Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Intellectual Exchange in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean (original) (raw)
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Entangled Arguments. A Survey of Religious Polemics between Judaism and Islam in the Middle Ages
Transfer and Religion Interactions between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, 2020
The Muslim-Jewish polemics is a phenomenon as old as Islam itself, and the Qurʾān was its very first source. Its sūras contain, explicitly or implicitly, a germ of major topics of the Muslim medieval polemics against Judaism and Hebrew Bible that the later generations of Muslims will further develop and reformulate: the Hebrew Bible contains a prophesy of Muḥammad’s coming; the Hebrew Bible is a falsification; and the new revelation of Islam has abrogated Jewish Law. While the Muslim side of the polemical encounter between the Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages has been already sufficiently studied, the Jewish apologetical response has received comparatively little attention. The essay, therefore, based on the wide range of the Muslim and Jewish polemical literature, juxtaposes their entangled arguments and motifs and explores their inter-religious transmission. It focuses mainly on Ibn Ḥazm’s polemics in his Book of Opinions on Religions to whose thorough and scathing arguments responded Solomon ibn Adret of thirteenth-century Barcelona in his Hebrew Treatise against the Muslims. Similarly, the specific Spanish background can be assumed for the anti-Islamic polemical treatise Bow and Shield of Shimʿon b. Ṣemaḥ Duran that is contrariwise rooted in the Christian-Islamic polemics.
Jewish-Christian Polemics in the Middle Ages and in the Early Modern Period
Sceptical aspects in this workshop will focus on Jewish-Christian polemics from three different points of view: philosophical controversies in Halevi’s Kuzari; conversion as it appears in Abner of Burgos’ Teshovat Apikoros; and confessionalization 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 to be addressed is to what extent does Halevi’s anti-Christian polemics fit this Jewish rationalist paradigm. Abner of Burgos, the famous Jewish convert to Christianity from the 14th 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 criticizes “Jewish” ideas, while at the same time, he puts a great effort to show that the Jewish Rabbis, in fact, accepted the fundamental principles of Christianity, but had to conceal this acceptance for political reasons. What is the meaning of “public” and “private” theological controversies between Jews and a Christians, and how do these two types of controversies differ? These questions will be approached via an examination of the 17th century anti-Christian Latin polemical work, "Porta veritatis" (1634-1640). In a way, 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/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.
Reviews in religion and theology, 2019
The aim of this rich and complex interdisciplinary handbook is 'to contribute to the emergence and development of the comparative study of the Abrahamic religions' (p. xiii). The editors of the volume, Adam Silverstein from Bar Ilan University and Guy Stroumsa and Moshe Blidstein (general editor), both from Hebrew University in Jerusalem, have collected authoritative studies both critical and supportive on the very concept of the Abrahamic religions focusing on a variety of topics dealing comparatively with Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: 'Underpinning is the assumption that there is something to be gained from studying these religious traditions together' (p. xiii). The assumptions are that there is a common set of questions about God and his world what brings both, on the hand, the Abrahamic religions together and, on the other hand, distinguishes them from each other as to their answers to these questions. For the editors, the point of comparative study of the Abrahamic religions is 'to illuminate our understanding of each individual religion by situating it appropriately in its spiritual, social, and historic context(s)' (p. xv). It is not too early to say that this eager goal is achieved: thirty-two contributions engage in the subject from different angles, focusing, firstly, on the histories, examinations, and criticisms of the very concept of the Abrahamic religions, and moving, secondly, to the historic perspective on the interactions between Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities. The third part explores issues central to the practice and thought of all three religions, such as the value of scripture and its interpretations throughout history, while the fourth turns to issues of religious thought and philosophy, particularly discussing the great thinkers of the Abrahamic religions in the Middle Ages. Part Five focuses on comparisons and interactions in the realm of praxis and ethics, and the concluding Part Six comprises three epilogues compiled by authoritative theologians from the viewpoint of each of the religions, namely, Peter Ochs, David Ford, and Tariq Ramadan. There are a number of underlying themes discussed and a variety of problems tackled throughout the book. Many contributions in the first chapters of the handbook discuss, though from different angles, the key problems of the authenticity of Abraham, the Abrahamic religion(s) or
JQS Book Review: Medieval Exegesis and Religious Difference (ed. Ryan Szpiech)
Stroumsa seems attracted by the idea proposed by Christian Robin and some others that there was a 'prophetic movement' in early seventh-century Arabia (p. 147), but his critical acumen again indicates a reluctance to accept the idea without more compelling evidence. He reminds us of our lack of knowledge of possible Christian or Jewish communities in the Ḥijāz, that there are no remaining traces of Christian communities north of Yemen or south of ʿAqaba, and that we are ignorant about the nature of the Judaism of the Jews who, according to Muslim tradition, formed a substantial part of the population of Yathrib. We may conclude, on the evidence of the Qur'an, that 'the main religious trends underlying Islamic monotheism come from Jewish and Christian milieus' (p. 148), but the precise mechanisms of transmission and development remain unclear. This is a book then which will inform and suggest ideas to scholars concerned with the relationship of Islam to the world of Late Antiquity but is likely to frustrate those eager for a concise answer to the question of how the new monotheism emerged from earlier forms. In general, Stroumsa seems more decisive and authoritative when dealing with Christianity in the period before Islam, and comparatively tentative and ambivalent when discussing ideas about the emergence of Islam. The latter sometimes results in a series of summaries of the theories of others rather than an exposition of his own, leaving the reader uncertain of the author's own evaluation of them. That is compensated by his insistence on a methodology that gives proper weight to the complexity, and sometimes sparseness, of the evidence, and a refusal to over-simplify.