The Disputation of Barcelona (July 20-24, 1263) was a formal ordered medieval debate between representatives of Christianity and Judaism regarding whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. It was held at the royal palace of King James I of Aragon in the presence of the King, his court, and many prominent ecclesiastical dignitaries and knights, between Dominican Friar Pablo Christiani, a convert from Judaism to Christianity, and Rabbi Nahmanides (Moshe Ben Nachman, Ramban), a leading medieval Jewish scholar, philosopher, physician, kabbalist, and biblical commentator. During the Middle Ages, there were numerous ordered disputations between Christians and Jews. They were connected with burnings of the Talmud at the stake and violence against Jews. At Barcelona, Jews as well as Christians were given absolute freedom to speak their arguments how they wanted, making this unique among disputations.
'A superb work of committed scholarship . . . a work full of interest to those already familiar with the material it contains, and compelling reading for those who are not. Maccoby has done a fine job in recapturing the intellectual and social drama of the confrontations.' Jonathan Sacks, Jewish Journal of Sociology Hyam Maccoby's now classic study focuses on the major Jewish—Christian disputations of medieval Europe: those of Paris (1240), Barcelona (1263), and Tortosa (1413-14).
In this detailed study, Nina Caputo examines conceptions of history and messianic redemption in the writings of the Catalonian rabbi and brilliant Talmudic scholar Nahmanides (1195-1270). An early exponent of kabbalah, Nahmanides was also a shrewd intermediary between the Jewish communities and the royal administration of Aragon. Most intellectual histories focus on Nahmanides in the fairly insular context of Jewish community dynamics, but this volume explores the largely unexamined history of encounters between Jewish and Christian interpretations of history and redemption, as well as the significant role played by Jews in the expansion of the Crown of Aragon during the thirteenth century. Caputo explains Nahmanides' distinctive understanding of the shape and meaning of historical time and change and reveals how his discourse frequently confronted Christian views of history and scripture, sometimes embracing Christians forms, but at other times directly refuting them. Nina Caputo's book is the first to situate Nahmanides in the full intellectual and religious context of thirteenth-century Catalonia. It makes an important contribution to the fields of Jewish studies as well as medieval and early modern history. "Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia is a compelling illustration of meticulous scholarly attention, of subtle historical consciousness, rigorous rhetorical and literary sensibility, and true, wide-ranging synthetic ability--it uniquely draws from the entire corpus of Nahmanides' work in order to reframe conflicts and disputes, once again, as fertile and positive exchanges." --Gil Anidjar, Columbia University "Caputo has written a brilliant monograph on one of the most fascinating minds of the High Middle Ages. By aligning the intellectual and communal activities of Nahmanides within the context of both Jewish and medieval Spanish vernacular texts she brings academic rigor and interdisciplinary scholarship to throw new light on both communities at a critical moment in their development. Each chapter reveals the subtle ways that Nahmanides constructed intellectual and social frameworks for Jews to preserve their unique identity while sharing cultural and aesthetic norms of the Christian society that surrounded them." --Michael A. Signer, Abrams Professor of Jewish Thought and Culture, University of Notre Dame "This book offers a meticulous and thoughtful reading of the themes of history, prophecy, and progress in Nahmanides' exegetical, theological, and polemical works. It joins a growing body of scholarship that emphasizes the extent to which even tense and hostile Jewish-Christian confrontations were predicated upon shared cultural and intellectual approaches. It is sure to interest and engage scholars in the fields of Judaic studies, Iberian history, and biblical studies." --Sara Lipton, Stony Brook University
The twelfth century in Europe, hailed by historians as a time of intellectual and spiritual vitality, had a dark side. As Robert Chazan points out, the marginalization of minorities emerged during the "twelfth-century renaissance" as part of a growing pattern of persecution, and among those stigmatized the Jews figured prominently. The migration of Jews to northern Europe in the late tenth century led to the development of a new set of Jewish communities. This northern Jewry prospered, only to decline sharply two centuries later. Chazan locates the cause of the decline primarily in the creation of new, negative images of Jews. He shows how these damaging twelfth-century stereotypes developed and goes on to chart the powerful, lasting role of the new anti-Jewish imagery in the historical development of antisemitism. This coupling of the twelfth century's notable intellectual bequests to the growth of Western civilization with its legacy of virulent anti-Jewish motifs offers an important new key to understanding modern antisemitism.
