Disputing Christianity: The 400-Year-Old Debate over Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham Troki’s Classic Arguments

Rabbi Isaac Ben Abraham was a little-known scholar from the heretical Jewish group, the Karaites, who lived during the 16th century in Troki, a suburb of Vilnius, Lithuania. In 1593, the last year of his life, he wrote an incisive cogent polemic against Christianity which, over the centuries, has had an impact in Christian and Jewish circles that far exceeds what might have been predicted based on its obscure origins. A kind of underground samizdat classic of religious criticism, his critique of Christianity has been translated into many languages and has influenced English deism, Reform Judaism, the beginnings if Higher Criticism and the quest for the historical Jesus, and even Christian evangelical outreach programmes that exist to this day. Now, historian and philosopher, Richard Popkin has edited a critique of Christianity. Originally published in 1813 by Harvard graduate George Bethune English, it includes the first publication in English of a central portion of Ben Abraham’s text. The book was part of the discussion surrounding the founding of Unitarianism in New England. Popkin provides a fascinating commentary that notes many points of historical interest involving this unusual work. Anyone interested in philosophy of religion or the history of dialogue between Christians and Jews will find this work to be of great value.