Two First Edition Works by Menasseh Ben Israel
Dissertatio de Fragilitate Humana. ex Lapsu Adami, Deque Divino in Bono Opere Auxilio.
Amsterdam: Printed by the Author, 1642.
Full Description:
MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL. Dissertatio de Fragilitate Humana ex Lapsu Adami, Deque Divino in Bono Opere Auxilio... Amsterdam: Printed by the Author, 1642.
First edition. Small octavo (5 3/4 x 3 1/2 inches; 146 x 90 mm). [16], 141, [1, errata] pp. Text in Latin interspersed with Hebrew. A woodcut device on title-page. Woodcut initials.
[Bound after]:
MENASSEH BEN ISRAEL. De Resurrectione Mortuorum Libri III. Amsterdam: Printed by the Author, 1636.
First edition. Small octavo (). [22], 133, [11], 137-241, [11], 245-346, [6, index] pp. Text in Latin interspersed with Hebrew. The woodcut printer’s device on the title-page is a ’magical square‘ in Hebrew letters. Woodcut initials.
Full contemporary vellum. Front inner hinge cracked but firm. Spine with torn paper label, titled in ink manuscript. Some ink call numbers on spine, but no other library markings. Vellum a bit soiled. Title-page of Dissertatio is backed, with loss to fore-edge margin but not affecting text. Leaf A2 of the same book with repair to top margin, just touching headline. Leaf T2 in Resurrectione with small closed tear touching some letters but with no loss. Front pastedown with bookplate from Rochester Theological Seminary. Overall very good.
"Dissertatio de Fragilitate Humana ex Lapsu Adami" or "Dissertation on the Fragility of Man from the Fall of Adam", is a work in which Menasseh disputed the Christian doctrine of original sin. The work was also published in Latin in the same year.
"As per many theological works by Amsterdam scholar and Hebrew printer Menasseh ben Israel, Dissertatio de Fragilitate Humana was directed primarily to a Gentile audience. Dedicated to Gerbrandt Anslo, a Christian Hebraist who was a pupil of Menasseh, this study focuses upon the issue of predestination. In opposition to the Christian doctrine of Original Sin, Menasseh was a staunch proponent of the traditional Jewish teaching that Man is born into the world pure and innocent." (Kestenbaum and Company).
De Resurrectione Mortuorum Libri III or 'Three books on the resurrection of the dead' is in Latin, which suggests it was for a Christian audience... A Spanish version also exists, however, which indicates that this text was also written for a Jewish audience, which in 1636 was split by theological dissent. This and the Sefer Nishmat hayim can be seen as a response to the challenges of Uriel Acosta (1585–1640). Acosta was a sceptic philosopher who in 1624 had published ‘An Examination of the Traditions of the Pharisees’. Acosta was suggesting that rabbis were descended from the Pharisees. The Pharisees were theologically opposed by the Sadducees. Menasseh notes that his work is written “contra Zaducaeos” (“against the Sadducee”), almost certainly a reference to Acosta. Acosta questioned the idea of the immortality of the soul, regarding it as a concept invented by the rabbis without any biblical foundation." (University of Leeds).
"Menasseh ben Israel (1604–1657) was among the most accomplished and cosmopolitan rabbis of his time, and a pivotal intellectual figure in early modern Jewish history. He was one of the three rabbis of the “Portuguese Nation” in Amsterdam, a community that quickly earned renown worldwide for its mercantile and scholarly vitality. Born in Lisbon, Menasseh and his family were forcibly converted to Catholicism but suspected of insincerity in their new faith. To avoid the horrors of the Inquisition, they fled first to southwestern France, and then to Amsterdam, where they finally settled. Menasseh played an important role during the formative decades of one of the most vital Jewish communities of early modern Europe, and was influential through his extraordinary work as a printer and his efforts on behalf of the readmission of Jews to England." (Menasseh ben Israel Rabbi of Amsterdam by Steven Nadler).
"Menasseh ben Israel bridged the Jewish and the Christian worlds. He was a rabbi, a scholar and a publisher, who authored and printed works in Latin, Portuguese, Spanish and Hebrew. He also collaborated with Rembrandt, who etched his portrait. Menasseh ben Israel is particularly interesting to Hebrew scholars and librarians. He revolutionised Hebrew printing and made Amsterdam the capital of Hebrew publishing. He helped create a new standard of Hebrew typography that became widely known, imitated, and pirated as “Defus Amsterdam” (Amsterdam print) and “Otiyot Amsterdam” (Amsterdam Letters)." (University of Leeds).
HBS 69492.
$4,000.
Price: $4,000.00
Item #69492