Iberian Scepticism in Istanbul: The Hebrew Philosophical Dialogue Attributed to Don Joseph Nasi

ABSTRACT On 28 April 1577, the printer Joseph Ya’abetz in Constantinople printed a rare Hebrew pamphlet titled Ben Porat Yosef (Joseph, the Offspring of a Fertile Tree). Its author, Isaac ben Samuel Onkeneira, claims to report a philosophical debate between Don Joseph Nasi (1524–1579), the powerful Portuguese‐born agent at the Ottoman court, and a ‘great scholar among the Christians’. Written in rhymed prose, this fictionalised dialogue portrays the unnamed scholar as a staunch defender of natural science, especially astral determinism, whereas Nasi defends the Jewish faith. The article shows that the intellectual profile of the opponent is not that of a Christian but of a Jewish ‘heretic’ ( apikoros ) of Portuguese New Christian origin. It interprets the debate as a re‐enactment of the Maimonidean Controversy in an Ottoman Jewish context, in which it was enriched with arguments from medieval Arabic philosophy, the Jewish anti‐rationalist tradition and the sceptical thought of the European Renaissance. The study of the text thus allows a reconstruction of the intellectual milieu of the Iberian travellers whom Nasi welcomed to his residence at Ortaköy on the shores of the Bosporus.