In sixteenth-century Marrakesh, a Flemish merchant converts to Judaism and takes his Catholic brother on a subversive reading of the Gospels and an exploration of the Jewish faith. Their vivid Spanish dialogue, composed by an anonym in 1583, has until now escaped scholarly attention in spite of its success in anti-Christian clandestine literature until the Enlightenment. Based on all nine available manuscripts, this critical edition rediscovers a pioneering work of Jewish self-expression in European languages. The introductory study identifies the author, Estêvão Dias, locates him in insurgent Antwerp at the beginning of the Western Sephardi diaspora, and describes his hybrid culture shaped by the Iberian Renaissance, Portuguese crypto-Judaism, Mediterranean Jewish learning, Protestant theology, and European diplomacy in Africa.
"The Marrakesh Dialogues has been mentioned only rarely in the scholarly literature, and Wilke’s edition and extended discussion constitute the first attempt at editing the text based upon all the textual evidence, placing it into its historical context, identifying the author and the dramatis personae of the text, analysing the treatise’s contents, and presenting it to a wide audience. He is successful because of his broad knowledge of the political and religious trends in early modern Europe, coupled with close familiarity with
converso life and literature." -
Daniel L. Lasker,
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in:
Journal of Jewish Studies Vol. LXVII No. 2, pp. 428-35
Carsten L.Wilke, Ph.D. (1994), is Associate Professor of Jewish Thought and Culture at Central European University Budapest. He has published on the religious history of the Jews in medieval and modern Europe.
"The Marrakesh Dialogues has been mentioned only rarely in the scholarly literature, and Wilke’s edition and extended discussion constitute the first attempt at editing the text based upon all the textual evidence, placing it into its historical context, identifying the author and the dramatis personae of the text, analysing the treatise’s contents, and presenting it to a wide audience. He is successful because of his broad knowledge of the political and religious trends in early modern Europe, coupled with close familiarity with
converso life and literature." -
Daniel L. Lasker (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Journal of Jewish Studies Vol. LXVII No. 2, pp. 428-35
Preface
Part 1: Historical Study Introduction
Chapter 1: Retrieving a Jewish Renaissance classic
Chapter 2: Three Portuguese in Marrakesh, 1581
Chapter 3: The author’s European Background, 1545-1581
Chapter 4: The history of the text, 1581-1595
Chapter 5: Invention of a Literary Genre
Part 2: Textual History and Criticism Chapter 6: Inventory of Manuscript Sources
Chapter 7: Analysis of the textual transmission
Chapter 8: Editorial Criteria
Part 3:Critical Edition Conspectus Siglorum
Common Text
Glosses
Alphabetical Index in Ms. B
Aleixo de Menezes on the Marrakesh Dialogues
Part 4: Annotations Notes on the Common Text
Notes on the Glosses
Bibliography
List of Images
A scholarly public in the literary and theological history of Renaissance and Reformation, the early modern relations between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Sephardic culture, Spanish literature and Romance linguistics.