Concepts of Scripture in Nahmanides 141Iberian-Jewish rationalist tradition.6 It is perhaps easier, however, to see
this tension as mirroring the creative tension inherent to his own thought,
which attempted to grapple with numerous, oft en contradictory, ideas and
ideals. Within this context, rather than simply to see Nahmanides as a con-
servative “antirationalist,” it is important to note that he actually endorsed
the nonliteral interpretation of rabbinic aggadot, or legends, something
that placed him in the same camp as the rationalists of whom he was of-
ten critical.
In addition to functioning as a mediator in the Maimonidean contro-
versies, Nahmanides played an important role in an offi cial disputation
at the court of King James I in Barcelona during July 20 – 24, 1263. Called
to serve as the Jewish representative, Nahmanides’s role was to defend the
faith against the charges of Pablo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Christian-
ity who had assured the king that he could prove the truth of Christianity
from the Talmud and other rabbinical writings. Nahmanides agreed to the
disputation, according to his account of it, only if he were granted com-
plete freedom of speech. Th e disputation turned on the following points:
whether the Messiah had appeared or not; whether, according to Scripture,
the Messiah is a divine or a human being; and whether the Jews or the
Christians held the true faith. Whereas Christiani relied on a Christologi-
cal reading of both the Bible and the Talmud, Nahmanides countered with
a traditional Jewish reading of the biblical text and the claim that the homi-
lies of the Talmud must be understood nonliterally.
Although both sides claimed victory, the Dominicans subsequently
charged Nahmanides with blaspheming Christianity, and they encouraged
James I of Aragon to banish him from the kingdom. Eventually he ended
up in the land of Israel, where he is credited with helping to reestablish
Jewish communal life in the aft ermath of Crusader repression and where
he completed his commentary on the Torah.
Th e Importance of Scripture According to Nahmanides
Nowhere is Nahmanides’s ability to mediate between diff erent positions
more on display than in his commentary to the Torah, the primary focus
of this chapter. Perhaps this mediatory role is best epitomized in the two
previous commentary traditions — the traditionalism of the French Rashi
and the rationalism of the Spanish Abraham Ibn Ezra7 — that he both
struggled with and sought to emend in his own commentary. Drawing on