Eisenmenger, John Andrew

, of the Palatinate, an able writer against the Jews, was born at Manheim, in 1654, was educated at Heidelberg, and afterwards, at the expence of the elector palatine, travelled in Holland and England. At Amsterdam he applied himself to the study of the Arabic, and copied the Alcoran with his own hand from three manuscripts. In 1693 when the palatinate was invaded, he retired to Francfort, with the electoral regency, and was made keeper of the archives. He was next advanced to the office of registrar of the electoral chancery at Heidelberg, and afterwards appointed professor of the oriental languages. He had also an invitation to succeed Leusden at Utrecht, but declined it, and died at | Heidelberg, Dec. 20, 1704. Having very much studied the Talmudical writings, he was desirous to convince the Jews of their folly in preferring the oral to the written law, the traditions of men to the precepts of God, and the Talmud to the Holy Scriptures. With this view he took great pains to collect all the fables, allegories, and contradictions in the Talmud and other rabbinical works, and published this collection in 2 vols. 4to, at Francfort, under the title of “Judaism discovered,” but the Jews had interest enough at the court of Vienna to interdict the sale of it. At length the king of Prussia ordered it to be reprinted at Konigsberg in 1711, at his sole expence, and with great liberality gave a part of the impression to the heirs of Eisenmenger, to recompense them for their loss. In 1743, an abridgement of this work was published in English by the rev. John Peter Stehelin, London, 2 vols. 8vo, under the title “The Traditions of the Jews, or the Doctrines and Expositions contained in the Talmud, and other Rabbinnical writings,” &c. This is a work of great curiosity, and the first in which the English public was made acquainted with the traditions of the Jews. ¹