7 Disputations Between the Christians and Jews

The “religious disputation” was the innovation of apostate Jews, many of whom had studied the Talmud. To show their learning to their new Christian brothers or, perhaps, to curry favour with the Church, they suggested that a public disputation, would show how wrong the Jews were and then the entire Jewish community might convert.

These religious disputations, called ‘tournaments of God and faith’ were a combination of intellectual chess and Russian roulette. If the Jewish scholars could not disprove the charges of the Christian scholars arrayed against them, then an entire Jewish community faced the threat of a forced march to the baptismal font. If, on the other hand, they mocked the Christian scholars with superior Jewish scholarship, they ran the danger of being put to death. It took gamesmanship of the finest order to walk the thin thread of a ploy which ceded victory to the other side without yielding on the main points. Only those with strong nerves survived, and the judges, which might include a pope or an emperor, were often left agape at the Jewish display of scholarship, audacity, and deftness. The Jews usually won by not checkmating their opponents but by stalemating them. The trick was to drive the opponent into a comer where, if he claimed victory, he would have to deny the authority of the Old Testament, which would have been heresy. Luther, who was familiar with such disputations, borrowed this technique in his disputation with the Catholic. Johann Maier von Eck. When Eck, after having cited a fourth-century saint as his authority, asked Luther whom he claimed as his, Luther triumphantly shouted, “Saint Paul.” Who dares to trump Saint Paul?

MAJOR DISPUTATIONS

These were

1240 – the Disputation of Paris during the reign of Louis IX of France (St. Louis) between a member of the Franciscan Order Nicholas Donin, who earlier converted from Judaism and four of the most distinguished French rabbis of: Yechiel of Paris, Moses of Coucy, Judah of Melun, and Samuel ben Solomon of Château-Thierry.

The commission of Christian theologians condemned the Talmud to be burned. On June 17, 1244, twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were set on fire in Paris.

1263 – the Disputation of Barcelona before King James I of Aragon: between the monk Pablo Christiani (a convert from Judaism) and Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (also known as Nachmanides).

At the end of disputation, the King awarded Nachmanides a monetary prize and declared that never before had he heard "an unjust cause so nobly defended." The Dominicans claimed the victory and Nachmanides was exiled. His report of the proceedings was condemned and burned. A committee appointed by the king censored the passages from the Talmud they deemed offensive.

1375 – public disputations held at Burgos and Avila by Moses Cohen de Tordesillas with converts from Judaism John of Valladolid and Abner of Burgos. Another disputation was held at about the same time in Pampeluna by Shem-Tob ben Isaac Shaprut of Tudela with Cardinal Don Pedro de Luna, afterward Avignon Pope Benedict XIII, the disputations being made the subjects of the books "'Ezer ha-Emunah" (by Moses) and "Eben Boḥan".

1413 – the Disputation of Tortosa in Spain, staged by the Antipope Benedict XIII. As a result, the Pope gave instructions by which all books of the Talmud would be handed over to his functionaries for censorship

THE DISPUTATION OF PARIS, 1242
see France

DISPUTATION OF BARCELONA (NACHMANIDES) (1263)

The most famed of these gamesmanship disputations took place in 1263, before King James I of Aragon, when the scholar Moses ben Nachman (Nachmanides) was challenged to a verbal duel by an apostate named Fra Paulo Christiani on the subject of the arrival of the messiah. Nachman introduced a little wit into this disputation with such grace that the king, though adjudging him loser for his own safety, gave him a handsome gift of money and the compliment that “never before had he heard such an unjust cause so nobly defended.”

From Jewish Virtual Library

Though their holy texts were often burned by royal decree, and many Jews were forced to convert to Christianity, during the rule of King James of Aragon (a Christian-ruled province of Spain) the Spanish monarchy started to take an interest in Jewish philosophy and religion, if only so that they could better understand Jews and convince them to convert. In 1263, King James convened a special council of Dominican (Christian) and Jewish clergymen to debate three key theological issues: whether the Messiah had already appeared, whether the Messiah was divine or human, and which religion was the true faith. Nachmanides (Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman Gerondi, Ramban), a Jewish theologian and philosopher was called upon to represent the Jews; while Friar Pablo Christiani, a Jew who later converted to Christianity, represented the Church.

