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When was the Sefer Nitzaḥon Written?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Albert Ehrman
Albert Ehrman
Affiliation:
Bronx, New York 10467
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Abstract

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Type
Notes and Observations
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 71 , Issue 1-2 , April 1978 , pp. 154 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1978

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References

1 Sefer Nitzaḥon Yashan Noshan, in J. C. Wagenseil, Tela Ignea Satanae (Altdorf, 1681), pt. 2, pp. 1–260. Unless otherwise indicated, the Sefer Nitzaḥon Yashan Noshan will hereafter be referred to as the Sefer Nitzaḥon.

2 Zunz, L., Zur Geschichte und Literatur (Berlin, 1845) 85Google Scholar. The Rabbi Matthias mentioned by Wilhelm Schickard in his Jus Regium Hebraeorum: Mishpat ha-Melech (Argentinae [Strasbourg], 1625) 180; by Wagenseil in the Preface to his edition of the Sefer Nitzaḥon, 2; and by Johannes Buxtorf in his Bibliotheca Rabbinica, (with additions by Johannes Buxtorf II; 9th ed.; Herborn, 1708) 146, as being the author of the Sefer Nitzaḥon is not the author of the Sefer Nitzaḥon Yashan Noshan, but rather the author of the fifteenth-century Jewish polemical work, Aḥituv ve- Tzalmon, which later also came to be known as the Sefer Nitzaḥon. His full name was Mattityahu ben Mosheh ha-Yitzhari. This suggestion was first broached by Prof. Judah Rosenthal in the Introduction to his edition of Joseph ben Nathan Official's Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanne (Jerusalem, 1970) 15 n. 15. It has now been confirmed by Prof. David Berger of Brooklyn College who has obtained a microfilm copy of Schickard's polemical tract, Nitzaḥon beli Netzaḥ sive Triumphator Vapulans (Tübingen, 1623), from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. This tract was intended by Schickard to be a Christian refutation of Rabbi Matthias's Sefer Nitzaḥon. (See J. Kaufman's Hebrew biography of Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann-Mühlhausen [New York, 1927] 97; and Rosenthal, loc. cit.) Prof. Berger informs me that the Nitzaḥon beli Netzaḥ has nothing to do with the Sefer Nitzaḥon Yashan Noshan, but rather mentions Aḥituv and Tzalmon by name (p. 6), and contains a selection from the Aḥituv ve- Tzalmon (pp. 21–22) identical to that in Haim Schirmann's Ha-Shirah ha-Ivrit bi-Sefarad u-va-Provence, (2d ed.; Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1959) 2. 650–51, lines 1–24.

3 I. Loeb, “La Controverse religieuse entre les Chrétiens et les Juifs au moyen âge en France et en Espagne,” RHR 17 (1888) 329. Joseph published the Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanne sometime after 1273. See Z. Kahn, “Etude sur le Livre de Joseph le Zélateur,” REJ 1 (1880) 231.

4 Sefer Nitzaḥon, 141; Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanne, pt. 2, p. 126, section 5.

5 Sefer Nitzaḥon, 39–40; Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanne, 49–51, section 301.

6 Sefer Nitzaḥon, 249–51; Sefer Yosef ha-Mekanne, 104–5, section 114.

7 Z. Kahn, “Etude sur le Livre de Joseph le Zélatuer,” REJ 3 (1881) 37.

8 MS No. 53 has been fully described by Prof. Urbach in his “Etudes sur la littérature polémique au moyen-âge,” REJ 100 (1935) 49–77; and by Prof. Rosenthal, op. cit., 30. The material in section 3 of MS NO. 53 particularly relevant to the Sefer Nitzaḥon (see Rosenthal, loc. cit.), has now been fully published by Prof. Rosenthal under the title Pirkey Vikkuaḥ, in the Salo Wittmayer Baron Jubilee Volume (ed. S. Liberman and A. Hyman; Jerusalem, 1974) 3. 353–95 (Hebrew Section).

9 MS No. 53 was written in 1269 and thereafter. See Urbach, op. cit., 56, 60.

10 Ibid., 77.

11 Ibid., 60.

12 Sefer Nitzaḥon, 39.

13 Ibid., 54.

14 Zunz, op. cit., 84.

15 Silver, D. J., Maimonidean Criticism and the Maimonidean Controversy 1180–1240 (Leiden, 1965) 87Google Scholar.

16 Thus, for example, Joseph ben Nathan Official is mentioned by name in Pirkey Vikkuaḥ, 370, section 51, but never appears in the Sefer Nitzaḥon. For a full list of Rabbinic personalities cited by the author of the Sefer Nitzaḥon, see Zunz, op. cit., 85–86.

17 Sefer Nitzaḥon, 176.

18 Brockelmann, C., History of the Islamic Peoples (trans. Carmichael, J. and Perlmann, M.; New York, 1960) 246–48Google Scholar.

19 Ibid., 249.

20 Sefer Nitzaḥon, 259–60.

21 Stein, S., “A Disputation on Moneylending between Jews and Gentiles in Me'ir ben Simeon's Milḥemeth Mi⋅wah (Narbonne 13th Cent.),” JJS 10 (1959) 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Vikkuaḥ Rabbenu Yeḥiel mi-Paris (ed. S. Grünbaum; Thorn, 1873) 3.

23 See the Magen Avraham on Joseph Karo's Shulḥan Aruch, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, Hilchot Ta'anit, section 580.