Workshop: Jewish-Christian Polemics
Jewish Christian Polemics in the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern Period
Date
June 15, 2016
Convenor
Racheli Haliva (Universität Hamburg/Germany)
Abstract
This workshop focussed on sceptical aspects in Jewish-Christian polemics. Three different points of view were presented: philosophical controversies found in Halevi’s Kuzari, conversion as it appears in Abner of Burgos’ Tešuvot la-Meḥaref, and confessionalisation in the Early Modern period. Judah Halevi lived most of his life under Islamic rule, and yet he engaged in anti-Christian polemics in his Kuzari. Although the Jewish critique of Christianity is usually considered a reaction to a Christian mission, much evidence indicates that such polemics are not solely a defensive measure. Jewish rationalists engaged in polemics against Christianity as part of their self-definition of Judaism, while Jews who eschewed rationalism, especially those in Christian Northern and Eastern Europe, usually did not engage in such criticisms of Christianity even when there were Christian provocations. The issue, addressed by Daniel Lasker, followed by Lawrence Kaplan’s response, is to what extent do Halevi’s anti-Christian polemics fit this Jewish rationalist paradigm. Abner of Burgos, the famous Jewish convert to Christianity from the fourteenth century, wrote extensively after his conversion, praising his new faith and claiming it to be the true religion, while rejecting his birth faith. In many of his works, Abner harshly criticises ‘Jewish’ ideas. At the same time he puts in a great effort to show that the Jewish rabbis, in fact, accepted the fundamental principles of Christianity, explaining that they had to conceal this acceptance for political reasons. This topic was presented by Racheli Haliva, followed by Michael Engel’s response. Hayyim Hillel Ben-Sasson, a scholar of the previous generation, has documented the considerable impact that the Protestant Reformation had on Jewish history. Further important research on this topic was undertaken by Jonathan Israel, the author of ‘European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism.’ The subject continues to be investigated by historians. After the collapse of medieval monolithic Christianity, Jews intelligently negotiated new social and political positions on the diversified map of religious groups and sub-groups. At the same time, Jewish authors developed strategies of doctrinal self-definition and polemical self-defence that reacted to the unprecedented religious pluralism. The topic was presented by Carsten Wilke. The topic of confessionalisation in the Early Modern period was explored by Paolo Bernardini, who raised the question ‘What is meant by “public” and “private” theological controversies between Jews and Christians and how do these two types of controversies differ?’ The subject was approached through an examination of the seventeenth-century anti-Christian Latin polemical work Porta Veritatis (1634–1640). The polemics contained in this work were ‘staged’ for a very limited public or for no public at all. What, then, was this work’s real purpose? Certainly, it sought not only to establish the ‘truth’ of one religion, or rather some of this religion’s tenets, with respect to the other. But also, it sought to demonstrate that a Jew could ‘actively’ defend his or her religion, and to be present as an intellectual on the philosophical scene, a scene that was quite lively and even frantic in the century of Spinoza and Descartes.
Lectures
- Judaeo-Christian Polemics, Religion and Scepticism in Judah Halevi’s Sefer ha-Kuzari
Daniel J. Lasker (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva/Israel) - Response to Daniel Lasker’s Lecture
Lawrence J. Kaplan (McGill University, Montreal/Canada) - Abner of Burgos—A Jewish Christian or a Christian Jew? Abner’s Double Standard Approach Towards the Jewish Rabbis
Racheli Haliva (Universität Hamburg/Germany) - Response to Racheli Haliva’s Lecture
Michael Engel (Universität Hamburg/Germany) - The Spice in the Salad Bowl: Sephardi Apologetical Approaches to Post-Reformation Pluralism
Carsten Wilke (Central European University, Budapest/Hungary) - Fighting for the Truth? Some Remarks on the Real Meaning of Early Modern Jewish-Christian Controversies’ [cancelled]
Paolo L. Bernardini (Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Como/Italy)
Publication
Lasker, Daniel/Kaplan, Larence/Haliva, Racheli/Engel, Michael/Bernardini, Paolo L. "WORKSHOP: Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern Period." In Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies 2017, edited by Bill Rebiger, 205–237. Boston, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2017.
[Open Access]
Poster
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Lecture2go
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