Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus
Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus was a French Jewish philosopher and controversialist. He lived at Arles, perhaps at Avignon also, and in other places in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
He belonged to the well-known Nathan family, which claimed its descent from David; he was probably the grandson of the translator Maestro
Later he took up other branches of learning, and owing to his frequent association with Christians and to the numerous anti-Jewish writings of Jewish
Works
Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus was the author of the following Jewish apologetic works (some are still extant, and some are known only through citations):
- Tokaḥat Mat'eh, against Joshua Lorki (Geronimo de Santa Fé after baptism)[1]
- Mibẓar Yiẓḥaḳ, counter-missionary anti-Christian polemics[2]
- Me'ah Debarim, for the instruction of youth, twenty-one essays on various topics, the Biblical names of God forming one, another being on the Masorah[3]
- Me'ammeẓ Koaḥ, on virtue and vice, in three parts[4]
- Meïr Netib, a Hebrew Biblical concordanceupon which the author worked from 1437 to 1447
- with a philosophico-exegetical introduction (Petiḥat Meïr Netib) containing a Messiahship of Jesus(introduction to Nathan's concordance)
- with a philosophico-exegetical introduction (Petiḥat Meïr Netib) containing a
Concordance of the Hebrew Bible
The Meïr Netib was the first Bible concordance in Hebrew, and was distinguished from the similar
References
- ^ Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi Bibliotheca Antichristiana, pp. 76–77
- ^ De Rossi, l.c.
- ^ Collection of I. S. Reggio and Schorr
- ^ Neubauer, Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS. No. 2232
- Giovanni Bernardo De Rossi, Dizionario, p. 77;
- I. S. Reggio, Iggerot, i. 71;
- He-Ḥaluẓ, i. 29, note 6;
- Moritz Steinschneider, Cat. Bodl. col. 1141;
- Ernest Renan-Adolf Neubauer, Les Ecrivains Juifs Français, p. 582;
- Heinrich Grätz, Gesch. viii. 162;
- Henri Gross, in Monatsschrift, xxix. 518 et seq.;
- idem, Gallia Judaica, p. 89;
- Zunz, G. S. iii. 190
- Louis Stouff. « Isaac Nathan et les siens. Une famille juive d’Arles des XIVe et XVe siècles », in La famille juive au Moyen-Age. Provence-Languedoc, [actes du colloque bilingue sur la famille juive au Moyen-Age, France du Midi, XIVe-XVe siècles (Toronto, 27-28 mars 1985)], numéro spécial de Provence historique, T. 37 fasc. 150, 1987, p. 499-512
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Isidore Singer and Isaac Broydé (1901–1906). "Isaac Nathan ben Kalonymus". In Singer, Isidore; et al. (eds.). The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.