In this Book

  • Jacob's Shipwreck: Diaspora, Translation, and Jewish-Christian Relations in Medieval England
  • Book
  • Ruth Nisse
  • 2017
  • Published by: Cornell University Press
buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary

Jewish and Christian authors of the High Middle Ages not infrequently came into dialogue or conflict with each other over traditions drawn from ancient writings outside of the bible. Circulating in Latin and Hebrew adaptations and translations, these included the two independent versions of the Testament of Naphtali in which the patriarch has a vision of the Diaspora, a shipwreck that scatters the twelve tribes. The Christian narrative is linear and ends in salvation; the Jewish narrative is circular and pessimistic. For Ruth Nisse, this is an emblematic text that illuminates relationships between interpretation, translation, and survival.

In Nisse’s account, extrabiblical literature encompasses not only the historical works of Flavius Josephus but also, in some of the more ingenious medieval Hebrew imaginative texts, Aesop’s fables and the Aeneid. While Christian-Jewish relations in medieval England and Northern France are most often associated with Christian polemics against Judaism and persecutions of Jews in the wake of the Crusades, the period also saw a growing interest in language study and translation in both communities. These noncanonical texts and their afterlives provided Jews and Christians alike with resources of fiction that they used to reconsider boundaries of doctrine and interpretation. Among the works that Nisse takes as exemplary of this intersection are the Book of Yosippon, a tenth-century Hebrew adaptation of Josephus with a wide circulation and influence in the later middle ages, and the second-century romance of Aseneth about the religious conversion of Joseph’s Egyptian wife. Yosippon gave Jews a new discourse of martyrdom in its narrative of the fall of Jerusalem, and at the same time it offered access to the classical historical models being used by their Christian contemporaries. Aseneth provided its new audience of medieval monks with a way to reimagine the troubling consequences of unwilling Jewish converts.

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Cover
  2. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright Page
  2. pp. i-vi
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. vii-viii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. ix-x
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Abbreviations
  2. pp. xi-xii
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Introduction
  2. pp. 1-18
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 1. Josephus, Jerusalem, and the Martyrs of Medieval England
  2. pp. 19-48
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 2. Diaspora without End and the Renewal of Epic
  2. pp. 49-74
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 3. A Fox among Fish? Berekhiah ha-Nakdan’s Translations
  2. pp. 75-101
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 4. Pleasures and Dangers of Conversion: Joseph and Aseneth
  2. pp. 102-126
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. 5. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in the Shadow of the Ten Lost Tribes
  2. pp. 127-147
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Conclusion
  2. pp. 148-154
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Notes
  2. pp. 155-196
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Bibliography
  2. pp. 197-220
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Index
  2. pp. 221-235
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.