Seventeenth Century Apologetics and the Study of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah
This book deals with the impact of the study of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah on Jewish–Christian relations. Dionysius Vossius, Guglielmus Vorstius, and Georgius Gentius constitute a major focus of the present study and attention is given to their attitudes to and opinions of Judaism and their relations with members of the Jewish community.
Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah was a widely studied work in the seventeenth century, especially for apologetic purposes. Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis deals with the impact of its study on Jewish–Christian relations. Dionysius Vossius (1612–1633), Guglielmus Vorstius (c. 1610–1652), and Georgius Gentius (1618–1687) constitute a major focus of the present study and attention is given to their attitudes to and opinions of Judaism and, especially, their relations with members of the Jewish community. Their study of Maimonides’ code was not without issue, and the present work ultimately turns on the instruction that Rabbis Menasseh ben Israel, Isaac Aboab, and Moses Raphael d’Aguilar provided these Christians, and on the repercussions of the Hebraists’ study of the Mishneh Torah on the life of the Jewish communities of Amsterdam, Hamburg, and London.