Menasshe ben Israel. Conciliador o de la conveniencia de los Lugares de la S. Escriptura que repugnantes entre si parecen.

(IBERIAN / SEPHARDIC LITERATURE)

Amsterdam,

v.d

FIRST EDITION. Four parts in two volumes. Title in Latin and Spanish. Spanish text interspersed with Hebrew. Printer’s device on parts 2-4. * Part One: pp. (16), 379, (33). Frankfurt [i.e. Amsterdam], By the Author [Dionysius Rossius], 1632. * Part Two: pp. (16), 195, (21). Amsterdam, Nicolaus de Ravesteyn, 1641. * Part Three: pp. (12), 208, (6). Amsterdam, Samuel ben Israel Soeiro [i.e. Menasseh ben Israel], 1650. * Part Four: pp. (8), 201, (7). Amsterdam, Samuel ben Israel Soeiro, 1651. Accompanied by: Conciliator sive de convenientia locorum S. Scripturae, quae pugnare inter se videntur. ff. (7), 240. Amsterdam 1633. Latin translation by Dionysius Vossius of the first part of Menasseh’s Conciliador. With a preface by the author and a commendatory poem in Latin by Dr. Zacutus Lusitanus.

Silva Rosa 15.

The work which won Menasseh ben Israel his scholarly reputation in both Jewish and Christian circles. Conciliador poses 180 questions, or glaring contradictions in the Bible, which the young Amsterdam rabbi deftly reconciles (hence the title “Conciliator”). Twenty-eight years old at the time of its publication, Menasseh demonstrated his fluency within both Jewish and general literature, citing 221 Jewish and 54 Gentile authors listed in the rear). Cecil Roth, deems this work Menasseh’s “magnum opus.” See C. Roth, A Life of Menasseh Ben Israel (1945) pp. 87-91.