Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis: Seventeenth Century Apologetics and the Study of Maimonides? Mishneh Torah (Harvard Judaic Texts and Studies)

Katchen, Aaron L.

ISBN 10: 0674128656 / ISBN 13: 9780674128651

Published by Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies, 1985

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis: Seventeenth Century Apologetics and the Study of Maimonides? Mishneh Torah (Harvard Judaic Texts and Studies)
• Publisher: Harvard University Center for Jewish Studies
• Publication Date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674128656
• ISBN 13: 9780674128651
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

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Synopsis

Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah was a widely studied work in the seventeenth century, especially for apologetic purposes. Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis deals with the impact of its study on Jewish–Christian relations. Dionysius Vossius (1612–1633), Guglielmus Vorstius (c. 1610–1652), and Georgius Gentius (1618–1687) constitute a major focus of the present study and attention is given to their attitudes to and opinions of Judaism and, especially, their relations with members of the Jewish community. Their study of Maimonides’ code was not without issue, and the present work ultimately turns on the instruction that Rabbis Menasseh ben Israel, Isaac Aboab, and Moses Raphael d’Aguilar provided these Christians, and on the repercussions of the Hebraists’ study of the Mishneh Torah on the life of the Jewish communities of Amsterdam, Hamburg, and London.

From the Back Cover

This work, a complex exposition of Jewish philosophical methodology and doctrine completed in 1190 and translated from Arabic into Latin within three decades of the author's lifetime, made him a widely celebrated figure in the scholastic capitals of Europe.