Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic

Table of Contents

con t en ts Note on Names, Titles, Citations, and Transliteration xi Introduction: Conversion and History 1 1. From Peripety to Prose: Tracing the Pauline and Augustinian Paradigms 30 2. Alterity and Auctoritas: Reason and the Twelfth-Century Expansion of Authority 59 3. In the Shadow of the Khazars: Narrating Conversion to Judaism 92 4. A War of Words: Translating Authority in Thirteenth-Century Polemic 121 5. The Jargon of Authenticity: Abner of Burgos/Alfonso of Valladolid and the Paradox of Testimony 143 6. The Supersessionist Imperative: Islam and the Historical Drama of Revelation 174 Conclusion: Polemic as Narrative 215 Abbreviations 227 Notes 229 Bibliography 267 Index 299 Acknowledgments 309 ...