Revealing the Secrets of the Jews : : Johannes Pfefferkorn and Christian Writings about Jewish Life and Literature in Early Modern Europe / / Jonathan Adams, Cordelia Heß.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus eBook-Package 2017
• HerausgeberIn: Adams, Jonathan,; Heß, Cordelia,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2017]; ©2017
• Year of Publication: 2017
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (325 p.)

This book presents the most recent scholarship on the sixteenth-century convert Johannes Pfefferkorn and his context. Pfefferkorn is the most (in)famous of the converts from Judaism who wrote descriptions of Jewish ceremonial life and shaped both Christian ideas about Judaism and the course of anti-Jewish polemics in the early modern period. Rather than just rehearsing the better-known aspects of Pfefferkorn’s life and the controversy with Johannes Reuchlin, this volume re-evaluates the motives behind his activities and writings as well as his role and success in the context of Dominican anti-Jewish polemics and Imperial German politics. Furthermore, it discusses other converts, who similarly "revealed the secrets of the Jews", and contains detailed studies of the campaigns against the Talmud and other Jewish books as well as the diffusion of Pfefferkorn's books and other anti-Jewish writings throughout early modern Europe. Revealing the Secrets of the Jews thus presents new perspectives on Jewish-Christian relations, the study of religion and Christian Hebraism, and the history of anthropology and ethnography.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Contributors -- A Note on Spelling and Referencing -- 1. Jewish Life and Books under Scrutiny: Ethnography, Polemics, and Converts -- 2. Johannes Pfefferkorn and Imperial Politics -- 3. In Search of the Historical Pfefferkorn: The Missionary to the Jews, 1507–1508 -- 4. Johannes Pfefferkorn and the Dual Form of the Confiscation Campaign -- 5. Pfefferkorn’s Books or the Most Rational Man in the World -- 6. Synagoga Veritas? Johannes Pfefferkorn and his Synagogue Descriptions in the buchlijn der iuden beicht -- 7. Jew-Hatred Sells? Anti-Jewish Print Production in the German Dialects -- 8. “Thus shall Christian people know to punish them”: Translating Pfefferkorn into Danish -- 9. Patronage, Representation, and Conversion: Victor von Carben (1423–1515) and his Social Networks -- 10. Luther’s Chief Witness: Anthonius Margaritha’s Der gantz Jüdisch glaub (1530/1531) -- 11. The Reception History of Ethnographic Literature about the Jews -- 12. From Convert to Convert: Two Opposed Trends in Late Medieval and Early Modern Anti-Jewish Polemic -- 13. Revealing the Absurdity of Jewish Hopes: From Polemical Ethnography to Basnage’s L’Histoire des Juifs -- 14. Tela Ignea Satanae: Christian Scholars and the Editing of Hebrew Polemical Literature -- 15. Gratias post mensam in diebus festiuis cum cantico :העברײם A New Look at an Early Sixteenth- Century Tzur Mishelo -- Works Attributed to Johannes Pfefferkorn -- Bibliography -- Indices