Thursday, Feburary 13, 2025

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is the 13th of February 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

We are closing out this week with two shows- today and tomorrow- that feature characters a little “off the beaten path” here at the Almanac. But here’s what they have in common: they are both working parallel to the Reformation in the 16th century in fields adjacent to theology but as part of that Early Modern milieu that rocketed us into the Modern Age.

As a brief note: “Early Modern” is the catch-all in Western History from about 1450 to... well, 1648 or 1789 are either fine for capping it. Perhaps you were taught this period as “Renaissance and Reformation”- nevertheless, this is the time when the year 1517 is so pivotal. 

Part of what made this period so fertile for new ideas and movements was the birth of the printing press, the movement of people, and a new thirst for knowledge in churches and universities that led to the examination of the natural world. One burgeoning field was that of Hebraic studies. That’s right- prior to this time, Christians rarely learned Hebrew- after all, the Vulgate in Latin gave you the church’s preferred reading, and even many of the Jewish faithful had moved to the Septuagint- the old Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Part of the problem with learning Hebrew was finding a Jewish person to teach you- as many had been forcibly converted and hid their language or had been forced to flee. But something about the Northern Italian city-states…. For reasons of commerce and perhaps even charity Jewish people could live relatively free lives- such as that of Elias ben Asher Levita- a German jew whose family fled to Padua after he was born on this day, the 13th of February in 1468 (or 1469- I’ll stick with 68 as more common).

By 1514, Elias was in Rome, where he was taken in by Cardinal Giles of Viterbo- a humanist priest interested in the study of Kabala- the Jewish mystical school that the Christians believed to hold the key to some Jewish prophecies pointing to Christ.

It seems that many Jewish people were not keen on teaching Christians a language such that they could use it to try and refute their own religion- and for this reason, Elias would be accused of being secretly a Christian himself by his co-religionists. As the 16th century broke into its religious revolution, it may have been that Elias was happy to be protected and given a place to have his Hebrew works and grammars printed. Pope Leo X personally permitted a press opened in Rome for the printing of Elias’ texts.

Besides teaching the likes of Sebastian Munster (a protestant reformer who published Elias’ works into Latin and German), he would also be useful to the Catholics in one of their battles with the nascent Protestant movement.

Here was the argument: the Catholic Church taught that while the original Hebrew text did not have vowels, it was perfectly within God’s plan of redemption to later supplement these vowels through scholars in the same way that he was said to have promoted the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. Protestants, uneasy with a “progressive revelation,” argued that the vowels in the Hebrew text were ancient and from the time of Ezra and even Moses.

Elias argued convincingly that the vowels were added by scribes in Middle Ages- the “Masoretes,” and thus today we call those vowels (and other diacritical marks) in ancient Hebrew are called “Masoretic points”. That particular debate aside, it was the work of Elias Levita that unlocked the Hebrew for Christians looking to “go back to the sources”- that being the rallying cry of many Early Modern Christians.

Elias Levita would be offered professorships across Europe but would turn them down- likely fearing to teach in places where Jews weren’t permitted- he would have been given protection, but his conscience seems to have kept him accepting those positions.

Near the end of his life, he would go to Swabia to work with the Protestant Reformer Paul Fagius, where the two printed a Yiddish/Hebrew/German/Latin dictionary that would be invaluable for biblical studies as the century progressed. He would move back to Venice, where he would die in 1549- born on this day in 1468- Elias Levita- Hebrew teacher to 16th Century Christians- was 80 years old.

  

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary where the Psalms are kicking in today, so we get to read Psalm 1:

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked


or stand in the way that sinners take

    or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and who meditates on his law day and night.

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,

    which yields its fruit in season


and whose leaf does not wither—

    whatever they do prospers.

Not so the wicked!

    They are like chaff

    that the wind blows away.

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

    but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 13th of February 2025 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who in the original Hebrew would be: Chrstphr Gllsp.

The show is written and read by a man who forgot to say that Elias did write a work based on “Bevis of Hampton”... huhuh… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.