Isaac Orobio : The Jewish Argument with Dogma and Doubt

Abstract

In philosophical works that circulated as clandestine manuscripts, the Amsterdam physician and polemicist Isaac Orobio de Castro (1617–1687) defended Judaism intermittently against Christianity and Spinoza’s critique of religion. His two-front battle recruited rationalism, scepticism, and rabbinic tradition in complex ways. Six historians have newly explored Orobio’s context, literary ethos, and reception at the 400th anniversary of his birth.