Converso Paulinism

Between ‘Marrano’ Apologetics to Judaeo-Christian Theology (15th-17th Centuries)

The UCSIA-IJS Chair is currently held by Claude (Dov) B. Stuczynski, Associate Professor in the Department of General History at Bar-Ilan University and board member of the Center for the Study of Conversions and Interreligious Encounters (CSOC) at Ben-Gurion University. His two central fields of research are the Portuguese Converso phenomenon and the first encounters between Europeans and Amerindians. He is particularly interested in the relationship between religion and politics in Medieval and Early Modern periods and is currently preparing a study of the theological-political dimension of the Converso phenomenon (what he terms “The Marrano Paulinian Moment”).

Lecture on 26 Februari 2019 Prof. Dr. Claude B. Stuczynski (Bar-Ilan University).

In this lecture, Prof. Stuczynski argued that as a result of mass conversion in the Iberian Peninsula and the formation of a New Christian or Converso long-lasting phenomenon, some of those Spanish and Portuguese baptized Jews and their old Christian supporters employed the life and the teachings of St. Paul in order to endorse the integration of the Converso group within the Iberian society, thereby facing inquisitorial suspicion and “purity of blood” ethnic exclusion. In doing so, however, they elaborated a Judaeo-Christian way of being Catholic. Stuczynski will show how such expressions of Converso and pro-Converso Paulinism anticipated the policies of the Catholic Church vis-a-vis the Jews and Judaism, after the Shoah and the Second Vatican Council.

Watch Claude Stuczynski’s talk online!

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In collaboration with

Institute of Jewish Studies

interdisciplinary research centre for the scientific study of Judaism

UCSIA

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