Jewish Philosophical Polemics Against Christianity in the Middle Ages: With a New Introduction (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization) - Softcover

Lasker, Daniel J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1904113516 ISBN 13: 9781904113515

Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2007

Synopsis

Thorough and meticulously researched, this study is based on a comprehensive reading of philosophical arguments drawn from all the major Jewish sources, published and unpublished, from the Geonic period in the ninth century until the dawn of the Haskalah in the late eighteenth century.

The core of the book is a detailed discussion of the four doctrines of Christianity whose rationality Jews thought they could definitively refute: trinity, incarnation, transubstantiation, and virgin birth. In each case, Daniel Lasker presents a succinct history of the Christian doctrine and then proceeds to a careful examination of the Jewish efforts to demonstrate its impossibility. The main text is clearly written in a non-technical manner, with the Christian doctrines and the Jewish responses both carefully explained; the notes include long quotations, in Hebrew and Arabic as well as in English, from sources that are not readily available in English.

At the time of its original publication in 1977 this book was regarded as a major contribution to a relatively neglected area of medieval Jewish intellectual history; the new, wide-ranging introduction prepared for this paperback edition, which surveys and summarizes subsequent scholarship, re-establishes its position as a major work.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel J. Lasker is Norbert Blechner Professor of Jewish Values (Emeritus) at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In addition he has taught at many institutions of higher learning, including Yale, Princeton, the University of Toronto, Ohio State University, the University of Texas, and the University of Washington. His publications include Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (2nd edn., Littman Library, 2007) and From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy (2008).

Edition details

• Publisher: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1904113516
• ISBN 13: 9781904113515
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 318