Isaac Orobio: The Jewish Argument with Dogma and Doubt

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2019

Isaac Orobio

The Jewish Argument with Dogma and Doubt

Edited by: Carsten Wilke
Funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

Volume 2 in the series Studies and Texts in Scepticism

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110576191

Overview
Contents

About this book

Open Access

In this volume, six historians explore new approaches to Isaac Orobio de Castro (1617–1687), an Amsterdam physician who was the most widely-read among the early modern defenders of Judaism against Christian proselytizing. He was also the major author who rebutted Benedict Spinoza’s Freethought from inside his own Sephardic community. Reflecting on the developments in early modern studies that have appeared since the publication of Yosef Kaplan’s seminal monograph in 1982, the authors revisit Orobio’s intellectual personality with a focus on transcultural processes, clandestine book culture, philosophical rhetoric, and literary reception. Born in Portugal to Christian parents of Jewish ancestry, Orobio left behind a brilliant career as a court physician in Spain and France when he publicly embraced Judaism. With academic erudition, he translated Jewish religious positions into the eclectic philosophy of the day, using both rationalist and sceptic arguments. His work leaked out into the non-Jewish world and armed Enlightenment philosophers for their attacks on Christianity, showing the impact of Jewish criticism on the early modern quest for philosophical certainty and religious pluralism.

Author / Editor information

Carsten Wilke, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Introduction: Isaac Orobio, the Sceptic Dogmatiser Carsten Wilke Open Access Download PDF	1
“From Christianity to Judaism” Revisited: Some Critical Remarks More than Thirty Years after its Publication Yosef Kaplan Open Access Download PDF	15
Orobio Contra Prado: A Trans-European Controversy Natalia Muchnik Open Access Download PDF	31
Clandestine Classics: Isaac Orobio and the Polemical Genre among the Dutch Sephardim Carsten Wilke Open Access Download PDF	57
Isaac Orobio de Castro as a Writer: The Importance of Literary Style in the “Divine Warnings against the Vain Idolatry of the Gentiles” Harm den Boer Open Access Download PDF	77
From Apologetics to Polemics: Isaac Orobio’s Defences of Judaism and their Uses in the French Enlightenment Adam Sutcliffe Open Access Download PDF	93
Reading Orobio in Nineteenth-Century England: The Missionary Alexander McCaul’s “Israel Avenged” David B. Ruderman Open Access Download PDF	105
Bibliography: Studies and Editions of Isaac Orobio de Castro Open Access Download PDF	115
Index Open Access Download PDF	121

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Scholars of Jewish studies, philosophy, religious studies, theology
Pages
- Front matter: 6
- Main content: 128
Keywords: Isaac Orobio; Sephardic Jewry; Jewish-Christian controversy

eBook

Published: November 5, 2018
ISBN: 9783110576191

Hardcover

Published: November 5, 2018
ISBN: 9783110575613