GH Classic: Azariah Dei Rossi – Banned !!!

Okay, so I am a bit late with this news, about 500 years too late actually. But the parallels are interesting. Here is what the Encylopedia Judaica has to say:

Probably the most important part of Imrei Binah is that devoted to the study of Jewish chronology. In a very detailed study, Rossi proved that counting the years from the creation and basing a calendar on this count is a relatively recent Jewish usage; none of the ancient sages in the talmudic or geonic period, and certainly not in the Bible, used a calendar reckoned from the creation. Even in the early Middle Ages more ancient calendars were used, especially one based on the conquest of Palestine by Alexander. Thus he exposed the fact that the calendar accepted in his day was not of ancient origin. In addition, he tried to prove that the Bible and the other ancient sources are insufficient for reconstructing the chronology from the creation to the present time. He thereby indicated that the calendar was not only untraditional, but that it also made a false claim.
These findings seemed heretical to his traditional contemporaries, and even his friends among the Italian Renaissance scholars could not accept such a radical point of view. In the same critical manner Rossi dealt with countless other subjects—archaeology, Jewish coins, the development of the Hebrew language and the use of Aramaic by ancient Jews, Hebrew poetics and poetry, etc. Although modern scholarship does not accept many of his conclusions, some are scientifically sound, and, in any case, there is no doubt that Rossi's scholarship was more than 200 years ahead of its time.
The advanced critical spirit and method of Me'or Einayim made the work a subject of controversy for a long time. While it was being printed in Mantua, rabbis who heard about its contents raised objections, some of which Rossi answered in the work itself. When the work was published, the traditional rabbis in Italy were shocked, especially by Rossi's attitude toward talmudic and midrashic legends and his denial of the validity of the chronology claiming to date from the creation. Even his friend and associate, Moses b. Abraham ProvenLal, fiercely criticized Rossi's attitude toward the calendar, as did Isaac Finzi of Pesaro.
In 1574, even before the printing of Me'or Einayim was completed, the rabbis of Venice, headed by Samuel Judah Katzenellenbogen, published a proclamation of herem against possessing, reading, or using the book, unless one received special permission from the rabbis of his city. Rossi was not personally attacked, the impeccable conduct of his private life easily meeting Orthodox standards of behavior. The herem was followed by similar declarations in such cities as Rome, Ferrara, Padua, Verona, and Ancona, in which rabbis warned their congregations against reading the work. The controversy spread to other Jewish communities; in Safed a proclamation of herem was prepared for the signature of Joseph b. Ephraim Caro, the great halakhist, but Caro died before signing it, and the herem was published by the other rabbis of Safed. Judah Loew b. Bezalel of Prague, who defended the absolute truth of the talmudic legends and traditions, dedicated a major part of his work on the oral tradition, Be'er ha-Golah (Prague, 1598), to direct attacks against Rossi and his teachings. Even in Mantua, where the author was well known and where the book was printed, persons under 25 were forbidden to read it.
Before his death, probably in 1578, Rossi wrote a reply to his critics, Mazref la-Kesef (1845; "The Purification of Silver"), which deals especially with the problem of the calendar and chronology. Later, Mazref la-Kesef was printed together with Me'or Einayim. The ban on Me'or Einayim persisted for more than a hundred years, during which time few scholars dared to use or even mention the work. Renewed interest in the book was aroused only with the beginning of the Haskalah period late in the 18th century, when maskilim found in Rossi's work ideas similar to their own. The first modern printing of the work (after the Mantua edition) was published by the maskilim of Berlin in 1794.