Jewish-Christian polemics at the turning point: Jewish evidence from the twelfth century

Harvard Theological Review

Volumn 89, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 161-173

  Lasker, Daniel J ^a  

^a BEN GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV   (Israel)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 53149149094     PISSN: 00178160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000031965     Document Type: Review

References (74)

1. Zion 33 (1968) 125-44.
2. Funkenstein's article has been reprinted a number ot times and in various forms; for an English translation, see Funkenstein, Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) 172-201.
3. Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1982) 21-32.
4. David Berger, "Mission to the Jews and Jewish-Christian Contacts in the Polemical Literature of the High Middle Ages," AHR 91 (1986) 576-91.
5. Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) 7-21.
6. Funkenstein, Perceptions, 193 n. 66.
7. The most influential work in this respect was Anselm's Cur deus homo in Opera Omnia (ed. Francis S. Schmitt; 6 vols, Stuttgart: Fromann, 1968) 2. 37-133;
8. Anna Sapir Abulafia, "An Attempt by Gilbert Crispin, Abbot of Westminster, at Rational Argument in the Jewish-Christian Debate," Studia Monastica 26 (1984) 55-74.
9. See Odo of Tournai, On Original Sin and A Disputation with the Jew, Leo, Concerning the Advent of Christ, the Son of God (trans. Irven M. Resnick; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994); and see below, n. 40.
10. Pseudo-William of Champeaux, Dialogus inter Christianum et Iudaeum de fide catholica, PL 163. 1045-72.
11. See also Anna Sapir Abulafia, "Jewish-Christian Disputations and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance," Journal of Medieval History 15 (1989) 105-25;
12. Funkenstein, Perceptions, 181-82; but compare Cohen, Friars, 25.
13. Peter Abelard, A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian (Mediaeval Sources in Translation 20; trans. Pierre J. Payer; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1979);
14. see also Hans Liebeschütz, "The Significance of Judaism in Peter Abaelard's Dialogus," JJS 12 (1961) 1-18.
15. l2 Alfonsi also employed rational arguments in his polemic against Judaism. The Latin text of Peter Alfonsi's Dialogue can be found in PL 157. 527-672;
16. and Klaus-Peter Mieth, "Der Dialog des Petrus Alfonsi: seine Überlieferung im Druck und in den Handschriften: Textedition" (Ph. D. diss. , Freie Universität Berlin, 1982).
17. For two recent discussions of Alfonsi, see Barbara Phyllis Hurwitz, "Fidei Causa et tui Amore: The Role of Petrus Alphonsi's Dialogues in the History of Jewish-Christian Debate" (Ph. D. diss. , Yale University, 1983);
18. John Tolan, Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993). Peter the Venerable's anti-Jewish polemic is Adversus Iudeorum inveteratam duritiem (ed. Yvonne Friedman; Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 58; Turnhout: Brepols, 1985).
19. The two Peters are discussed in Chen Merchavia, The Church versus Talmudic and Midrashic Literature (500-1248) (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1970) 93-127, 128-52 [Hebrew].
20. The dependence of Peter the Venerable on Peter Alfonsi is demonstrated by Saul Lieberman, Shkiin (2d ed. ; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1970) 27-42.
21. See also Manfred Kniewasser, "Die antijüdische Polemik des Petrus Alphonsi (getauft 1106) und des Abtes Petrus the Venerable von Cluny (+ 1156)," Kairos n. s. 2 (1980) 34-76.
22. Alan of Lille, De fide catholica contra haereticos liber quatuor 4. 3, PL 210. 399-422
23. Merchavia, Talmud, 214-17.
24. For a detailed discussion of twelfth-century sources on Jews and Judaism and a general review of Christian controversial literature, see Anna Sapir Abulafia, Christians and Jews in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance (London and New York: Routledge, 1995);
25. see also the material in Gilbert Dahan, Les intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au moyen âge (Paris: Cerf, 1990); and Berger, "Mission. "
26. Cohen, Friars, 25-32.
27. Chazan (Daggers of Faith, 185 n. 32), discussing the thirteenth century, mentions Alfonsi only once and Peter the Venerable does not fare much better (pp. 23-24, 29). For a more positive evaluation of Alfonsi's influence on later Christian writers, see Tolan, Alfonsi.
28. See Daniel J. Lasker, "The Jewish Critique of Christianity under Islam in the Middle Ages," PAAJR 57 (1991) 121-53;
29. idem, "Judeo-Christian Polemics and Their Origins in Muslim Countries," Pe'amim 57 (1993) 4-16 [Hebrew].
30. l8 Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, "Anti-Christian Polemic in Medieval Bible Commentaries," JJS 11 (1960) 115-35;
