MUELHAUSEN, YOM-TOV LIPMANN

AUCTION 15 | Tuesday, March 12th, 2002 at 1:00

Fine Hebrew Books, Manuscripts and Works of Art The Property of Various Owners

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Lot 356

MUELHAUSEN, YOM-TOV LIPMANN

Sepher Nitzachon-Liber Nizachon. [“The Book of Victory”]. Edited and with a Latin introduction and treatise on Jewish theological writings by Theodore Hackspan. Engraved Hebrew title with additional Latin letterpress title. Hebrew text followed by Latin translation. Two parts in one volume. pp.(8),512,(24), (8). Extensive marginal notation in a 17th century Ashkenazic Hebrew script. [Vinograd, Altdorf 1; J. Rosenthal, Anti-Christian Polemics from its Beginnings to the End of the 18th Century, Areshet II, pp.148-51(illustrated)]. Altdorf-Nürnberg, W. Endter, 1644. * HOTTINGER, JOHN HEINRICH. Histoiæ Creationis Examen Theologico-Philogicum Ita Institutum. [a theological-philosophical wxamination of the history of Creation]. Text in Latin, with extensive use of Hebrew, Arabic and Assyrian type. pp.(12),311,(1). Heidelberg, Samuel Broun, 1659. * Dissertationum Theologico Philogicarum Fasciculus. [treatise of theological-philosophical dissertations]. Four Theological treatises. Text in Latin, with extensive use of Hebrew, Arabic and Assyrian type. pp. (4),377,(11). Stained, marginal worming on last few leaves. Heidelberg, Samuel Broun, 1660 Lightly browned, few light stains in places. Contemporary blind-ruled chestnut morocco, rubbed at extremities, lacking spine, remnants of clasps and hinges, a.e.g., gauffered edges. Thick 4to

v.p.: v.d.

Est: $3,000 - $5,000

An important polemic. A defense of Rabbinic Judaism and an attack upon Christianity and Karaism. Yom-Tov Lipmann Muelhausen was one of the great Rabbis of Prague, who began his activities as a polemicist early in life. His best-known disputation was with the apostate Peter in connection to the edict of apostasy issued against the Jews of Prague in 1389. The intent of Muelhausen’s Sepher Nitzachon, composed in 1390, was to serve as a handbook for the ordinary Jew compelled at times to wrestle with complex theological problems. Written in a rationalistic vein, it sets forth a systematic debate against Christianity, following the biblical order in the presentation of its arguments. Muelhausen refutes the Christian interpretation of the Bible and the doctrines derived from them, and in so doing incidentally provides many exegetic insights. His method is to expose the Christian lack of understanding of Hebrew sources with their linguistic and contextual associations and to ridicule aspects of the Christian religion. Muelhausen’s great superiority over other polemists was his fluency in Latin and an intimate knowledge of Christian literature including The New Testament, the Vulgate, the leading Church Fathers, as well as the works of the late Christian scholars. Sepher Nitzachon was much copied in manuscript, but was first published by a Christian, the priest Theodore Hackspan, who strove to edit it with maximum faithfulness to the source, with the aim of enabling Christian scholars to oppose it. However, neither he nor the workers at his press had a full understanding of the language of the sources or of their subject matter and as a result, this edition is full of errors. Yom Tov Lipmann’s activities as a polemist gave him lasting renown. Over the years a complete and ramified body of literature in refutation of him was produced, known by the general name of “Anti-Lipmanniana.” Among the Christian scholars who applied themselves to this task were Bodker, Muenster, Buxtorf, Wagenseil and Hackspan. The present volume contains two works in rebuttal by J. H. Hottinger, the Swiss Protestant theologian and Hebraist. The extensive Hebrew marginal annotations provide additional arguments in support of Sepher Nitzachon. The contents of these notes are unrecorded and unpublished. See J. Rosenthal, Anti-Christian Polemics from its Beginnings to the End of the 18th Century, Areshet II, pp.142-6; Carmilly-Weinberger, pp.186-87; EJ XI, cols 499-502