Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
Medieval Encounters; Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue
Angaben zur Quelle:
2,3 (1996) 344-380
Keywords:
Bible Criticism, interpretation, etc., Christian
;
Church history Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600
;
Christianity and other religions Judaism To 1500
;
History
;
Christianity and other religions Judaism
;
History
Abstract:
An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a colloquium at Wolfson College, Oxford, in February 1995. Queries why the relatively tolerant attitude toward Jews in pre-13th century Europe changed in the 13th century to an irrational fear of the Jews and the conception that they cannot be tolerated within Christian society. In Augustine's view, Jews had to be tolerated because they preserved the Scriptures inviolate. Alongside this view was another, that the Jews deliberately corrupted and falsified the text in order to conceal Christian truth. Despite the fact that the usefulness of this argument waned in the 13th century, it did not disappear, because Christian polemicists turned to Jewish extra-biblical writings, including the Talmud, and revealed the Jewish tradition of scribal correction. Seen as a group which had abandoned the Bible and its Law for the Talmud, the Jews lost their useful function in the eyes of the Christians and were viewed as heretics.
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