Jewish Echoes of Anti-Talmudic Literature: Revisiting "The Talmud in the Additiones of Paul of Burgos"

Abstract

Abstract:This article revisits two Latin antitalmudic texts penned by the converted bishop of Burgos, Pablo de Santa María (c. 1352–1435). It argues, in contrast to previous assessments, that far from being a failed replica of Christian scholastic formulas, they echo the conversionist or "apostatic" argumentation that proselytes to Christianity were making in Jewish quarters, a polemic that was not shaped by a scholastic-inquisitorial perspective but rather was still very much rabbinic in style and methods. The article traces echoes of this intra-Jewish polemic, using the extraordinary corpus of Abner of Burgos (d. 1347). It focuses on three themes: the antirabbinic allusions to Zechariah's prophecy; the historical-hermeneutical brawl over the identity of Edom; and the notion of talmudic-demonic alliance. Evaluating the potential agency that Pablo's peculiar texts could have had among Christian readership, I propose that his critique of talmudic literature undermined important aspects of the Christian antitalmudic tradition, reframing the Talmud according to rabbinic conventions.