The Barcelona Disputation [Review of ‘Barcelona and Beyond: The Disputation of 1263 and Its Aftermath’, by R. Chazan]

Abstract

In many respects, Robert Chazan's new book on the disputation of 1263 between NaI:imanides and Friar Paul Christian is an excellent and very important contribution to the century-old historiographical debate about one of the most famous events in medieval Jewish history. The Barcelona disputation, where Friar Paul unveiled a relatively new approach appealing to talmudic sources as evidence for the truth of Christianity, was manifestly a moment of high drama, so significant and so thoroughly investigated that we might be pardoned a certain skepticism about the ability of any scholar to say something new about it. To a significant degree, Chazan has overcome this obstacle by providing an overview of the event that forces us to look at the large picture fortified with a healthy infusion of common sense. At the same time, part of the analysis seems to me to stand in tension with itself, and I am inclined to utilize some of the evidence that Chazan presents so lucidly to reach a conclusion different from his.