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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Christian anti-Jewish polemics have a long and rich history, stretching all the way back to the early stages of the new faith community. Anti-Jewish treatises dot the history of Christian literature from the third century onward. By contrast, Jews seem to have been much less concerned with combatting Christianity. It has been widely noted that the earliest Jewish compositions devoted to anti-Christian polemics stem from the twelfth century. While the twelfth-century provenance of the earliest Jewish anti-Christian tracts has long been recognized, little attention has been focused on the significance of this dating. The fact that sometime toward the end of the twelfth century, perhaps in the 1160s or 1170s, two anti-Christian works, the forerunners of a substantial body of Jewish anti-Christian polemical-apologetic works, were composed almost simultaneously begs interpetation. What changes gave rise to a new Jewish sensitivity, to a need to present Jewish readers with formulation and rebuttal of Christian claims? The answer clearly lies in the enhanced agressiveness of western Christendom toward the Jews, as well as other non-Christians, a development that has been recognized and discussed extensively in modern scholarly literature. In the face of an increasingly aggressive Christendom, Jewish intellectual and spiritual leadership had to reassure the Jewish flock of the rectitude of the Jewish vision and the nullity of the Christian faith. This is precisely what the first two anti-Christian treatises, the Milhamot ha-Shem of Jacob ben Reuven and the Sefer ha-Berit of Joseph Kimhi, undertook to achieve. Given the pioneering nature of these works, it is striking that insufficient scholarly attention has been accorded to these two efforts. They surely have much to tell both of perceived Christian thrusts and of meaningful Jewish rebuttal of these challenges.
1 To be sure, earlier biblical commentaries and philosophical works show evidence of Christian thrusts and Jewish parries. The Milhamot ha-Shem and Sefer ha-Berit, however, are the earliest extant works that are specifically organized around the issues in the Christian-Jewish debate and that are clearly intended for polemical-apologetic purposes. For a valuable recent treatment of some of the earlier polemical thrusts in both biblical commentary and philosophical writings, see Lasker, Daniel, “The Jewish Critique of Christianity under Islam in the Middle Ages,” PAAJR 57 (1990-1991) 121–53.Google Scholar
2 For the importance of the twelfth century in the evolution of Christian polemical stances and pressures upon the Jews of western Christendom, see the seminal study by Funkenstein, Amos, “Changes in the Patterns of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemics in the Twelfth Century,” Sion 33 (1968) 124–4Google Scholar [Hebrew]. My recent work on medieval Christian missionizing in Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth Century Christian Missionizing and the Jewish Response (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) andGoogle ScholarBarcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar has focused on the formalization of the missionizing pressure into a well-organized campaign. Such a focus is in no way intended to deny the twelfth-century roots of the new pressures or to mitigate their significance.
3 It seems reasonable to speculate that the Jews, faced with increasingly aggressive Christian argumentation, mobilized their resources in a variety of ways. We have, however, very little evidence for popularly oriented activities such as preaching and even less evidence for more important educational reforms. For a sermon preached in response to a mid-thirteenth-century missionizer, see my “Confrontation in the Synagogue of Narbonne: A Christian Sermon and the Jewish Response,” HTR 67 (1974) 437–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The survival of a dozen such sermons would have considerably enhanced our understanding of the new threat and the Jewish reaction to it. Jewish literary works, which were ultimately intended to have an impact, immediate or long term, on the Jewish public, were surely affected by the new challenge. In many instances, however, it is exceedingly difficult to disentangle the impact of the new pressures from the web of factors that impinged on Jewish literary works. Biblical commentaries are perhaps the genre most sensitive to the new Christian aggressiveness, yet they also indicate how problematic identification of the impact of the new thrusts can be. More problematic is the influence that the new pressures may have exerted on spiritual movements within the Jewish world. For a suggestion as to how the thirteenth-century Christian missionizing may have impacted Jewish messianic speculation, see the closing chapter of my Barcelona and Beyond, 172–94. Any discussion of the impact of the new Christian aggressiveness and the Jewish response must note geographic differences in western Christendom. While no segment of the Jewry of western Christendom was immune from the new pressures, it is clear that they were most acutely felt in the southern sectors of Europe and that the Jewish communities of this region were roused to the fullest measure of response.
4 This important text was published in a critical edition by Judah Rosenthal. See Reuven, Jacob ben, Milhamot ha-Shem (ed. Rosenthal, Yehudah; Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1963) [Hebrew]Google Scholar.
