HU Credits: 4

Degree/Cycle: 1st degree (Bachelor)

Responsible Department: History

Semester: 2nd Semester

Teaching Languages: Hebrew

Campus: Mt. Scopus

Course/Module Coordinator: Aya Elyada

Coordinator Email: aya.elyada@mail.huji.ac.il

Coordinator Office Hours: Monday, 12:00-13:00

Teaching Staff:
Dr. Aya Elyada

Course/Module description:
The course will explore the cultural and intellectual phenomenon of Christian Hebraism – the engagement of Christian scholars with the Hebrew language, as well as with other fields within “Jewish Studies”, such as Aramaic, rabbinical literature, Kabbalah, Yiddish, and Jewish history. After discussing its important medieval predecessors, we will examine this phenomenon during the Renaissance and Reformation, and into the 17th century. We will examine the various currents of Christian Hebraism; the identity of the Hebraists and their motivations to get involved with Jewish languages and texts; their attitudes toward the Jewish religion and culture; and the implication of this genre for the development of Christian scholarship, Christian-Jewish relations in medieval and early modern Europe, and the emergence of Jewish Studies in a later period.

Course/Module aims:
The course aims to introduce the students to the phenomenon of Christian Hebraism from the late Middle Ages and up to the beginning of the 17th century. It seeks to explore Christian Hebraism against the backdrop of various historical and cultural backgrounds, and to point out continuity and change in its development throughout the centuries.

Learning outcomes - On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
• Explain the changes in Christian-Jewish polemic with the rise of the Mendicant orders
• Analyze how Nicholas of Lyra used Jewish sources in his Old Testament interpretation
• Describe the accusations raised against the Talmud in the 13th-14th centuries
• Explain Christian Kabbalah against the backdrop of renaissance culture
• Explain the main arguments in the Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn Affair and the historical significance of this episode
• Assess and explain the impact of the Protestant Reformation on the evolution of Christian Hebraism
• Assess and explain the impact of the Catholic Reformation on the evolution of Christian Hebraism
• Analyze the reasons behind the rise of Christian ethnographic writing on Jews and Judaism and the genre's ideological framework
• Analyze the reasons behind the rise of Christian Yiddishism and the genre's ideological framework
• Critically assess and analyze the relations between Christian Hebraism and Philosemitism in the early modern period

Attendance requirements(%):
88%

Teaching arrangement and method of instruction: This seminar includes the reading and analysis of primary sources and secondary literature, and is dedicated mainly to students' discussions in class. In addition, students will present papers from the secondary literature to the class, as well as their own projects. The course also includes guidance in writing the final papers, and 1-2 guest lectures.

Course/Module Content:
1. Christian-Jewish relations in medieval Europe; 12th-century Christian Hebraism; the rise of the Mendicant orders and the turning point of the 13th century
2. Nicholas of Lyra and Old Testament interpretation
3. Anti-Jewish polemic and the war against the Talmud
4. Renaissance and Humanism; Christian Humanism
5. Christian Kabbalah
6. Christian Humanism and Old Testament interpretation; the Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn Affair
7. The Protestant Reformation
8. Protestant Hebraism in 16th-century Germany
9. The Council of Trent and 16th-century Catholic Hebraism
10. Christian Ethnographies
11. Christian Yiddishism
12. Christian Hebraism and Philosemitism in the early modern period

