Catalogus nr 5.indd - Den Hertog Bolland Rare Books

HOORNBEEK, Johannes (1617-1666). [Teshuvat Yehudah] sive, Pro convincendis, et convertendisJudaeis, libri octo. Leiden, Pieter Leffen, 1655. 4to. (8) 51 (1), 57-578 (12) pp. Contemporary overlappingvellum with gilt-stamped coat-of-arms on both covers. 600,-[ 15 ]First and only edition of Hoornbeek’s extensive treatise on the conversion of the Jews. It elaborately deals withthe differences between Judaism and Christianity and has an apologetic-controversialist as well as a conversionistcharacter, two aspects which were closely linked together. In seventeenth-century Dutch Calvinism there was a livelyinterest in the conversion of the Jews, fostered by the expectation of a general conversion of the Jews in the last days.Hoornbeek, professor of theology at the universities of Utrecht and Leiden, was convinced that this conversion couldbe advanced by a polemicist approach which aimed at convincing the Jews of their errors by means of theologicalrefutation. His treatise above is still an important and indispensable source for the study of seventeenth-centuryDutch reformed views on Jews and Judaism. - Armorial bookplate on lower pastedown and small tear in one leaf.