Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas

Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas (fl. 1370s) (Hebrew: משה הכהן) was a Spanish Jewish controversialist of the fourteenth century.

An attempt was made to convert him to Christianity by force. Despite persecution, he remained true to his convictions, although he was robbed of his possessions and reduced to poverty. He was chosen rabbi by the community of Ávila.

He was forcefully made to participate in a religious debate, around the year 1372, with the Jewish convert to Christianity John of Valladolid, in the presence of Christians and Muslims. Moses was acquainted with the Christian sources, and refuted in four debates the arguments of his opponent, who tried to prove the Christian dogmas from the Scriptures.

Soon afterward he was obliged to enter upon a new contest with a disciple of the convert Abner of Burgos, with whose writings, especially with his Mostrador de Jeosticia, Moses was thoroughly acquainted. In 1374, at the desire of the members of his community, he wrote, in the form of a dialogue between a Jew and a Christian, the main substance of his debates, which treated of the Trinity, of the virginity of Mary, of sacrifice, of the alleged new teachings of Jesus and of the New Testament, of the seven weeks of Daniel, and of similar matters. His book, which is divided into seventeen chapters, dealing with 125 passages emphasized by Christian controversialists, is entitled "'Ezer ha-Emunah" (The Support of Faith אמונה). It was sent by its author to David ibn Ya'ish at Toledo, and manuscripts of it are found at Oxford, Berlin, Parma, Breslau, and elsewhere.

Moses ha-Kohen made strong use of the theory in the defence of Yechiel of Paris at the Disputation of Paris in 1240 that there were two Jesuses - the Jesus in the Talmud, and the Jesus of the New Testament.[1][2] Isidore Loeb (1888) showed that Moses ha-Kohen followed on from the pioneering works such as Shem Tov Shaprut's The Touchstone, Joseph Kimhi's Sefer ha-berit and most of all Jacob ben Reuben's Milhamot ha-Shem.[3] It also shares common ground with later works such as The refutation of the Christian principles of Hasdai Crescas.[4][5]

  1. ^ Berger, David (1998). "On the Uses of History in Medieval Jewish Polemic against Christianity: The Quest for the Historical Jesus". In Carlebach, Elishiva; Efron, John M.; Myers, David N. (eds.). Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (Amazon book preview). Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-87451-871-9. LCCN 98-14431. OCLC 44965639. In the fourteenth century, Moses ha-Kohen de Tordesillas made much stronger use of the theory of two Jesuses in defending Judaism and the Talmud against renewed attack. For Moses, the lack of identity between the Talmud's Jesus and the hero of the New Testament is demonstrated not only by the chronological problem raised by R. Yehiel but by an additional, striking point; The Jesus of the Talmud erected a brick and bowed to it (B. Sanhedrin 107b), while the Jesus of the Gospels was an uncompromising monotheist!
  2. ^ Shield and sword: Jewish polemics against Christianity and the ... - Page 149 Hanne Trautner-Kromann - 1993 "Against the background of these disputations, Moses wrote the Ezer ha-Emunah, but it concerns much more than... The Ezer ha-Emunah, the Support of Faith, is in two parts, and begins with a preface.18 The first part takes its point ..."
  3. ^ Francesc Eiximenis' Attitude to Jews in Friars and Jews in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Volume 2 p153 ed Susan E. Myers, Steven J. McMichael
  4. ^ The refutation of the Christian principles of Hasdai Crescas ed. Daniel J. Lasker - 1992 "Moses Ha-Kohen of Tordesillas, who wrote his polemic 'Ezer Ha-'Emunah twenty years before The Refutation, used a very similar argument"
  5. ^ When Jews and Christians meet - Page 118 Jakob Josef Petuchowski - 1988 Moses HaKohen of Tordesillas (fourteenth c.; Spain), 'Ezer Ha'Emunah (Aid to Faith), written in 1 375-79;