Required Reading:
Jerome Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian-Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia, Athens, OH 1983, Introduction, Ch. 1 (esp. 12-24), Ch. 15
Frank E. Manuel, The Broken Staff: Judaism through Christian Eyes, Cambridge, Mass. 1992, Ch. 1
Ora Limor, “Christians and Jews”, in Miri Rubin and Walter Simons (eds.), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 4: Christianity in Western Europe c.1100–c.1500, Cambridge 2009, 135-148
Jonathan Elukin, Living Together, Living Apart: Rethinking Jewish-Christian Relations in the Middle Ages, Princeton, NJ 2007, 1-10, 135-138
Salo W. Baron, “Ghetto and Emancipation: Shall We Revise the Traditional View?” (1928), reprint in Leo W. Schwarz (ed.), The Menorah Treasury, Philadelphia 1964, 50-63
Michael A. Signer, "Polemic and Exegesis: The Varieties of Twelfth-Century Hebraism", in Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson (eds.), Hebraica veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, Philadelphia 2004, 21-32
Aryeh Grabois, "The Hebraica Veritas and Jewish Christian Intellectual Relations in the 12th Century", Speculum 50 (1975) 613-634
עמוס פונקנשטיין, "התמורות בווכוח הדת שבין יהודים לנוצרים במאה הי"ב, ציון לג (תשכ"ח), 125-144
Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval anti-Judaism, Ithaca 1982, Introduction, Ch. 2, Conclusion
Jeremy Cohen, "Scholarship and Intolerance in the Medieval Academy: The Study and Evaluation of Judaism in European Christendom", AHR, 91 (1986), 592-613
Lesley Smith, "Nicholas of Lyra and Old Testament Interpretation", in Magne Saebo (ed.), Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol.2, Göttingen 2008, 49-63
Deeana Copeland Klepper, "Nicholas of Lyra and Franciscan Interest in Hebrew Scholarship", in Philip Krey and Lesley Smith (eds.), Nicholas of Lyra: The Senses of Scripture, Leiden 2000, 289-311
Deeana Copeland Klepper, "Literal versus Carnal: George of Siena’s Christian Reading of Jewish Exegesis", in Natalie B. Dohrmann and David Stern (eds.), Jewish Biblical Interpretation and Cultural Exchange, Philadelphia 2008, 196-213
ראובן, בונפיל, "דמותה של היהדות בספרו של ריימונד מארטיני "פגיון האמונה"", תרביץ 40 (1970/71), 360-375
Robert Chazan, "Defining and Defaming Israelites and Judeans/Jews in the "Pugio Fidei"", Ibéria Judaica 2 (2010) 105-119
Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews:‎ The Evolution of Medieval anti-Judaism, Ithaca 1982, Ch. 3
ג'רמי כהן, כעיוור במראה: היהודי בתפיסה הנוצרית בימי הביניים, ירושלים 2002, 304-319
Robert Chazan, "The Condemnation of the Talmud Reconsidered (1239-1248)", Proceedings - American Academy for Jewish Research 55 (1988), 11-30
Judah M. Rosenthal, "The Talmud on Trial", JQR 47 (1956), 58-76, 145-169
יוג'ין פ' רייס (הבן) ואנתוני גרפטון, אירופה בראשית העת החדשה, 1460-1559, מהד' עברית שנייה מתוקנת, תל-אביב 2010, פרק 3
Ronald G. Witt, “The Humanist Movement”, in Thomas A. Brady, Jr. et al. (eds.), Handbook of European History 1400-1600, vol. II, Leiden 1995, 93-125 (esp. 93-4, 115-19)
Gershom Scholem, "The beginnings of the Christian Kabbalah", in Joseph Dan (ed.), The Christian Kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books & Their Christian Interpreters, Cambridge MA 1997, 17-51
Allison P. Coudert, "Christian Kabbalah", in Frederick E. Greenspahn (ed.), Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights and Scholarship, NY 2011, 159-172
Moshe Idel, Kabbalah in Italy, 1280-1510: A Survey, New Haven 2011, Ch. 19: "Jewish Kabbalah in Christian Garb", 227-235, 418-421
Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, Jerusalem 1989, esp. 3-9 (Ch. 1), 161-169 (Ch. 14)
Jerome Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian-Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia, Athens, OH 1983, Ch. 4: Johannes Reuchlin
Joseph Dan, "The Kabbalah of Johannes Reuchlin and Its Historical Significance", in Joseph Dan (ed.), The Christian Kabbalah: Jewish Mystical Books & Their Christian Interpreters, Cambridge MA 1997, 55-95
Erika Rummel, “Humanists, Jews, and Judaism”, in Dean Phillip Bell and Stephen G. Burnett (eds.), Jews, Judaism, and the Reformation in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Leiden 2006, 3-31
John Monfasani, "Criticism of Biblical Humanists in Quattrocento Italy", in Erika Rummel (ed.), Biblical humanism and scholasticism in the age of Erasmus, Leiden 2008, 15-38
Daniel Menager, "Erasmus, the Intellectuals, and the Reuchlin Affair", in Erika Rummel (ed.), Biblical humanism and scholasticism in the age of Erasmus, Leiden 2008, Ch. 39-54
Heiko A Oberman, "Discovery of Hebrew and Discrimination Against the Jews: the "Veritas Hebraica" as Double-Edged Sword in Renaissance and Reformation", in Andrew C. Fix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn (eds.), Germania illustrata; Essays on Early Modern Germany Presented to Gerald Strauss, Kirksville 1992, 19-34
Heiko A. Oberman, “Three Sixteenth-Century Attitudes to Judaism: Reuchlin, Erasmus, and Luther”, in Bernard Dov Cooperman (ed.), Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, Cambridge, MA 1983, 326-64
David H. Price, Johannes Reuchlin and the Campaign to Destroy Jewish Books, Oxford 2011, Ch. 1, 4
Deena Aranoff, "Elijah Levita: A Jewish Hebraist", Jewish History 23 (2009), 17-40
מירי אליאב-פלדון, הרפורמציה הפרוטסטנטית, תל אביב 1997, בעיקר פרקים א-ד
יוג'ין פ' רייס (הבן) ואנתוני גרפטון, אירופה בראשית העת החדשה, 1460-1559, מהד' עברית שנייה מתוקנת, תל-אביב 2010, 129-139
Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “Jewish-Christian Disputation in the Setting of Humanism and Reformation in the German Empire”, Harvard Theological Review 59 (1966), 369-390
