Conciliator

MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL

By the Author

Frankfurt

1632

FIRST EDITION. Part I (only). Title in Latin and Spanish. Spanish interspersed with Hebrew. Historiated initial

Silva Rosa 15

Part I of the work which won Menasseh fame in Christian scholastic circles, Conciliador, poses 180 Questions, or glaring contradictions in the Bible, which the young Amsterdam rabbi deftly reconciles (hence the title “Conciliator”). The work is graced by Hebrew approbations by the rabbis of Frankfurt, Shabthai (Sheftel) Horowitz, son of Isaiah Horowitz (Shela”h ha-Kadosh), and Aaron ben Samuel Koidanover (author Birkath HaZevach). Twenty-eight years old at the time of its publication, Menasseh demonstrated his total conversance with both Jewish and non-Jewish literature, citing 221 Jewish and 54 Gentile authors. Cecil Roth, deems this book Menasseh’s “magnum opus.” Some bibliographers assert that the Frankfurt imprint is false and that the work was truly printed in Amsterdam. Roth, relying on the presence of the approbations of the Frankfurt rabbinate, rejects this notion. See EJ, Vol. XI, col. 855; C. Roth, A Life of Menasseh Ben Israel (1945), pp. 87-91; 320, n. 2