31. Abraham Grossman, "The Jewish-Christian Polemic and Jewish Bible Exegesis in Twelfth-Century France," Zion 51 (1986) 29-60 [Hebrew];
32. Eliezer Touitou, "The Exegetical Method of Rashbam in the Light of the Historical Reality of His Time," in Y. D. Gilat, et al. , eds. , Iyyunim be-Sifrut Hcombining dot belowazal ba-Miqra u-ve-Toledot Yisra'el (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1982) 8-74 [Hebrew];
33. Sarah Kamin, "The Polemic against Allegory in the Commentary of R. Joseph Bekhor Shor," Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 3 (1983-84) 367-92 [Hebrew];
34. idem, "Rashi's Commentary on the Song of Songs and Jewish-Christian Polemic," in Shenaton la-Miqra u-le-hcombining dot beloweqer ha-Mizrahcombining dot below ha-Qadmon 7-8 (1983-84) 218-48 [Hebrew];
35. Yitzhak Baer, "Rashi and his Generation's Historical Reality," Tarbiz 20 (1950) 320-32 [Hebrew].
36. Esra Shereshevsky, "Rashi and Christian Interpretations," JQR 61 (1970-71) 76-86.
37. Grossman ("The Jewish-Christian Polemic") makes the case that the desire to combat Christian exegesis was a strong motivating factor in Joseph Qara's (ca. 1060-1070) interpretations of biblical verses and religious hymns. Qara did not, however, write a separate treatise as did some of his thirteenth-century compatriots who discussed many of the same verses in their polemical works. In his article's notes, Grossman adduced parallels between Qara's specific interpretations and the polemical literature of the next century. See also Alexander M. Shapiro ("An Anti-Christian Polemic of the Twelfth Century," Zion 56 [1991] 79-85 [Hebrew]) who presents an anti-Christian passage in the halakhic work of the twelfth-century's R. Eliezer b. Natan (Even ha-Ez. er).
38. See Daniel J. Lasker and Sarah Stroumsa, The Polemic of Nestor the Priest (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1996), for an edition, translation, and commentary on all the relevant Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew texts.
39. See Bahya b. Joseph Ibn Pakuda, The Book of Direction to the Duties of the Heart (trans. Menahem Mansoor; London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1973);
40. Judah Halevi, The Kuzari (trans. Hartwig Hirschfeld; London: Routladge, 1906).
41. Explicit citations of Nestor by Jacob b. Reuben in 1170 indicate its early provenance; see Lasker and Stroumsa (Nestor the Priest) for a full discussion.
42. Jacob b. Reuben, Sefer Milhcombining dot belowmot Ha-Shem (ed. Judah Rosenthal; Jerusalem: Ha-Rav Kook, 1963).
43. Very little is known about Jacob b. Reuben; although he mentions his city of residence, there is a dispute as to whether that city is Huesca or Gascogne. See Judah Rosenthal's introduction to Milhcombining dot belowamot Ha-Shem, vii-xxv;
44. Rolf Schmitz, "Jacob ben Rubén y su obra Milhcombining dot belowamot ha-Šem," in Carlos del Valle, ed. , Polémica Judeo-Cristiana Estudios (Madrid: Aben Ezra, 1992) 45-58;
45. and Carlos del Valle, "Jacob ben Rubén de Huesca. Su patria y su época," in ibid. , 59-65.
46. Whether or not Jacob b. Reuben was a refugee from Muslim Andalusia, his work is suffused with the Andalusian Jewish anti-Christian tradition; see Lasker, "Origins. " See also Robert Chazan, "The Christian Position in Jacob Ben Reuben's Milhcombining dot belowamot Ha-Shem," in Jacob Neusner, et al. , eds. , From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding. Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox (4 vols. ; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 2. 157-70.
47. Joseph Kimhcombining dot belowi's, Sefer Ha-Berit (ed. Frank Talmage; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1974); for an English translation, see Joseph Kimhcombining dot belowi, The Book of the Covenant (trans. Frank Talmage; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1972); references here follow the English translation. See also Robert Chazan, "Sefer Ha-Berit," 417-32.
48. See Milhcombining dot belowamot, 154-56 for explicit references; other borrowed arguments appear on pp. 9-10, 153.
49. See Kimhcombining dot belowi, Book of the Covenant, 36-39; for Nestor's influence on later Jewish polemical works, see the commentary in Lasker and Stroumsa, Nestor the Priest; and Joel E. Rembaum, "The Influence of Sefer Nestor Hakomer on Medieval Jewish Polemics," PAAJR 45 (1978) 155-85.
50. Jewish familiarity with the Christian emphasis on reason in the twelfth century may also be reflected in passages in Judah Halevi's Kuzari (such as the opening speech of the Christian and the king's response in 1. 4-5), demonstrating that the new Christian attitude toward reason may have been known in Muslim Spain as well.
