Professor Daniel Lasker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
“Judaism, Christianity and Islam: The Three-Way Debate in the Middle Ages”
Guest lecture in Professor Deeana Klepper’s Religion/History seminar, Medieval Religious Cultures in Contact and Conflict: Jewish-Christian Encounter. Students and attendees will read selections (in English translation) of Jewish anti-Christian polemics from Islamic lands alongside Islamic anti-Christian polemics, as a way of exploring Jewish-Christian debate as a three-sided religious encounter.
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“The Jewish-Christian Debate: The Interplay of Philosophy and Polemics in the Middle Ages”
Professor Lasker will discuss the relationship between philosophy and polemics in medieval Jewish-Christian encounter. His now classic book, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages, is slated to appear in a new edition next year with a fresh introduction. Professor Lasker will present some of the highlights of that material, drawn from thirty years spent studying the subject. The lecture will be followed by a reception and is open to the public.
Professor Daniel Lasker is the author of four books and numerous other publications in the fields of Jewish philosophy and theology, the Jewish-Christian debate, Karaism, the Jewish calendar, and Judaism and modern medicine. He is Norbert Blechner Professor of Jewish Values at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, where he teaches and serves as chair of the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought. In addition, he has taught at a number of colleges and universities including Yale University, Princeton University, University of Toronto, Yeshiva University, Jewish Theological Seminary.