Erwin I.J. Rosenthal, "Sebastian Münster's Knowledge and Use of Jewish Exegesis", in idem, Studia Semitica, vol. 1, Cambridge, UK 1971, 127-145
Stephen G. Burnett, "A Dialogue of the Deaf: Hebrew Pedagogy and anti-Jewish Polemic in Sebastian Münster’s "Messiahs of the Christians and the Jews" (1529/39)", Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 91 (2000), 168-190 ( + )
Jerome Friedman, “Sebastian Münster, the Jewish Mission, and Protestant Antisemitism”, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 70 (1979), 238-259
Jerome Friedman, The Most Ancient Testimony: Sixteenth-Century Christian-Hebraica in the Age of Renaissance Nostalgia, Athens, OH 1983, Ch. 9: The Basel-Wittenberg Conflict
Stephen G. Burnett, “Reassessing the ‘Basel-Wittenberg Conflict’: Dimensions of the Reformation-Era Discussion of Hebrew Scholarship”, in Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson (eds.), Hebraica veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, Philadelphia 2004, 181-210
Stephen G. Burnett, "Christian Hebrew Printing in the Sixteenth Century: Printers, Humanism and the Impact of the Reformation", Helmántica 154 (2000), 13-42
Stephen G. Burnett, "The Regulation of Hebrew Printing in Germany, 1555-1630: Confessional Politics and the Limits of Jewish Toleration", in Max Reinhart (ed.), Infinite Boundaries: ‎Order, Disorder, and Reorder in Early Modern German Culture, Kirksville, Mo. 1998, 329-348
Stephen G. Burnett, ""Spokesmen for Judaism": Medieval Jewish Polemicists and their Christian Readers in the Reformation Era", in Peter Schäfer and Irina Wandrey (eds.), Reuchlin und seine Erben, Ostfildern 2005, 41-51
Stephen G. Burnett, "The Strange Career of the "Biblia Rabbinica" Among Christian Hebraists, 1517-1620", in Bruce Gordon and Matthew McLean (eds.), Shaping the Bible in the Reformation: Books, Scholars, and Their Readers in the Sixteenth Century, Leiden 2012, 63-84
Eric Zimmer, “Jewish and Christian Hebraist Collaboration in Sixteenth Century Germany,” Jewish Quarterly Review 71 (1980), 69-88
Adam Sutcliffe, "Hebrew Texts and Protestant Readers: Christian Hebraism and Denominational Self-Definition", Jewish Studies Quarterly 7,4 (2000) 319-337
Johannes Thon, "Power of (Hebrew) Language: Grammar, Cabbalah, Magic and the Emerging Protestant Identity", EJJS 6:1 (2012), 105-122
Jared Wicks, "Catholic Old Testament Interpretation in the Reformation and Early Confessional Eras", in Magne Saebo (ed.), Hebrew Bible, Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol.2, Göttingen 2008, 617-648 (esp. 624-639)
Salo Baron, "The Council of Trent and Rabbinic Literature", in Ancient and Medieval Jewish History:‎ Essays by Salo Wittmayer Baron, edited by Leon A. Feldman, New Brunswick, NJ 1972, 353-364
Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, "The Censor as a Mediator: Printing, Censorship and the Shaping of Hebrew Literature", in Stephan Wendehorst (ed.), The Roman Inquisition, the Index and the Jews: Contexts, Sources and Perspectives, Leiden 2004, 35-57
Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, "Censorship, Editing, and the Reshaping of Jewish Identity: the Catholic Church and Hebrew Literature in the Sixteenth Century", in Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson (eds.), Hebraica veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, Philadelphia 2004, 125-155
Shifra Baruchson-Arbib and Gila Prebor, "Sefer Ha-Ziquq (an index of forbidden Hebrew books): the Book’s Use and Its Influence on Hebrew Printing", La Bibliofilia: rivista di storia del libro e di bibliografia 109 (2007), 3-31
Fausto Parente, "The Index, the Holy Office, the Condemnation of the Talmud and Publication of Clement VIII's Index", in Gigliola Fragnito (ed.), Church Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy, Cambridge, UK 2001, 163-193
R. Po-Chia Hsia, "Christian Ethnographies of Jews in Early Modern Germany", in R. B. Waddington & A. H. Williamson (eds.), The Expulsion of the Jews 1492 and After, New York 1994, 223-233
Stephen G. Burnett, “Distorted Mirrors: Antonius Margaritha, Johann Buxtorf and Christian Ethnographies of the Jews”, SCJ 25 (1994), 275-287
Yaacov Deutsch, "A View of the Jewish Religion: Conceptions of Jewish Practice and Ritual in Early Modern Europe", Archiv fuer Religionsgeschichte 3 (2001), 273-295
Yaacov Deutsch, Judaism in Christian Eyes: Early Modern Description of Jews and Judaism, New York 2012, Ch. 3
Aya Elyada, A Goy Who Speaks Yiddish: Christians and the Jewish Language in Early Modern Germany, Stanford, CA 2012, Introduction; Ch. 4
Aya Elyada, "Protestant Scholars and Yiddish Studies in Early Modern Europe", Past and Present 203 (2009), 69-98
Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism and Enlightenment, NY 2003, Ch. 1
Allison P. Coudert, "Seventeenth-century Christian Hebraists: Philosemites or Antisemites?" in Allison P. Coudert [et al.] (eds.), Judaeo-Christian Intellectual Culture in the Seventeenth Century, Dordrecht 1999, 43-69
Allison P. Coudert and Jeffrey S. Shoulson (eds.), Hebraica veritas? Christian Hebraists and the Study of Judaism in Early Modern Europe, Philadelphia 2004, Introduction
Shmuel Ettinger, “The Beginnings of the Change in the Attitude of European Society Towards the Jews”, Scripta Hierosolymitana 7 (1961), 193-219
Abraham Melamed, "The Revival of Christian Hebraism in Early Modern Europe", in Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (eds.), Philosemitism in History, NY 2011, 49-66
Stephen G. Burnett, "Jews and anti-Semitism in Early Modern Germany", Sixteenth Century Journal 27,4 (1996), 1057-1064
Stephen G. Burnett, "Philosemitism and Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500-1620)", in Irene A. Diekmann and Elke-Vera Kotowski (eds.), Geliebter Feind, gehasster Freund, Berlin 2009, 135-146