The disputation lasted four days and drew the attention of the entire Jewish community. Though the King granted Nachmanides the freedom to speak freely, the Jewish community feared that any statement that offended the King would lead to increased persecution. As the disputation turned in favor of Nachmanides the Jews of Barcelona entreated him to discontinue; but the King, whom Nachmanides had acquainted with the apprehensions of the Jews, desired him to proceed. At the end of disputation, King James awarded Nachmanides a prize and declared that never before had he heard “an unjust cause so nobly defended.” Despite the King’s declaration, the Dominicans still claimed victory, which led Nachmanides to publish a transcript of the debate to prove his case. From this publication, Christiani selected certain passages which he construed as blasphemies against Christianity and denounced to his general Raymond de Penyafort. A capital charge was then instituted, and a formal complaint against the work and its author was lodged with the King. King James mistrusted the Dominican court and called an extraordinary commission, ordering the proceedings to be conducted in his presence. Nachmanides admitted that he had stated many things against Christianity, but he had written nothing which he had not used in his disputation in the presence of the King, who had granted him freedom of speech.

The justice of his defense was recognized by the King and the commission, but to satisfy the Dominicans, Nachmanides was sentenced to exile for two years and his pamphlet was condemned to be burned. The Dominicans, however, found this punishment too mild and, through Pope Clement IV, they succeeded in turning the two years exile into perpetual banishment. Nachmanides left Aragon never to return again and, in 1267, he settled in the Land of Israel. There he founded the oldest active synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Ramban Synagogue

DISPUTATION OF TORTOSA, 1414
Haaretz Nov 12, 2012, David B Green

In 1414, the Disputation of Tortosa, a 19-month debate on the respective truth of Judaism and Christianity, came to an end in Tortosa, Catalonia. The disputation, the longest of several public, Church-mandated discussions held during the Middle Ages, was not an open inquiry into the beliefs of the two faiths, but rather, as defined by the Antipope Benedict XIII, intended to use Jewish sources to prove that Jesus was the Messiah and that Christianity had superseded its mother religion.

The Christian side of the disputation was led by Geronimo de Santa Fe, formerly known as Joshua Lorqui, a Jewish convert and physician to Benedict, whose claims that Jewish texts pointed to the coming of Jesus as redeemer prompted the antipope to order the contest.

(Benedict reigned from 1394 to 1423, but most of that time was not recognized by the Rome-based Church as the legitimate pope – hence the title of “antipope. His decision to host a disputation was probably intended to attract support to his claim to the papacy.)

The disputation took place over three stages. Geronimo led the presentation of the case for Christianity, while on the Jewish side, subpoenas went out to communities throughout Catalonia and Aragon for scholars to defend the religion. Among them were Joseph Albo and Zerahia Halevi Ferrer. These defenders were at a considerable disadvantage because, while their official mission was to prove the truth of the Jewish faith, they were at risk of being charged with heresy if they made the case too energetically.

There are both Jewish and Christian transcriptions of the debates, in Hebrew and Latin, respectively. According to the records, the discussions addressed the meaning of the Messianic age and the question of whether it had come yet or not; whether the Messiah was intended for the Jews alone or all humanity; which Hebrew sources – the midrashic texts versus the Talmud, for example -- are to be relied upon for understanding Judaism; and even whether such sources are to be understood for their literal meaning or only allegorically.

By January 1414, when the third stage of the disputation began, most of the Jewish scholars had withdrawn from the discussion, having been away from their homes for so long. Among those who remained, most refused at a certain point to continue responding to the arguments made by Geronimo. Many others, however, had converted to Christianity during the course of the disputation, along with many hundreds of other Iberian Jews.

Benedict ultimately declared the Church the winner of the disputation. Geronimo demanded the burning of the Talmud as the consequence of a Jewish defeat, but the pope sufficed with an order that copies of the Talmud be collected so that passages considered insulting to Christianity could be subjected to censorship. The disappointing showing by the Jews inspired a number of texts in subsequent years -- including one by Joseph Albo, who wrote a book of Jewish basics called “The Book of Principles” - that responded to some of the troubling questions raised during the disputation.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/this-day-in-jewish-history/this-day-in-jewish-history-the-disputation-of-tortosa-comes-to-an-end.premium-1.476992

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