Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World »

Miriam Bodian is Professor of Jewish History in the Graduate School of Jewish Studies at Touro College. Her book Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam (IUP, 1998) received a National Jewish Book Award for History and a Koret Prize for History.

Miriam Bodian's study of crypto-Jewish martyrdom in Iberian lands depicts a new type of martyr that emerged in the late 16th century-a defiant, educated judaizing martyr who engaged in disputes with inquisitors. By examining closely the Inquisition dossiers of four men who were tried in the Iberian peninsula or Spanish America and who developed judaizing theologies that drew from currents of Reformation thinking that emphasized the authority of Scripture and the religious autonomy of individual interpreters of Scripture, Miriam Bodian reveals unexpected connections between Reformation thought and historic crypto-Judaism. The complex personalities of the martyrs, acting in response to psychic and situational pressures, emerge vividly from this absorbing book.

List of Illustrations and Maps     ix
Preface     xi
Acknowledgments     xv
List of Abbreviations     xvii
The Historical Setting     1
The Dogmatista Crypto-Jewish Martyrs     23
A Conquistador's Nephew in New Spain     47
A Monk of Castanheira     79
A Converso Surgeon in the Viceroyalty of Peru     117
A Hebrew Scholar at the University of Salamanca     153
Echoes in the Portuguese-Jewish Diaspora     178
Commemoration of Individual Martyrs in the Literature of the Portuguese-Jewish Diaspora, to 1683     197
Summary of Luis Carvajal's Nine Reasons for Adhering to the Law of Moses, Audience of February 15, 1595, PLC, 235-238     199
Glossary     201
Notes     203
Bibliography     253
Index     269