Writings
Karaism has produced a vast library of commentaries and polemics, especially during its "Golden Age". These writings prompted new and complete defenses of the Mishnah and the Talmud, the culmination of these in the writings of Saadia Gaon and his criticisms of Karaism. Though he opposed Karaism, the Rabbinic commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra regularly quoted Karaite commentators, particularly Yefet ben ‘Eli, to the degree that a legend exists among some Karaites that Ibn Ezra was ben ‘Eli's student.
The most well-known Karaite polemic is Yiṣḥaq ben Avraham of Troki's Ḥizzuq Emunah (חזוק אמונה) (Faith Strengthened), a comprehensive Counter-Missionary polemic, which was later translated into Latin by Wagenseil as part of a larger collection of Jewish anti-Christian polemics entitled Tela Ignea Satanæ, sive Arcani et Horribiles Judæorum Adversus Christum, Deum, et Christianam Religionem Libri (Altdorf, 1681) (translation: 'The Fiery Darts of Satan, or the Arcane and Horrible Books of the Jews Against Christ, God, and the Christian Religion'). Many Counter-Missionary materials produced today are based upon or cover the same themes as this book.
Scholarly studies of Karaite writings are still in their infancy, and owe greatly to the Firkovich collections of Karaite manuscripts in the Russian National Library that have become accessible after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The cataloguing efforts of scholars at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and in the United States and England is continuing to yield new insights into Karaite literature and thought.
Read more about this topic: Karaite Judaism
Famous quotes containing the word writings:
“In this part of the world it is considered a ground for complaint if a man’s writings admit of more than one interpretation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If someday I make a dictionary of definitions wanting single words to head them, a cherished entry will be “To abridge, expand, or otherwise alter or cause to be altered for the sake of belated improvement, one’s own writings in translation.””
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“A people’s literature is the great textbook for real knowledge of them. The writings of the day show the quality of the people as no historical reconstruction can.”
—Edith Hamilton (1867–1963)