(SEGRE, JOSHUA [SALVADORE] BENZION). Asham Talui (Ma'aseh Talui)

(CHRISTIANITY).

circa

1800

Hebrew Manuscript on paper. Handsome Aschkenazic cursive script

An anti-Christian polemical history of Jesus of Nazareth, similar to Toldoth Yeshu, by Piedmontese Rabbi Joshua Segre (c.1705-c.1797). The oldest Jewish anti-Christian text is the Toldoth Yeshu - a biography of Jesus which is entirely at variance with the Gospels. Suggested to date as far back as the first-century, the publication of Toldoth Yeshu was opposed by Jews and non-Jews alike due to its many passages considered to be offensive to Christian sensibilities. Nonetheless, it was widely distributed in manuscript form. This genre existed in different manuscript versions with different titles. The subtitle of the present text, written as a heading on most of the leaves, is "Meth" (death) which is also the acronym for "Maaseh Talui." Recently, Prof. David Malkiel of Bar-Ilan University, published a critical edition based on nine manuscripts. See D. Malkiel, HaPulmus haYehudi-Notsri Erev Ha'Et haHadashah: Yehushu'a Segre MiScandiano VeHiburo Asham Talui (Jerusalem, 2004); D. Malkiel, "The Jewish-Christian Debate on the Eve of Modernity: Joshua Segre of Scandiano and His Asham Talui," REJ 164:1-2 (Jan.-June 2005), pp. 157-86; EJ, Vol. XIV, cols. 1113-14; Vol. XV, cols. 1208-9. Further details concerning the contents of the present manuscript accompany the lot