph in a pa raphrastic translation; see Ronald C. Kiener, “The Hebrew Paraphrase of Saadia Gaon’s Kitāb al-amānāt wa’l-i‘tiqādāt,” (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1984). Saadia’s theory of attributes, refutation of the trinity and discussion of the Christian interpretations of Biblical verses 2:5–7,
Saadia Gaon, The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, trans. Samuel Rosenblatt (New Haven, 1948) 103–110 is on 92–100. His discussion of abrogation (3:7–9, Rosenblatt, 157–173) is on 145–157; and see Yosef ha-Mekanné, 37, n.3. The discussion of the Messiah (8:7–9, Rosenblatt, 312–322) is not included in Kiener’s edition (which includes Books 1–5 only); see Yosef ha-Mekanné, 3–6. This latter passage is found in Jacob ben Reuben’s Milḥamot ha-Shem, ed. Judah Rosenthal (Jerusalem, 1963), 157–161. If the evidence from Rosenthal’s editions is correct, Joseph did not just copy from Jacob in which case he had the paraphrase in front of him. Prof. Kiener’s full edition of the paraphrase is scheduled to be published by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; I would like to thank him for sharing the text with me before publication.
The identification of the persons of the trinity with divine attributes and the use of example of a natural phenomenon as an image of the trinity are characteristics of philosophical polemics; see Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York, 1977; 2nd ed., Oxford and Portland, OR, 2007), 63–76, 93–103.
Judah Rosenthal, “Divrei vikkuaḥ mi-tokh sefer Yosef ha-Mekanné (nusaḥ ktav-yad roma 53),” Kovets al yad 8 (1976): 322.
Milḥamot ha-Shem, 23–40; and see David Berger, “Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob ben Reuben,” Speculum 49 (1974): 34–47 (reprinted in David Berger, Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue. Essays in Jewish-Christian Relations [Boston, 2010], 227–244).
See, for example, Daniel J. Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa, The Polemic of Nestor the Priest, vol. 1 (Jerusalem, 1996): 53, 57, 59, 63, 67, 68, 98, 114–115.
See, for example, Dominique Sourdel, “Un pamphlet musulman anonyme d’époque ‘abbāside contre les chrétiens,” Revue des études islamiques 34 (1966): 1–33.
Berger usually glosses over these usages in his translation of Nitsaḥon yashan; see Debate, 302. For a list of vulgarities in the work, see Mordechai Breuer, ed., Sefer nitsaḥon yashan (Nitsah on Vetus) (Ramat-Gan, 1978), 195.
On the image of Donin in the account of the Disputation of Paris, see Saadia R. Eisenberg, “Reading Medieval Religious Disputation: The 1240 ‘Debate’ Between Rabbi Yeḥiel of Paris and Friar Nicholas Donin” (PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 2008), 81–88.
Milḥamot ha-Shem, 5, 13. And 200 years later the Iberian, Shem Tov ibn Shaprut thought that Jacob’s tone was too acerbic to be copied; see José-Vicente Niclós, Šem Ṭob Ibn Šapruṭ. “La Piedra de Toque” (Eben Bohan). Una Obra de Controversia Judeo-Cristiana (Madrid, 1997), 7.
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Lasker, D.J. (2015). Joseph ben Nathan’s Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanné and the Medieval Jewish Critique of Christianity. In: Baumgarten, E., Galinsky, J.D. (eds) Jews and Christians in Thirteenth-Century France. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137317582_8
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