Additional Reading Material:
Pinchas Lapide, Hebrew in the Church: The Foundations of Jewish-Christian Dialogue, Ann Arbor 1984
Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 3rd. rev. ed., Oxford 1983
חן מרחביה, התלמוד בראי הנצרות : היחס לספרות ישראל שלאחר המקרא בעולם הנוצרי בימי הביניים 500-1248, ירושלים 1970
Deeana Copeland Klepper, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages, Philadelphia 2007
Robert Chazan, Daggers of Faith: Thirteenth-Century Christian Missionizing and Jewish Response, Berkeley 1989 Erika Rummel, The Case Against Johann Reuchlin:‎ Religious and Social Controversy in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Toronto 2002
Stephen G. Burnett, Christian Hebraism in the Reformation Era (1500-1660): Authors, Books, and the Transmission of Jewish Learning, Leiden 2012
אמנון רז-קרקוצקין, הצנזור, העורך והטקסט: הצנזורה הקתולית והדפוס העברי במאה השש עשרה, ירושלים 2005

Course/Module evaluation:
End of year written/oral examination 0 %
Presentation 10 %
Participation in Tutorials 20 %
Project work 70 %
Assignments 0 %
Reports 0 %
Research project 0 %
Quizzes 0 %
Other 0 %

Additional information: