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Abstract
This chapter examines the polemical arguments against Christianity in Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen’s Sefer ha-Niẓaḥon. It argues that Lipman’s anti-Christian arguments were shaped by internal Jewish debates as much as by external challenges. In particular, the chapter focuses on Lipman’s arguments against Christian image worship, expressed in his narrative of a disputation he claims to have held with the Jewish convert Peter (Pesaḥ) in 1399 over the contents of the Jewish prayer ʿAleinu le-shabeaḥ. While the debate may have taken place in Poznań rather than Prague, the arguments used by Lipman echo the vocabulary of Christian reform preachers such as Matěj of Janov, active in Prague at the turn of the fifteenth century. By presenting the Jews as taking part in the contemporary theological debate, Lipman sought to neutralize Peter’s anti-Jewish arguments and reshape Christian perceptions of the Jews. At the same time, he offered his Jewish readers an effective strategy for polemical encounters with Christians, and reaffirmed the difference between Judaism and Christianity in order to buttress their identity.
Citation
Milan Žonca, ‘Polemical Dialogues with Christianity in Yom Tov Lipman Mühlhausen’s Sefer Ha-Niẓaḥon’, in Religionsgespräche und Religionspolemik im Mittelalter, ed. Christine Reinle, Vorträge und Forschungen herausgegeben vom Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte 96 (Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 2023), 203–23.
@incollection{zonca2023,
title = {Polemical {{Dialogues}} with {{Christianity}} in {{Yom Tov Lipman M\"uhlhausen}}'s {{Sefer}} Ha-{{Ni\d za\d hon}}},
booktitle = {Religionsgespr\"ache Und {{Religionspolemik}} Im {{Mittelalter}}},
author = {{\v Z}onca, Milan},
editor = {Reinle, Christine},
year = 2023,
series = {Vortr\"age Und {{Forschungen}} Herausgegeben Vom {{Konstanzer Arbeitskreis}} F\"ur Mittelalterliche {{Geschichte}}},
number = {96},
pages = {203--223},
publisher = {Jan Thorbecke Verlag},
address = {Ostfildern}
}