5 In the introduction to his edition of Milhamot ha-Shem (pp. xix–xxii), Rosenthal argues vigorously for the roots of this work in the author's experience of extensive discussion with a Christian cleric, suggesting that Sefer ha-Berit is less rooted in its author's actual experience. Rosenthal's arguments are not convincing. Both twelfth-century works seem to be literary creations, substantially removed from whatever actual experiences their authors may have had.
6 I have studied some aspects of the opening chapter of the Milhamot ha-Shem in “The Christian Position in Jacob ben Reuben's Milhamot ha-Shem," in Neusner, Jacob, 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.Google Scholar For some of the problems in the closing chapter of the Milhamot ha-Shem, see below, n. 59. Jacob ben Reuven's work is deserving of fuller analysis than it has received.
7 Refutations of the Milhamot ha-Shem were composed by Nicholas de Lyra and by Alfonso of Valladolid. Note the general observation of the Jewish apologist, Shem Tov ben Isaac ibn Shaprut, in his Even Bohen: “It is known that the sages of the Christians have composed rebuttals of them [the teachings of Jacob ben Reuven in his Milhamot ha-Shem].” A discussion of Nicholas, Alfonso, and the citation from the Even Bohen can be found in Rosenthal's introduction to the critical edition of Milhamot ha-Shem, xix–xxi.
8 The first full study of Joseph Kimhi was undertaken by Geiger, Abraham, “An Essay on R. Joseph Kimhi,” Osar Nehmad 1 (1856) 97–119Google Scholar [Hebrew], and it remains fundamental. This early study was succeeded by Bluth, Emanuel, “Joseph Kimhi und seine Grammatik,” Magazin für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums 8 (1891) 1-26, 119-39, 197-208, 269–86.Google Scholar Valuable summary observations can be found in Talmage, Frank, David Kimhi: The Man and the Commentaries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 5–7Google Scholar.
9 The Sefer ha-Berit was studied by Abraham Geiger in the first of a series of essays which he published in the early 1850s under the title “Proben jüdischer Vertheidigung gegen christliche Angriffe im Mittelalter,” in Deutscher Volkskalender undjahrbuch, insbesondere zum Gebrauch fur Israeliten, auf das Jahr 5611 (Breslau: Breslauer, 1851) 35–66 and esp. 41–44.Google Scholar A sum-mary may be found in , Geiger, “Essay on R. Joseph Kimhi,” 115–18.Google Scholar Also important are , Bluth, “Joseph Kimhi und seine Grammatik,” 204–6Google Scholar , and Newman, Louis I., “Joseph ben Isaac Kimchi as a Religious Controversialist,” in Jewish Studies in Memory of Israel Abrahams (New York: Press of the Jewish Institute of Religion, 1927) 365–72Google Scholar . See also the useful observations of Frank Talmage in the introductions to Kimhi, Joseph, Sefer ha-Berit u-Vikuhe ha-Radaq hu-Radaq 'im ha-Nasrut (ed. Talmage, Efrayim; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1974) 7–18Google Scholar [Hebrew], and to Kimhi, Joseph, The Book of the Covenant (trans. Talmage, Frank; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1972) 9–26Google Scholar.
10 Milhemet Hovah Vikuhim be-'inyane ha-Emunah ve-ha-Dat (Istanbul: n.p., 1710)Google Scholar [Hebrew]. The text identified by the editor as Sefer ha-Berit can be found on 18b-38a. Related texts printed in the Milhemet Hovah include a dialogue attributed to Joseph Kimhi's son David (see next note) and a version of the Nahmanidean narrative report on the Barcelona disputation.
11 This text, also printed in the Milhemet Hovah, was included by Talmage (, Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, 83–96)Google Scholar . Talmage treated this interesting text in great detail in “An Hebrew Polemical Treatise: Anti-Cathar and Anti-Orthodox,” HTR 60 (1967) 323–48Google Scholar . At the outset of this study, Talmage made a case for the inaccuracy of the attribution of the work to David Kimhi. Perusal of this text makes clear that here too the editor of the Milhemet Hovah has conflated a number of disparate sources.
12 Steinschneider, Moritz, “Judische hiteratur,” Allgemeine Encyklopaedie der Wissenschaften und Kuenste 27 (1850) 410 n. 33.Google Scholar
13 , Geiger, “Proben jüdischer Vertheidigung,” 63–64 n. 6.Google Scholar
14 This material is utilized by , Newman, “Joseph Kimhi as a Religious Controversialist,” 367–68, although not as fully as it might have beenGoogle Scholar.
