1413 Disputation In Tortosa

In medieval Europe, three disputations between rabbis and Christian clerics were held in response to the negative or deteriorating opinion of Judaism that prominent Christians held. The first of these disputations was held in Paris of 1240 when the Pope, Gregory IX, became convinced that The Talmud held obscenities, as well as anti-Christian content; consequently, the disputation was introduced. The 1413 disputation in Tortosa was held in an equally strained atmosphere because of the persecution of Jews that had taken place a few years prior to the disputation, and anti-Jewish laws that were being established. While the setting of the 1263 Barcelona disputation was the least volatile of the three disputations, opinions of Judaism and its followers
were still comparatively low. Throughout the disputations, the Christian participants and facilitators fueled the already negative opinion of Judaism by demonizing the religion, disregarding the Jewish debaters’ opinions and their interpretations of various facets of Judaism and using the interpretations that painted Christianity in a favorable light in an attempt to illustrate, what they believed was, the falsity of the Jewish faith and the truth of theirs. (thesis: halfond email – what interpreted by both sides and for whom the events were being presented. )

While the superficial goal of the Paris disputation was to determine whether the Talmud contained content that was blasphemous toward Christianity, Donin, on the Christian side, did not consider what his Jewish opponent was saying, and remained fixed on finding evidence to condemn the Talmud (and indirectly Judaism).
For example, in the defense of the charge of “foolish and obscene passages” (Judaism on Trial 36), Rabbi Yehiel told his Christian opponents that the Aggadic parts of the Talmud were not authoritative, and. For example, according to The Vikuah of R. Yehiel of Paris: A Paraphrase, Donin recited several passages in the Talmud which mentioned the name “Jesus” and argued that they were blasphemous toward Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rabbi Yehiel continuously emphasized that the passages were not meant to represent Jesus Christ, rather they were men who happened to be named Jesus, but were distinctly different from each other and Jesus Christ (The Paris Disputation, 1240 29). While some of the passages may have been written in referral to Jesus Christ, Rabbi Yehiel provided solid evidence explaining why other passages could not have been written about Jesus Christ. Regardless, Donin did not respond to any of the defenses that Yehiel had. For example, in The Vikuah of R. Yehiel of Paris page 156, after Rabbi Yehiel explained why the “Jesus” who is portrayed as being in hell is a different Jesus than Christ, Donin did not respond to the evidence that Yehield provided and
read out a different passage which portrayed a man named Jesus as an idolater who was sentenced to be stoned. Donin was only concerned with proving that the Talmud portrayed Jesus Christ negatively.

Furthermore, Donin asserted that the Talmud portrayed Mary, the mother of Jesus, as an adulteress, which provoked angry reactions from the crowd (presumably made up almost entirely of Christians) watching the disputation. However, Yehiel denied the claim Donin made about the depiction of Mary by telling his opponent that in the passage Donin was referring to, the woman whom Donin believed was Mary did not live in Jerusalem and that she had a husband named Pappos ben Judah who lived long after the period of Jesus (The Paris Disputation, 1240 31). Despite these strong points that Yehiel made in opposition to the claims that Donin made regarding the portrayal of Mary, Donin did not retract his accusations.
While the main objective of the Disputation of Paris appeared to be to demonize Judaism, the object of the Tortosa Disputation was defined from the beginning by the Pope. It was to prove the truth of Christian doctrines about Jesus Christ (The Tortosa Disputation).