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tan & gilt decorative (minor spine bands) cloth hardbound 8vo. 8º (octavo). dustwrapper in protective plastic book jacket cover. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. contents free of all markings. dustwrapper in fine cond. not worn or torn or price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings or store stamps, no stickers or bookplates, no names, no inking , no underlining, no remainder markings etc ~. first edition so stated. first printing (nap). xviii+422+164p. table. of page correlations. works cited. index of biblical citations in the translation. index. hebrew text, english translation & commentary. religion. theology. medieval history. medieval literature. judaism. christianity. philosophy.~Religious discussions between Christians and Jews are as ancient as Christianity itself and as current as contemporary controversies about "Jews for Jesus" or movements toward interfaith dialogues. But the liveliness, the intensity, and the critical importance of the Jewish~Christian debate reached their highest point in Christian Europe during the high Middle Ages. The Nizzahon Vetus, or Old Book of Polemic, is a striking example of Jewish disputation in its most aggressive form. The anonymous author, who probably lived in the late thirteenth century in Germany, collected a virtual encyclopedia of Jewish arguments against Christianity, ranging from the refutations of christological interpretations of the Hebrew Bible to a critique of the Gospels and criticisms of Christian doctrine and morality. Both the style and comprehensiveness of the book make it an excellent and unusually interesting vehicle for the study of this crucial and intriguing dimension of medieval J ewish~Christian relations. This volume presents a critical edition of the Hebrew text based on manuscripts and early printed works, as weIl as a complete English translation. Professor Berger' s introduction opens with an essay on the history of J ewish~Christian polemic, continues with a discussion of the interplay between polemical literature and the historical reality of the high Middle Ages (including crusades, blood libels, heresy, usury, and martyrdom), and concludes with a discussion of the Nizzahon Vetus itself. The extensive cornmentary on the translation is based on an examination of both Jewish and Christian sources, published and unpublished; in effect, it is a detailed history and analysis of almost all the major issues in the Jewish~Christian debate in the thirteenth century. A concluding series of appendices goes on to present a more extended treatment of some of the central topics of polemical discussion. The relevance of this work to Jewish and medieval history, theology, biblical exegesis, and Jewish~Christian relations makes it a study of wide~ranging and fundamental importance. Seller Inventory # 12061501
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