15 In his introduction to the Milhamot ha-Shem (xxi–xxii), Rosenthal discusses the relations between this work and the Sefer ha-Berit, noting that, “according to some, the book of R. Joseph Kimhi has been completely lost and what was published under the title Sefer haBerit does not belong to Kimhi."
16 In citing the Sefer ha-Berit, I shall utilize the readily available Talmage edition (see n. 9). These two interpolations can be found there, 43, lines 9-16, and 48, lines 6-12. In both cases, the interpolations are readily understandable as marginal glosses that were subsequently introduced into the text itself. I would suggest in passing the likelihood of a third such interpolation, far more modest than the two obvious additions regularly noted. When the author turns to discussion of biblical pericopes, the first exchange concerns Gen 1:26-27. The second exchange, which is not easy to follow in the extant text, revolves around Gen 6:8 and Jonah 3:4. The Christian is made to argue that God can change his mind, an important basis for the notion of rejection of the Jews. In the text as it stands, the author makes his assertion, adduces Gen 6:8, adds that a different verse–Num 23:19–teaches the opposite, and then adds Jonah 3:4. I would tentatively propose that the introduction of the opposing view based on Num 23:19 constitutes yet another instance of marginal gloss introduced into the text and that the original version simply made the assertion, cited Gen 6:8, and buttressed the case from Jonah. This suggestion makes the Christian case smooth and readily understandable. Indeed, the Jewish response relates only to the Genesis and Jonah verses, reinforcing my suggestion of yet a third interpolation into our poorly edited text.
17 The additional materials begin on Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit 56, line 3. I have discussed the lengthiest segment of this additional material in “An Ashkenazic Anti-Christian Treatise,” JJS 34 (1983) 63–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Kimhi, Joseph, Sefer ha-Galuy (ed. Mathews, Henry J.; Berlin: Mekize Nirdamim, 1887) 135.Google Scholar
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., 134-35. There are similarly convincing parallels between the treatment of Dan 9:24-27 in Sefer ha-Galuy and Sefer ha-Berit.
21 , Talmage, David Kimhi, 54–134.Google Scholar
22 , Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, 22–23.Google Scholar
23 Note, for example, the grammatical concern in the discussion of Ps 110:1 (Sefer haBerit, 47–49) and the emphasis on context in the discussion of Gen 1:26–27 (Sefer ha-Berit, 31-34), Gen 49:10 (Sefer ha-Berit, 35-37), and Dan 9:24 (Sefer ha-Berit, 39-3).
24 , Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, 34–35.Google Scholar
25 Ibid., 31.
26 Ibid., 21-31.
27 Ibid., 31-54.
28 Ibid., 54-55.
29 Ibid., 55.
30 Ibid., 55-56.
31 Geiger, in his studies (“Proben jüdischer Vertheidigung,” 42 and “An Essay on R. Joseph Kimhi,” 116), emphasized the fact that what has disappeared of the Sefer ha-Berit exceeds that which remains.
32 , Kimhi, Sefer ha-Galuy, 135.Google Scholar
33 Isa 35:3–4. Clearly, this verse was intended to conjure up the larger sense of the context in which it is found. Isaiah 34 is a prediction of the violence that divine wrath will inflict upon Edom, while Isaiah 35 is devoted in its entirety to an idyllic picture of the redemption that will be the lot of Israel. The two verses cited in themselves convey a message of hope and salvation; their overtones strengthen this message considerably.
34 2 Chr 15:7. Here the context is the message of consolation and salvation given by the prophet Azariah ben Oded to King Asa of Judah.
35 Ps 31:25. This entire psalm is an affirmation of the author's total trust in God and his redeeming powers.
36 , Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, 25.Google Scholar
37 Ibid., 35, 39.
38 Yitzhak Baer was interested in Abner/Alfonso throughout his long scholarly career. He wrote his first essay on Abner/Alfonso in the late 1920s, “Abner aus Burgos,” Korrespondenzblatt der Akademie fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums (1929) 20–37Google Scholar ; his fullest treatment of Abner/Alfonso can be found in the English version of his broad history of Spanish Jewry , A History of the Jews in Christian Spain (trans. Schoffman, Louis, et al.; 2 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1961-1966) 1. 327–54Google Scholar . For a full listing of the known writings of Alfonso and their availability in both manuscript and printed form, see Mettmann, Walter, Alfonso de Valladolid: Ofrenda de Zelos und Libro de la Ley (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990) 8–9Google Scholar.
39 The epistolary form for polemical materials was much favored by Alfonso and was clearly popular with many of his contemporaries as well. Jonathan Hecht of New York University is editing a polemical letter of Isaac Polgar, which responds to some of the views of Alfonso, together with the lengthy rebuttal of Alfonso.
