The Disputation of Barcelona was a formal ordered medieval debate between representatives of Christianity and Judaism regarding whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. It was held at the royal palace of King James I. The Disputation was between Dominican Friar Pablo Christiani, who had converted from Judaism to Christianity, and Rabbi Nahmanides, an incredible medieval Jewish scholar. During this time, there were a large amount of disputations between Christians and Jews. They were not the kind of debates that occurred in today’s day in age, but were actually attempts by Christians to force the Jews to convert from one belief to another. The Disputation of Barcelona was unique, in that it was the only occasion on which the Jewish representative …show more content…
Nahmanides argued that Jews did not have to believe the aggadic materials found in the Talmud. The aggada refers to non-legalistic exegetical texts in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly as recorded in the Talmud. He countered that Christiani's interpretations of Talmudic passages by stating that the rabbis would not hint that Jesus was Messiah while opposing that at the same time (Maccoby 125). I also found it interesting that while both Nachmanides and Christiani were debating different principles, they were both using the same text to support their own arguments and debunk the opposition’s arguments. Christiani was using the Talmud to support his arguments even though he was a Christian. Before the Disputation of Barcelona though, Christiani practiced Judaism and then converted to Christianity. He later changed his views because of his claims about the “irrational” material within the Talmud (Kobak 1-15). This is interesting because even though Christiani is preaching against what Nachmanides is saying, he once agreed with everything as well. “That man resumed, and said ‘In the Talmud it is explained that Rabbi Joshua ben Levi asked Elijah, “When will the Messiah come?”” (Maccoby