Review article
Christian Hebraism in the Renaissance and Reformation: Croatia?
Henry R. Cooper, Jr.
; Indiana University, Bloomington, USA
Abstract
Christian Hebraism – the study by Christian scholars of the Hebrew language and Jewish texts, especially the Hebrew Bible – was a fundamental part of both the Italian Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. This paper traces the development of Christian Hebraism from St. Jerome (5th century) to the end of the 16th century. It outlines the explosive growth in Hebrew studies by Christians, which was begun modestly in the mid-fifteenth century by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Giannozzo Manetti, but rapidly developed in the sixteenth century by Johannes Reuchlin, Desiderius Erasmus, Phillip Melanchthon, and, for our purposes particularly important, Matija Vlačić Ilirik. By century’s end, however, Christian Hebraism had lost its Renaissance impetus, that is, »the nostalgia for the most ancient testimony,« and was replaced by more scholarly and less religious approaches to Holy Scripture. The paper examines the differing interests in Hebrew language and literature on the part of Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed figures. And then it endeavors to look more closely at elements of Christian Hebraism in Croatian lands, especially Istria and territories adjacent to Venice, Slovenia, and Hungary, and among Croatian scholars, first and foremost Vlačić, but a few others, as well. Finally the paper speculates upon the question of why, in the otherwise vigorous Croatian Renaissance culture, Christian Hebraism was present among the Croats in a uniquely different way from other Renaissance cultures.
Keywords
Hebrew language; Hebrew Bible; Bible translations; Vulgate; Lutheranism; Matija Vlačić Ilirik; Croatian Protestantism
Hrčak ID:
120328
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2014.
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