The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages (original) (raw)

2007, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages

In the year 1309, Nicholas of Lyra, an important Franciscan Bible commentator, put forth a question at the University of Paris, asking whether it was possible to prove the advent of Christ from scriptures received by the Jews. This question reflects the challenges he faced as a Christian exegete determined to value Jewish literature during an era of increasing hostility toward Jews in western Europe. Nicholas's literal commentary on the Bible became one of the most widely copied and disseminated of all medieval Bible commentaries. Jewish commentary was, as a result, more widely read in Latin Christendom than ever before, while at the same moment Jews were being pushed farther and farther to the margins of European society. His writings depict Jews as stubborn unbelievers who also held indispensable keys to understanding Christian Scripture. In The Insight of Unbelievers, Deeana Copeland Klepper examines late medieval Christian use of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish interpretation of Scripture, focusing on Nicholas of Lyra as the most important mediator of Hebrew traditions. Klepper highlights the important impact of both Jewish literature and Jewish unbelief on Nicholas of Lyra and on Christian culture more generally. By carefully examining the place of Hebrew and rabbinic traditions in the Christian study of the Bible, The Insight of Unbelievers elaborates in new ways on the relationship between Christian and Jewish scholarship and polemic in late medieval Europe. https://www.pennpress.org/9780812220216/the-insight-of-unbelievers/

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact

Seeing the Old Testament through Jewish and Christian Eyes: Nicholas of Lyra's Old Testament Hermeneutic

Nicholas of Lyra (1270–1349), a French Franciscan, is widely regarded as one of the greatest biblical exegetes of the Middle Ages. His commentaries were circulated widely in manuscript form for 150 years and then printed in the late fifteenth century. He is best known today for his influence on the hermeneutics of Martin Luther, especially in his emphasis on the literal sense of Scripture. Yet how Nicholas thought about the literal sense is broader than other medieval biblical commentators: For Nicholas, the literal sense included both what might be called a historical-literal sense and a mystical-literal sense. Thus, for him, a biblical text or prophecy can have two “literal” meanings. In this paper, I will explore Nicholas’ view of the literal sense of Scripture—especially in his commentaries on the Psalms and the Song of Songs—and show its significance in the context of biblical interpretation during the Late Middle Ages. In particular, I will focus on how Nicholas saw Christ present in the Old Testament.

Anthony Grafton, “The Jewish Book in Christian Europe: Material Texts and Religious Encounters,” in Andrea Sterk and Nina Caputo, eds., Faithful Narratives: Historians, Religion, and the Challenge of Objectivity (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 96–114, 243–247

Christian Readings of Rabbinic Sources

2024

While polemics and dialogue between Judaism and Christianity are as old as the Christian religion itself, different periods, trends and intensities in the relations between the faiths can be distinguished clearly. A significant landmark in this long and complex history is the Christian engagement with Rabbinic Judaism which, during the thirteenth century, led to the Latin translation of large sections of the Talmud, the most important Jewish post-biblical text. The contributors to this volume explore Christian attitudes towards the Talmud from the Talmud trial in Paris in 1240 up to the time of the Disputation of Tortosa from 1412-1414, covering authors such as Ramon Martí, Nicholas of Lyra, Abner of Burgos and Jerónimo of Santa Fe. The case studies featured shed new light on the Latin translation of the Talmud, its condemnation as an allegedly heretical work, but also on the significance of Rabbinic Judaism for Christian apologetics. Table of contents: Alexander Fidora/Matthias Lutz-Bachmann: Christian Readings of Rabbinic Sources: Preliminary Considerations - Ursula Ragacs: Lost in Translation? Example(s) from Paris 1240 and Beyond - Isaac Lampurlanés Farré: The Papal Correspondence in the Latin Talmud Dossier - Moisés Orfali: Examples of Christian Misunderstanding of Anthropomorphic Rabbinic Texts - Chaim Hames: Barcelona 1263: Friar Paul's Reported Use of Rabbinic Sources - Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann: Raimundus Martini as an Anti-Jewish Polemicist - Thomas E. Burman: Ramon Martí, Nicholas of Lyra, Is. 48:16, and the Extended Literal Sense of Scripture - Görge K. Hasselhoff: Ramon Martí, Moshe ha-Darshan, and the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah - Diana Di Segni: The Victoria Porcheti adversus impios Hebraeos: Its Sources and Reception - Ryan Szpiech: One Messiah or Two? The Messiah ben Joseph in Medieval Jewish-Christian Debate - Alexander Fidora: Thomas Bradwardine and His Rabbinic Sources - Yosi Yisraeli: Debating the »School of Elijah« at Tortosa: The Making of a Christian Apocryphon? - Mònica Colominas Aparicio: Rabbis as Agents of Knowledge in Medieval Muslim Polemics: The Case of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's Hidāyat al-ḥayārā (Guidance for the Confused)

Jewish polemics against Christianity and the Christians in Northern and Southern France from 1100 to 1300

Nordisk Judaistik/Scandinavian Jewish Studies

Jewish polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages show a striking change in contents and in the linguistic form of the texts after the First Crusade. While the texts up to about 1100 are reports on religious discussions between Jews and Christians, often held in a friendly tone, the texts after 1100 contain aggressive or bitter attacks on the Christians. An example of how this was put into words appears in a Jewish text from the 1250s. In seven points the author gives voice to this protest against the introduction by the French king of a number of harsh edicts against the Jews. There is a marked dividing line between the predominantly aggressive texts from Northern France and the more sober ones from Southern France. On the one hand every single Jewish polemical passage should be analyzed as to form and content, including the context and text type in which the passage occurs, on the other hand the passages should be related to each other including their historical background. ...

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.