Nina Caputo's Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia: History, Community and Messianism, explores the conceptions of history and messianic redemption in the writings of the extraordinary Catalan rabbi Nahmanides (Rabbi Moses ben Nahman or "the Ramban" according to his rabbinic acronym, c. 1195-1270). A talmudic and biblical commentator and an early exponent of Kabbalah, as well as an important communal leader who distinguished himself during the Maimonidean Controversy of 1230-1232 and the Barcelona Disputation of 1263, Nahmanides has most often been studied within the context of Jewish intellectual, religious, and social history. Caputo, by contrast, sets out to analyze Nahmanides' thought within the framework of the Christian, and specifically Catalan, culture that surrounded him. Caputo argues that Nahmanides was deeply familiar with Christian doctrine and that his understandings of Judaism in general and of redemption in particular reflect a complex negotiation with the views of his Christian contemporaries.
The book opens with an examination of Nahmanides' role in the Maimonidean Controversy, a conflict that shook much of the Jewish diaspora, pitting critics of the innovative methods of the major Jewish philosopher Maimonides (1135-1204) against Maimonides' supporters. Caputo aptly situates the controversy in the "charged inquisitorial atmosphere" of the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229) and suggests that this context may have influenced leaders of the anti- Maimunist camp in their zeal to identify and maintain orthodoxy. Nahmanides sought to forge a reconciliation during the Maimonidean Controversy. He feared that an enforced orthodoxy would threaten the diversity that was an integral part of Jewish culture. He was also concerned, however, about the dangers of increased factionalism in an already fragmented diaspora. Caputo shows that in his letters to the rabbis of northern France, Provence, Aragon, and Castile, Nahmanides drew on examples from the Bible, especially the Prophets, and the Talmud. She argues that Nahmanides thereby sought to conflate the present conflict with past disputes in an attempt to unify Jews by way of reference to a common past. At the same time, however, Nahmanides also portrayed the present moment as a unique and significant point in a linear progression toward messianic redemption. The author further shows that in his approach to the conflict, Nahmanides suggested a model for leadership that emphasized guiding Jews from the past into the future with careful attention to legal precedent as well as to the forces of change.
Chapter two provides a lucid exposition of the balance between tradition and innovation in Nahmanides' biblical exegesis, focusing specifically on Nahmanides' commentary on Genesis. Caputo carefully demonstrates the novelty of Nahmanides' reading of the creation story by contrasting it to the interpretations of other Jewish commentators from late antiquity and the Middle Ages on whose language and methods Nahmanides often relied. She shows how Nahmanides understood the creation story both as a literal list of God's acts and also as a blueprint for all of human history. Mirroring the six days of work followed by one day of rest described in Genesis, human history was to consist of six one-thousand-year epochs, followed by a one-thousand- year epoch of redemption. In Genesis Nahmanides found even the date for the advent of the Jewish messiah, predicting that the messianic age would begin by 5118 (1358 according to the Gregorian calendar).
Caputo notes that typological exegesis in general and ties between the creation week and the structure of world history in particular had long been prominent in Christian theology. Although the author seeks to increase awareness of Nahmanides' Christian context, she unfortunately does not elaborate upon these important observations. Indeed, it is not until the penultimate chapter of the book that Caputo engages in detail with Christian thought. Earlier and more consistent attention to Christian eschatological views would have allowed for a deeper analysis of Nahmanides' relationship with Christian ideas.
In chapter three, Caputo turns to the second major public controversy of Nahmanides' career. She examines several aspects of the Barcelona Disputation, a debate that was held in the presence of King Jaume I of Aragon and other prominent dignitaries, at which the Jewish apostate, Friar Paul Christiani, confronted Nahmanides and sought to prove the truth of Christianity on the basis of biblical and post-biblical Jewish texts. Caputo first presents a useful review of the abundant scholarship on the disputation. She notes that until now historians have tended to replicate the adversarial tone of the two extant accounts of the event--Nahmanides' Hebrew narrative and an anonymous Latin record--and ignored the fact that the disputation was possible only because Jews and Christians in medieval Catalonia shared a common elite culture. Here again, Caputo makes an intriguing suggestion, but she misses an opportunity to strengthen her work by exploring this "common culture." Of what exactly did it consist? How specifically did it shape the disputation? Although the author begins to address these questions in the last two chapters of the book, her argument in chapter three would have benefited from a discussion of these matters.