51. In addition to finding Christian arguments reflected in Jewish polemical works, it is also possible to discern Jewish arguments in Christian polemical works. Sometimes those contentions appear in writing first in the Christian source. The claim that Jesus did not bring world peace, for example, is a theme that Christian treatises attributed to Jews in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; but it occurs in Jewish ones only from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. See the references in David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages (Philadelphia: JPSA, 1979) 279-80.
52. Jacob b. Reuben translated both the New Testament and Christian polemical works; see Judah Rosenthal, "Early Hebrew Translations of the Gospels," Tarbiz 32 (1962-63) 48-66 [Hebrew];
53. David Berger, "Gilbert Crispin, Alan of Lille, and Jacob ben Reuben," Speculum 49 (1974) 34-47.
54. The meaning of the terms is unclear. Dahan (Les intellectuels, 345) understands this term to mean: "expert in theology and well versed in the spiritual sciences. " It should be remembered that Jacob b. Reuben was writing at a period when Hebrew philosophical terminology was still in flux, since the Hebrew of twelfth- and thirteenth-century translations rendered by the Ibn Tibbon family had not yet become standard.
55. Jacob b. Reuben, Milhcombining dot belowamot, 5. Compare Isa 44:18.
56. Kimhcombining dot belowi, Book of the Covenant, 27.
57. Jacob b. Reuben, Milhcombining dot belowamot, 13.
58. Peter the Venerable, Adversus Iudeorum, 57-58; compare Yvonne Friedman, "Peter the Venerable: A Humanist of the Twelfth Century or an Anti-Semite," in Proceedings of the Seventh World Congress of Jewish Studies: History of the Jews in Europe (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1981) Hebrew section, 1-8.
59. Alfonsi offered this analogy as an explanation of incarnation; see Dialogi, cols. 617-18;
60. Hurwitz, Fidei Causa, 140. In Dialogi, col. 612, Alfonsi used the analogy of the priests' fingers in the priestly blessing for the Trinity. This image may be reflected in Jacob b. Reuben's (Milhcombining dot belowamot, 10) reference to a hand with five fingers. For a discussion of similar images of the Trinity, see Daniel J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (New York: Ktav, 1977) 93-103.
61. Hugh of St. Victor, Apologia de verbe incarnata, PL 177. 305. There is some question as to the genuineness of this work's attribution to Hugh of St. Victor.
62. Abulafia, "Jewish-Christian Disputations," 115-17; idem. Christians and Jews, 81-82; see also Lasker, Polemics, 157-58.
63. For the background for the imagery of virgin conception, see the discussion by Charles T. Wood, "The Doctors' Dilemma: Sin, Salvation, and the Menstrual Cycle in Medieval Thought," Speculum 56 (1981) 710-27.
64. Hurwitz, Fidei Causa, 141-49. The question of the reason for incarnation was central in twelfth-century Christian thought; see Abulafia, "Disputations," 118-21.
65. Hurwitz, Fidei Causa, 93-120.
66. AIfonsi, Dialogi, cols. 555-57.
67. The influence of Jewish rationalism from the Islamic world is discernable as well in Jacob b. Reuben's use of Bahya ibn Paquda's arguments for the unity of God in Milhcombining dot belowamot, 9-10.
68. It should be noted that the use of the term "reason" in the twelfth century was non-Aristotelian. Thirteenth-century Christian philosophers did not invariably accept the results of twelfth-century theologizing as rational in a more rigorous sense.
69. See Norman E. Frimer and Dov Schwartz, The Life and Thought of Shem Tov Ibn Shaprut (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1992) 62 [Hebrew].
70. See Chazan, Daggers.
71. Even if Jacob b. Reuben and Joseph Kimhcombining dot belowi did not respond directly to the twelfth-century Christian attack on rabbinic literature, they still may have been aware of some of its elements. It is possible that these authors understood the Christian attack on the midrash as part of the general accusation of Jewish irrationality and blasphemy. By asserting, therefore, that Christian doctrines were irrational and that incarnation was an affront to the divinity because of the indignities of gestation and birth, the Jewish polemicists may have been subtly answering the new Christian tactic.
72. See Jonathan of Lunel, The Commentary of R. Jonathan Ha-Kohen of Lunel on the Mishnah and Alfasi Tractate Bava Kamma (ed. Shamma Friedman; Jerusalem/New York: Feldheim, 1969) 106;
73. Gerald J. Blidstein, "Menahem Meiri's Attitude Toward Gentiles: Apologetics or Worldview?" Binah 3 (1994) 133 n. 27. I would like to thank Prof. Blidstein for drawing this source to my attention.
74. Compare Abulafia's discussion of this issue in Christians and Jews.