1. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, “The Ultimate End of Human Life in Postexpulsion Philosophic Literature,” in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391 1648, ed. Benjamin R. Gampel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 354–55 n. 10 — though it remains unclear why the concluding chapter of the most definitive work on Abarbanel written to date by Benzion Netanyahu (on which see below) is not just such a systematic attempt, if in some ways a flawed one. See now also the systematic exposition and analysis of the apocalyptic element in Abarbanel’s messianic thought in Dov Schwartz, Ha-reayon ha-meshihi be-hagut ha-yehudit bi-yemei ha-benayim (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1997), 230–42.
2. Omitted here is consideration of the apparently considerable extent to which Abarbanel served as an interlocutor of choice for Christian millenial thinkers, especially of the Protestant “Hebraist” variety, over centuries. See below, nn. 136–137.
3. B. Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel: Statesman and Philosopher, 3rd ed. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1972), 195.
4. Netanyahu showed little interest in the predominantly non-doctrinal, exegetical side of Abarbanel’s writing or dynamics of the commentatorial mode typically favored by Abarbanel even when dealing with doctrinal matters.
5. Preface to the first edition as in ibid.,viii.