Background
JOSEPH ALBO was born in 1380 in Spain.
JOSEPH ALBO was born in 1380 in Spain.
In 1414, the Church imposed on the Jews of Spain a public disputation which was held in Tortosa. The longest of the medieval disputations, this lasted until the following year and had the effect desired by the Church - the demoralization of large sections of Spanish Jewry.
Albo was one of the twenty-two scholars appearing on the Jewish side and took a prominent and courageous part in the discussions. Afterwards he wrote a book Sefer ha-lkkarim (“Book of Principles”), inspired by the various religious arguments of the period and seeking to refute those elements which had led to widespread apostasy among Spanish Jewry.
Albo took issue with Moses Maimonides' formulation of thirteen principles ot the Jewish faith. He felt these were too general and contained principles which were not unique to Judaism but could be accepted by Christianity and Islam. He was also not satisfied with his teacher Hasdai Crescas' formulation of six basic principles. He reduced the fundaments to three: (1) the existence of God; (2) divine revelation; (3) reward and punishment.
From these he derived a number of “roots” or doctrines, which arc not fundamentals but have to be believed to attain the afterlife. These are: (1) God’s unity; (2) God’s incorporeality; (3) his independence of time; (4) his freedom from defects; (these four are derived from the fundamental principle of divine existence); (5) God’s omniscience; (6) prophecy; (7) the authenticity of God’s messengers (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses) (these three are derived from the fundamental principle of revelation); and (8) individual providence (derived from the fundamental principle of reward and punishment).
From these roots Albo further derives six “branches,” which are not fundamentals and one can even be a good Jew without accepting all of them: (1) God’s creation of the w'orld exnihilo (out of nothing); (2) Moses as the greatest of the prophets; (3) the eternal validity of the Pentateuch; (4) the potential for human perfection by the observance of even a single commandment; (5) the resurrection of the dead; (6) and the coming of the Messiah.
The low priority given to the belief in the Messiah may have been a reaction to Christian teachings. He also attacked Christianity for contradicting the fundamental principles of the unity and incorporeality of God.
Over the subsequent centuries, Jews engaged in polemics with Christianity frequently had recourse to the writings of Albo.