Me'or Einayim מאור עיניים

Printed at Mantua; the title-page reads 1573, the printing was finished in 1574, and some copies are dated 1575 — and the author corrected the book while it was being set, answering objections and agreeing to cancel leaves. Surviving copies therefore differ, and a single publication year is a bibliographic fiction. The correct citation is Mantua, 1573–75.

Part one, Kol Elohim, is an eyewitness account of the earthquake of 17 November 1570 at Ferrara, treated naturally and providentially at once. Part two, Hadrat Zekenim, is the first Hebrew version of the Letter of Aristeas, made in twenty days. Part three, Imrei Binah, runs to sixty chapters: Second Temple Jewry and the origins of the Septuagint; Philo; the status of talmudic aggadah; chronology and the antiquities of the Temple. Matzref la-Kesef, the author's reply to his critics on chronology, was added later.

What gave offence, in descending order. The chronology: he showed from Greek, Roman and Christian sources that the Seder Olam count for the Second Temple period is short by some hundred and sixty-six years, and that the era from creation is not a historical datum. This touched practice: legal instruments were dated by that era and calculations of the End rested on it. Next, the non-literal reading of aggadah. And last, the very use of non-rabbinic authorities as evidence.

What was not done to the book: it was neither burned nor placed under a general ban. R. Joseph Karo instructed R. Elisha Gallico to draw up a decree ordering every copy burned, and died without signing it. One measure took effect, the Mantuan one: reading by written permission, and not at all under the age of twenty-five.