Contra Iudaeos

Byzantine Jews: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures is the collective product of a three year research group convened under the auspices of Scholion: Interdisciplinary Research Center in Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The volume provides both a survey and an analysis of the social and cultural history of Byzantine Jewry from its inception until the fifteenth century, within the wider context of the Byzantine world.

This book discusses Ramon Llull (ca. 1232-1316), the Christian missionary, philosopher and mystic, his relations with Jewish contemporaries, and how he integrated Jewish mystical teachings (Kabbalah) into his thought system so as to persuade the Jews to convert. Issues dealt with include Llull's attitude towards the Jews, his knowledge of Kabbalah, his theories regarding the Trinity and Incarnation (the Art), and the impact of his ideas on the Jewish community. The book challenges conventional scholarly opinion regarding Christian knowledge of contemporary Jewish thought and questions the assumption that Christians did not know or use Kabbalah before the Renaissance. Further, it suggests that Lull was well aware of ongoing intellectual and religious controversies within the Jewish community, as well as being the first Christian to acknowledge and appreciate Kabbalah as a tool for conversion.

Christian-Muslim Relations, a Bibliographical History 4 (CMR 4) is a history of all the known works on Christian-Muslim relations in the period 1200-1350. It comprises introductory essays and detailed entries containing descriptions, assessments and compehensive bibliographical details of individual works.

Rebecca Rist explores the nature and scope of the relationship of the medieval papacy to the Jews of western Europe in the context of the substantial and on-going social, political, and economic changes of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries.

Never before translated into English, this work presents to the reader perhaps the most important source for an intensifying medieval Christian-Jewish debate.

In the summer of 972 a group of Muslim brigands based in the south of France near La Garde-Freinet abducted the abbot of Cluny as he and his entourage crossed the Alps en route from Rome to Burgundy. Ultimately, the abbot was set free, but the audacity of this abduction outraged Christian leaders and galvanized the will of local lords. Shortly thereafter, Count William of Arles marshaled an army and succeeded in wiping out the Muslim stronghold. The monks of Cluny kept this tale alive over the next century. Scott G. Bruce explores the telling and retelling of this story, focusing on the representation of Islam in each account and how that representation changed over time. The culminating figure in this study is Peter the Venerable, one of Europe's leading intellectuals and abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1156, who commissioned Latin translations of Muslim texts such as the Qur'an. Cluny and the Muslims of La Garde-Freinet provides us with an unparalleled opportunity to examine Christian perceptions of Islam in the Crusading era.

This volume contains papers on the ancient Christian use of potentially anti-Jewish New Testament texts. Martin Albl gives a general introduction to the opinions that ancient Christian authors held on Jews and Judaism. James Carleton Paget focuses on the Epistle of Barnabas and its critical position towards the Jewish religion. Wolfgang Grünstäudl discusses Justin Martyr's non-reception of two apparently anti-Jewish texts: Matt 27:25 (»His blood be on us and on our children«) and John 8:44 (»You are from your father the devil«). Harald Buchinger analyses Melito of Sardes' Paschal homily, in which the Jews are blamed for the death of Christ. Riemer Roukema and Hans van Loon investigate, respectively, Origen's and Cyril of Alexandria's use of NT texts in relation to the Jews and their Scriptures. Hagit Amirav and Cornelis Hoogerwerf focus on the form of polemical discourses in Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom. Maya Goldberg studies Theodore of Mopsuestia's ideas on divine paideia in his commentary on Paulös epistle to the Galatians, and his view that the NT was intended to finalize – not replace – the Old Testament. Alban Massie focuses on Augustine's interpretation of John 1:17, »The Law was given through Moses, grace and the truth came through Jesus Christ.« Brian Matz deals with Jesus' warning against the leaven, i.e. teaching, of the Pharisees (Matt 16:6, 12), and Martin Meiser focuses on patristic reception of Matt 27:25. By way of comparison with ecclesiastial authors, Gerard Luttikhuizen deals with the alleged anti-Jewish interpretation of Scripture in Gnostic texts. This volume demonstrates that potentially anti-Jewish texts were indeed used against Jews, but also toward Christians, sometimes without applying them to Jews.