De Resurrectione Mortuorum.

MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL.

by the Author

Amsterdam

1636

FIRST EDITION. Printer's Hebrew device on title.

Silva Rosa 25

The Amsterdam Jewish community at this time was comprised primarily of Marranos, who in their Iberian homeland knew Judaism, if at all, only through the lens of the Bible only. Since the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is not directly elucidated in Tanach, many of the newly arrived Marranos came to doubt the belief in an After-life. In response to these skeptics (especially Uriel Acosta), Menasseh marshaled proofs from throughout Judaic literature as to the existence of a World to Come. See C. Roth, A Life of Menasseh ben Israel (1945) pp. 91-4.