Johann Christoph Wagenseil

Johann Christoph Wagenseil (November 26, 1633 - October 9, 1705) was a German Christian Hebraist.

Johann Christoph Wagenseil was born in Nuremberg (November 26,1633 - October 9, 1705). In 1667 he was made professor of history at Altdorf, and was professor of Oriental languages at the same university from 1674 to 1697, after which he occupied the chair of ecclesiastical law until his death. For his knowledge of Hebrew he was chiefly indebted to the Sabbatean Behr Perlhefter and Enoch Levi, who had come from Vienna to Fürth around 1670.

[N.B. While some of Wagenseil's later studies may have occurred with "the Sabbatean Behr Perlhefter and Enoch Levi, when they came from Vienna to Fürth around 1670" as mentioned in the preceding passage, by this time Wagenseil already was an accomplished Hebrew/talmud scholar. Indeed, in "Die Letzte Vertreibung der Juden aus Wien und Niederösterreich" Kaufmann expands on the subject of how Wagenseil, while still aged in his early 20s stayed for extended periods in the Vienna Jewish community where in particular he befriended and studied under Dr. Jehuda Löb Winkler as well as Rabbi Model Oettingen, thereafter maintaining correspondence with both of them from all the locations and university cities where he later resided as preceptor of the Kaiser's sons, as well as throughout ensuing years.]

Wagenseil devoted his learning to publishing anti-Christian works of Jewish authors and undertook long journeys to gather his material and conduct research. He died in Altdorf in 1705.

The fruit of Wagenseil's travels was the collection Tela Ignea Satanæ, sive Arcani et Horribiles Judæorum Adversus Christum, Deum, et Christianam Religionem Libri (Altdorf, 1681), which included the apologetic Ḥizzuḳ Emunah of the Karaite Isaac Troki.

Becoming convinced by the Toledot Yeshu that the Jews were guilty of blaspheming Jesus, Wagenseil addressed to all high potentates his Denunciatio Christiana de Blasphemiis Judæorum in Jesum Christum (Altdorf, 1703), in which he implored them to restrain the Jews from mocking Jesus, Mary, the cross, the mass, and Christian teachings. He was opposed to forcible baptism and similar conversion measures, and devoted a treatise to the refutation of the charge of ritual murder.

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