When Christian Science and Jewish Providence Collide: Conversion and Biblical Discoveries in the 1390s: conversion and biblical discoveries in the 1390s

This article deals with the transfer and fusion of scientific-biblical knowledge among Jews, converts, and Christians in the 1390s. Following up on hints supplied by a cryptic Hebrew report, the article tracks and explores a biblical-scientific discovery revealed by the convert Pablo de Santa María (the former Shelomo Halevi) in his commentary on Genesis 1:9. In that text, Pablo combined the latest Christian scientific theories of his day with Jewish biblical traditions and thus shaped a new explanation for both the baffling equilibrium between earth and water and the scriptural formulation: “Let the waters be gathered”. As the article shows, while naturalistic readings of this passage were quite common among Christians, in the Sephardic intellectual elite to which Pablo belonged it was almost a doctrinal principle to take these words as pointing to divine intervention in the order of nature. Accordingly, Pablo’s new providential-physical explanation made a significant impression on his Christian audience and became,in a famous Hebrew epistle by the crypto-Jewish convert, Profayt Duran, a token of his scholarly accomplishments. For us, however, it can provide a remarkable example for the kind of intellectual synergy among Jews, converts, and Christians in those years.