The Christian discovery of the Babylonian Talmud is a significant landmark in the long and complex history of anti-Jewish polemic. While the Talmudic corpus developed in the same period as early Christianity, this post-biblical text was largely unknown to the Christians. Full awareness of the Talmud among Christian authors did not arise until the late 1230s, when the Jewish convert Nicholas Donin presented a Latin translation of Talmudic fragments to Pope Gregory IX. Though the Talmud was subsequently put on trial (1240) and burnt (1241/2) in Paris, the controversy surrounding it continued over the following years, as Pope Innocent IV called for a revision of its condemnation. The textual basis for this revision is the Extractiones de Talmud, that is, a Latin translation of 1.922 Talmudic fragments. The articles in this volume shed new light on this monumental translation and its historical context. They also offer critical editions of related texts, such as Donin’s anti-Talmudic polemic. Authors of the contributions are: Wout van Bekkum, Piero Capelli, Ulisse Cecini, Enric Cortès, Óscar de la Cruz Palma, Federico Dal Bo, Alexander Fidora, Görge K. Hasselhoff, Moisés Orfali, Ursula Ragacs and Eulàlia Vernet i Pons.
Never before translated into English, this work presents to the reader perhaps the most important source for an intensifying medieval Christian-Jewish debate.
Scholastic disputation, the formalized procedure of debate in the medieval university, is one of the hallmarks of intellectual life in premodern Europe. Modeled on Socratic and Aristotelian methods of argumentation, this rhetorical style was refined in the monasteries of the early Middle Ages and rose to prominence during the twelfth-century Renaissance. Strict rules governed disputation, and it became the preferred method of teaching within the university curriculum and beyond. In The Medieval Culture of Disputation, Alex J. Novikoff has written the first sustained and comprehensive study of the practice of scholastic disputation and of its formative influence in multiple spheres of cultural life. Using hundreds of published and unpublished sources as his guide, Novikoff traces the evolution of disputation from its ancient origins to its broader impact on the scholastic culture and public sphere of the High Middle Ages. Many examples of medieval disputation are rooted in religious discourse and monastic pedagogy: Augustine's inner spiritual dialogues and Anselm of Bec's use of rational investigation in speculative theology laid the foundations for the medieval contemplative world. The polemical value of disputation was especially exploited in the context of competing Jewish and Christian interpretations of the Bible. Disputation became the hallmark of Christian intellectual attacks against Jews and Judaism, first as a literary genre and then in public debates such as the Talmud Trial of 1240 and the Barcelona Disputation of 1263. As disputation filtered into the public sphere, it also became a key element in iconography, liturgical drama, epistolary writing, debate poetry, musical counterpoint, and polemic. The Medieval Culture of Disputation places the practice and performance of disputation at the nexus of this broader literary and cultural context.
The Religious Polemics of the Muslims of Late Medieval Christian Iberia examines the corpus of polemical literature against the Christians and the Jews of the protected Muslims (Mudejars). Commonly portrayed as communities in cultural and religious decay, Mònica Colominas convincingly proves that the discourses against the Christians and the Jews in Mudejar treatises provided authoritative frameworks of Islamic normativity which helped to legitimize the residence of their communities in the Christian territories. Colominas argues that, while the primary aim of the polemics was to refute the views of their religious opponents, Mudejar treatises were also a tool used to advance Islamic knowledge and to strengthen the government and social cohesion of their communities.
Vol. 4 covers the late Roman period to the rise of Islam. Focuses especially on the growth and development of rabbinic Judaism and of the major classical rabbinic sources such as the Mishnah, Jerusalem Talmud, Babylonian Talmud and various Midrashic collections.
