Talk:Modern Jewish historiography/Archives/2023/December
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Weinberg and DYK
It was noted on an offwiki post that it wasn't clear that the ban of the rabbis was effective in limiting publication and that the imprimatur was needed form Marco Marini. See here on Weinberg p. 503 (p.11 on Jstor) and dei Rossi as pertaining to the DYK factoid, namely, that Rossi had to obtain imprimatur from Marco Marini, and that the ban from the rabbis was effective in limiting Me'or Einyanim. [1] De' Rossi describes the struggles he underwent to uphol
certain of his opinions as expressed in the Me'or Enayim,
a unique copy of the work, dated 28 Elul 5334 (Septembe
1574) belonging to the Mellman collection. In the final pages,
he tells how he went to Venice to argue his case with ce
tain Rabbis of the Community who had charged him wit
heresy. They insisted that he should include in his book t
' hasaga ' of Moses Provenzali, a critique of De' Rossi's
chronological ideas in which the Mosaic origin of the
' baharad ' reckoning was proved. De' Rossi complied with
their request, but with a compromise, because he also
included his own response (' Teshuva ') to Provenzali's cri
tique. The Rabbis also insisted that he erase three passages
from Chapter 20 which dealt with the question of the
hyperbole in Rabbinic writings. In their view, certain passages
in the Talmud and the Zohar could not be dismissed as mere
exaggerations for didactic purposes as De' Rossi would have
it. Thus, the Zohar statement in connection with Er, ' Anyone
who spills his seed to no purpose does not deserve to see the
Divine Presence ' is to be understood literally26. Similarly, the
Talmudic passage, ' He who takes delight in the Sabbath will
be given an unbounded heritage27 and the description of
Elijah being smitten with 'sixty flaming lashes'28 could not
be interpreted as examples of hyperbole by means of which
the Rabbis encouraged the performance of a precept or
accentuated the gravity of a sin. De' Rossi yielded to the
Rabbis' demands. But although Rabbis like Judah Moscato
defended his cause and Abraham Coen Porto repealed the
veto he had publicly placed on the book, the force of the
decree passed by the Rabbis of Venice, Pesaro, Ancona, Pa
dua, Verona, Ferrara and Siena on the fourth of Nisan 1574 to
the effect that written permission must be obtained before the book could be read, held sway. Indeed, on the fly-leaf of
Dato, Rabbi Abraham Graziano the owner, wrote a note in
1595, permitting a certain Isaiah of Sezze to read the Me'or
Enayim, but counselled him to be judicious in his reading30.
Moreover, Kaufmann demonstrated that the ban was still
being enforced in 1635 31. But the decree of 1574 might not
have been the sole reason for the control held over poten
tial readers of the Me or Enayim. The text of a ' hascama '
(authorization) passed by a synod of Rabbis in 1581 was
recently discovered by Meir Benayahu. It included the rene
wal of the ' hascama ' of 1554 which decreed that no new
book might be published without the permission of thre
Rabbis and the heads of the local community 32. A more
stringent clause was added in this 1584 ' hascama ' which
stated that no Jew could buy a Hebrew book unless
permission was first obtained from three Rabbis officiating in
the town in which the book had been published. Such a
decree could have indeed been aimed at the prevention of the
dissemination of controversial literature such as the Me'or
Enayim of Azariah De' Rossi.
.... He turned to members of the Church who were n
only ready to help him financially but also displayed a
genuine interest in scholarship. The names of Marco Marini,
Giacomo Boncompagno and Julius Sanctorius, Cardinal of
Santa Severina are associated with learning and especially
with Hebrew scholarship. Don Marco Marini who eulogized
De' Rossi in a poem of 1573 was justly called the « Priscian
of the Hebrew language » by the J
was the ratification of Marco Marini, teacher of Hebrew
and Latin in Venice, which was required in order to give
the ' imprimatur ' to the Me'or Enayim. Marini later became
the Hebrew teacher of Giacomo Boncompagno. It was Gia
como Boncompagno who requested De' Rossi's translation
of the thirty fifth chapter of the Me'or Enayim into Italian.
The Cardinal of Santa Severina who later became ' Iudex
Sacrae Inquisitionis ' was renowned for his kindness and
justice34. He was interested in Hebrew and later became th
Revisor of Hebrew book together with M
Andre🚐 06:20, 3 December 2023 (UTC)