Answer to Question #281533 in English for Fob

Question

The impact of apologetics on the medieval period

Answer 1

Apologetics in Judaism is that literature which endeavors to defend Jews, their religion, and their culture in reply to adverse criticism. The demarcation between apologetics and *disputation is often difficult to draw. The history of Jewish apologetic literature reflects the complicated pattern of relationships between Jews and Gentiles through the generations, and originated in response to the challenges of pagans and subsequently of Christianity.

It was intended to defend the spheres of both Jewish religion and Jewish social and national life, past and present, against direct attack and internal doubts arising from comparisons of respective cultures and ways of life. They were also written in the hope of proving to the Gentiles the virtues of the Jewish religion and thereby influencing their outlook on, and attitudes toward, Judaism. In the modern age a new type of Jewish secular apologetics aim at justification of Jewish social and economic conditions in the gentile world.