Caputo next considers what the Hebrew account of the Barcelona Disputation suggests about Nahmanides' views of Jewish apostates and cradle Christians. She contends that Nahmanides made a moral distinction between the two groups. Apostates betrayed their covenant with God, whereas individuals who were born into Christian families did not. Caputo goes on to suggest that on account of this distinction, Nahmanides was relatively accepting of cradle Christians, and this attitude enabled him, as a Jewish leader, to engage in various kinds of "inter-faith" exchanges. Although it is plausible that Nahmanides did feel this way, Caputo's argument is problematic. First, her conclusions seem too far-reaching given that they are based on a narrative that prominently features only one cradle Christian, King Jaume I, a monarch who was particularly generous to Jews, and only one contemporary apostate, Friar Paul, an apostate who was particularly active in antagonizing his former co-religionists. Second, it is unlikely that theoretical considerations truly underlay Nahmanides' relationships with Christians. As Caputo herself points out in the introduction, Jews and Christians in medieval Catalonia interacted in myriad ways on a daily basis. Importantly, Jewish interactions with apostates also varied widely. In this complex web of relationships, practical considerations and personal feelings were of the essence.
Caputo closes her analysis of Nahmanides' Hebrew account of the Barcelona Disputation by returning to the central theme of her book and examining Nahmanides' argument with Friar Paul over the links between biblical prophecy and the history of the Jewish people. She cogently shows that Nahmanides used a particular analytical method, which involved contextualizing events and defining terms, people, and places, to prove that the continued drama of Jewish experience in the diaspora reflected the historical and textual primacy of Judaism.
In chapter four, Caputo examines Nahmanides' contribution to the thirteenth-century Catalan discourse on the time of messianic redemption. She focuses specifically on Sefer ha-Geulah (The Book of Redemption), in which Nahmanides used the same methodology and arrived at the same conclusions as in his biblical commentary and his Hebrew account of the Barcelona Disputation. Caputo notes that Nahmanides' insistence on the imminence of redemption was at odds with traditional Jewish reticence regarding speculation about the time of the coming of the messiah, and she argues that Nahmanides' views were part of a subtle intellectual exchange between Jews and Christians. Here Caputo engages more deeply with the broader context in which she seeks to situate Nahmanides, outlining the possibility that Nahmanides' ideas shaped those of the Christian courtier, doctor, and exegete Arnau of Vilanova (c.1238- 1311). Although intellectual influence is difficult to establish, Caputo's exposition of commonalities in the thought of Nahmanides and Arnau of Vilanova, especially in their interpretations of the book of Daniel, convincingly shows that Jews and Christians in medieval Catalonia "shared [a] vocabulary for discussing the economy of salvation as well as methods of interpreting prophecy as the harbinger of historical transformations in the near future" (155).
In the final chapter of the book, Caputo argues that Nahmanides was steeped in the vernacular literary culture of his period. She discusses a no-longer-extant Catalan account of the Barcelona Disputation, which Nahmanides may have composed in addition to his Hebrew narrative, and she suggests that both this Catalan account and the Hebrew narrative belong to a wider body of Catalan literature. The author's claims may go beyond what her evidence warrants. For instance, she attributes perhaps too much importance to Nahmanides' use, in his Hebrew narrative, of a remark by a Jewish passerby who, when asked, provided a Catalan translation of the Hebrew word for "day." Moreover, although the author does point to broad parallels between Nahmanides' Hebrew account of the Barcelona Disputation and King Jaume I's memoir, Llibre dels feyts--both share dramatic flair, both report dynamic verbal exchanges--a substantial discussion of the wider body of literature in which she seeks to place Nahmanides' writings is lacking. Nevertheless, Caputo's general suggestions about the extent to which Jewish and Christian intellectual elites in medieval Catalonia shared aesthetic sensibilities make sense, and they are bolstered by her sketch of court culture.
Nahmanides in Medieval Catalonia is an ambitious and valuable work. It is at its best when analyzing Nahmanides' views of history and messianic redemption and showing how they shaped Nahmanides' behavior as a Jewish leader, exegete, and interlocutor. The book also makes an important contribution to scholarship by contending that Nahmanides can fully be understood only with reference to his broader context and by elucidating aspects of cross-influence between Jewish and Christian culture in the Middle Ages. On the whole, the book is engaging, thought-provoking, and most certainly worth reading.