40 This letter is found in a curious text which includes three such letters, rebuttals to all three by a fourteenth-century Jew, and Alfonso's rebuttal of the rebuttal. This letter, the second of the three, was published by Rosenthal, Judah, “The Second Epistle of Abner of Burgos,” in The Abraham Weiss Jubilee Volume (New York: n.p., 1964) 483–510Google Scholar.
41 Rashi linked 2300 with 1290 and the two and one half periods with 1335; he then established a relationship between 1290 and 1335, with the former serving as the onset of redemption and the latter as its culmination. For more detail, see below.
42 Dan 12:7.
43 Dan 7:25.
44 Ezek 26:7, where the expression serves to denote Nebuchadnezzar, the great king of Babylonia.
45 Dan 8:25, where the term serves to designate a great prince.
46 The traditional dating of 420 years for the period of the Second Temple can be found in b. cAboda Zar. 8b—9a. b. Yoma 9a, b. cArak. 12b.
47 This is a standard reading of the 1290 of Dan 12:10.
48 , Rosenthal, “The Second Epistle of Abner of Burgos,” 486–87.Google Scholar
49 Since Joseph Kimhi's reading of 1290 in Daniel is standard, his reckoning of the messianic advent seems to be close to that of Rashi and most other medieval commentators.
50 Rashi's explication of these three difficult words had enormous impact and was commonly accepted. As was often the case, Rabbi Moses ben Nahman rejected Rashi's exegesis in favor of his own innovative understanding of the text. Nahmanides suggested that the terms must be taken seriatim, as “a period, two periods, and half a period,” thereby giving three and a half periods. See Kitve Rabbenu Moshe ben Nahman (ed. Chavel, Chaim; 4th ed.; 2 vols.; Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Kook, 1971) 1. 292Google Scholar.
51 Again, 2300 and 1290 are linked by Rashi, and then 1290 and 1335 are linked, drawing all the numbers together.
52 See Rashi, ad loc. Alfonso's understanding of Rashi is accurate.
53 Dan 11:31.
54 , Rosenthal, “The Second Epistle of Abner of Burgos,” 490.Google Scholar
55 , Kimhi, Sefer ha-Berit, 39–43.Google Scholar
56 This is the position taken by Saadia Gaon, Rashi, Joseph Kimhi, Jacob ben Reuven, Rabbi Moses ben Nahman in his account of the Barcelona disputation and in his Sefer haGe'ulah, and by almost all medieval Jewish exegetes and apologists. On two key Jewish exegetes and their views of this important pericope, see my “Daniel 9:24–27: Exegesis and Polemics,” forthcoming in a volume edited by Ora Limor for the Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences.
57 Perhaps the most extreme twelfth-century Jewish statement of this point of view can be found in the Hebrew First Crusade narratives, in which the narrators turn the intense suffering of the Jewish martyrs of 1096 into grounds for harsh divine vengeance upon Christendom, which perpetrated the violence, and bounteous reward for the Jewish people who showed such fortitude.
58 It is worth recalling that Alfonso of Valladolid indicated that his conversion was occasioned largely by his sense of despair over the fate of the Jewish people. See the discussion by , Baer, A History of the Jews in Christian Spain, 1. 328–29Google Scholar . In a paper to be published in the proceedings of a conference on 1492, jointly sponsored by the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, I discuss the importance of the sense of hopelessness in Alfonso's conversion and his own original and important contribution to this line of Christian argumentation.
59 The closing chapter of Milhamot ha-Shem is somewhat problematic. It divides into three segments: one devoted to arguments that the messiah has not yet come, the second to arguments for eventual resurrection of both body and soul, and the third to issues of the elements and their combinations. The first of these sections is clearly related to the polemical-apologetic mission of the book. The second might well be, through an attack on the Christian notion of redemption of souls from Hell through the advent of Jesus, but in fact the discussion is entirely theoretical, focusing on conflicting views of the future redemption. The third section seems to bear little relation to the polemical-apologetic thrust of the book. Moreover, all three sections diverge thoroughly in style from the rest of the work, drawing heavily upon Saadia Gaon. I only wish to indicate the problems of this closing chapter and to suggest that further study of it is required.
60 The promises of redemption are all biblical. It is the rebuttals of the contentions that redemption has already come that are drawn from biblical verses, rabbinic sources, and direct experiential observation.
61 For more on these texts and their emphasis on future redemption, see my Daggers of Faith, 103-114, and Barcelona and Beyond, 172-94.
