page_title: Isaac Abarbanel
section_title: Apologetics
hierarchical_section_title: Isaac Abarbanel / Works / Apologetics
caption_attribution_description: English: Title page of Isaac Ben-Yehuda Abrabanel: Ma'yanei ha-Yeshu'ah. עברית: מעיני הישועה מחבר אברבנאל, יצחק בן יהודה
context_page_description: Isaac ben Judah Abarbanel, commonly referred to as Abarbanel, also spelled Abravanel, Avravanel or Abrabanel, was a Portuguese Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier.
context_section_description: Abarbanel felt deeply the hopelessness and despair which possessed Spanish Jews in the years following their expulsion from Spain, and set himself, therefore, to champion and strengthen their Messianic belief. With this aim he wrote the following three works:
  Ma'yanei ha-Yeshu'ah (מעייני הישועה‎, "The Wellsprings of Salvation") (1496), which is a commentary on the Book of Daniel;
  Yeshu'ot Meshiho (ישועות משיחו‎, "The Salvation of His Anointed" ) (1497), an interpretation of rabbinic literature about the Messiah; and
  Mashmi'a Yeshu'ah (משמיע ישועה‎, "Announcing Salvation") (1498), a commentary on the messianic prophecies in the prophetical books.
  These three books are considered the separate parts of a larger work entitled "Migdal Yeshu'ot" (מגדל ישועות‎, "Tower of Salvation").
  The first work is in the form of a commentary upon Daniel, in which he controverts both the Christian exposition of and the Jewish rationalistic approach to this book. Curiously enough, in opposition to the Talmud and all later rabbinical tradition, he counts Daniel among the prophets, coinciding therein—but therein only—with the current Christian interpretation. He is impelled to this by the fact that Daniel furnishes the foundation for his Messianic theory. The remainder of his commentary is devoted to an exhaustive and caustic criticism of the Christian exposition.
  The second work is probably unique in being an exposition of the doctrine concerning the Messiah according to the traditional testimony of Talmud and Midrash. His third apologetic work contains a collection of Messianic passages of the Bible and their interpretations, in the course of which Abarbanel criticizes the Christian interpretation of these passages.
caption: Title page of a 1647 edition of Abarbanel's commentary on Daniel, Ma'yanei ha-Yeshu'ah.
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