The Talmud and Rabbinic literature

In 1239 the Christian convert Nicholas Donin submitted thirty-five articles to Pope Gregory IX that decried the indecency blasphemy and heresy in the Talmud. As a result the pope triggered a campaign across Europe that gave rise to a trial of the Talmud in Paris in 1240. The Latin translation of the Talmud - namely the 1245 Extractiones de Talmud and later versions such as the Excerptum de Talmud - emerged from these events.

This volume offers the first critical edition along with an English translation of the Excerptum de Talmud. Drawing on the substantial translation of the Babylonian Talmud known as the Extractiones de Talmud (Paris 1245) the Excerptum provided a selection of passages from the Talmud which its compiler organized according to controversial topics.

This book consists of two principal parts. The first contains a study of the Excerptum its textual source (the Extractiones de Talmud) and an overview of the historical background which prompted this translation. The second part consists of an edition and translation of the text as well as an edition of the passages from the Extractiones which served as the basis for the Excerptum.

These texts mark a significant chapter in Christian anti-Jewish disputations and Latin polemical works in the Middle Ages. This volume will thus prove useful to scholars interested in Latin philology religious disputation medieval translation and transmission of knowledge and the history of Christian-Jewish relations.