Addendum to Chapter 3: Details related to Chapter V of L. H. Schiffman [LS1985]The chapter's main point is that Jewish Christians were accepted as Jews, but they were considered to be heretics and in order to stop them from being precentors (leaders of the service) a new benediction was added to the existing 18. This was composed by Samuel Ha-Qatan [ibid, p. 55] and it is directed against the heretics (minim). It is normally recited as the twelfth benediction. Schiffman [ibid, pp. 55-56] provides the following text based on a document found in the Cairo Genizah. Who were the noserim?According to Schiffman [ibid, 59-61] it refers to Gentile Christians although there are disputes about the origin of the term. The Rabbis could not call the Christians with the Hebrew translation of their name Meshikhiyim because that would acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah. (For additional discussion of this issue see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notzrim).
The BenedictionsI provide below a list taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amidah for those not familiar with the Benedictions. This article also contains the story of the addition of the twelfth benediction but it provides a slightly different spelling for its author, Samuel Ha-Katan. The text is somewhat different than the one given above but the substance is clearly the same. I provide only the titles for the other 18 benedictions.
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