Joseph ben Shem-Tov ibn Shem-Tov (died 1480) was a prolific Judæo-Spanish writer born in Castile. He lived in various cities of Spain: (1441); Alcalá de Henares (1451); and Segovia (1454). Though it is not known precisely what office he held at court, he occupied a position which brought him in contact with distinguished Christian scholars. According to the custom of the time, he held public disputations with them in the presence of the court; this probably led him to study the polemical literature of the Jews. In the preface to his commentary on Profiat Duran's Al-Tehi ka-Aboteka, he recounts a disputation with a Christian scholar concerning the doctrine of the Trinity. He seems to have elaborated this disputation and to have used it later in various anti-Christian writings. In 1452 he w