An Iberian Covenant: Mosaic Law and Theology of Exile in Menasseh ben Israel’s Thought

Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel was one of leading voices in the seventeenth-century Jewish world. Living in Amsterdam, he educated and instructed Iberian exiles and their descendants as they returned to Judaism. Focusing on Menasseh’s exhaustive study of scripture, Conciliador, this article analyzes Mena...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Segev, Ran (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: University of Chicago Press 2022
In: The journal of religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 102, Issue: 4, Pages: 507-528
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)

MARC

LEADER 00000naa a22000002 4500
001 183243771X
003 DE-627
005 20230125164705.0
007 cr uuu---uuuuu
008 230125s2022 xx |||||o 00| ||eng c
024 7 |a 10.1086/721293  |2 doi 
035 |a (DE-627)183243771X 
035 |a (DE-599)KXP183243771X 
040 |a DE-627  |b ger  |c DE-627  |e rda 
041 |a eng 
084 |a 0  |2 ssgn 
100 1 |e VerfasserIn  |0 (DE-588)1279133686  |0 (DE-627)1832441539  |4 aut  |a Segev, Ran 
109 |a Segev, Ran 
245 1 3 |a An Iberian Covenant: Mosaic Law and Theology of Exile in Menasseh ben Israel’s Thought 
264 1 |c 2022 
336 |a Text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a Computermedien  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a Online-Ressource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
520 |a Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel was one of leading voices in the seventeenth-century Jewish world. Living in Amsterdam, he educated and instructed Iberian exiles and their descendants as they returned to Judaism. Focusing on Menasseh’s exhaustive study of scripture, Conciliador, this article analyzes Menasseh’s religious ideas in the context of the spiritual challenges of Amsterdam’s "Portuguese Nation." I argue that Menasseh generated culturally attuned arguments that stressed the authority of Mosaic law to overwhelmingly individualistic and religiously doubtful former conversos who were long separated from the practice of Rabbinic Judaism. From this vantage point, Menasseh reinterpreted Jewish exile in the context of world history and defended the importance of God’s precepts by discussing longevity and the duration of life. Responding to Christian polemics, he offered positive meaning to his community’s experience of dislocation by adjusting the terms of God’s election to his present-day diasporic condition. Menasseh additionally used natural knowledge, that is, Hippocratic-Galenic medicine and astrology, to persuade former conversos of the practical advantages of Torah. He thus presented a community of Sephardic exiles with what I call in this article a diasporic covenant according to which the practice of Mosaic law made Jews virtuous individuals and prolonged their life, and he stressed that their acceptance among the nations guaranteed good fortune to the tolerant state where they had settled. 
601 |a Theologe 
773 0 8 |i Enthalten in  |t The journal of religion  |d Chicago, Ill. : Univ. of Chicago Press, 1921  |g 102(2022), 4, Seite 507-528  |h Online-Ressource  |w (DE-627)329085689  |w (DE-600)2047675-9  |w (DE-576)113710593  |x 1549-6538  |7 nnns 
773 1 8 |g volume:102  |g year:2022  |g number:4  |g pages:507-528 
856 4 0 |u https://doi.org/10.1086/721293  |x Resolving-System  |z lizenzpflichtig  |3 Volltext 
951 |a AR 
ELC |a 1 
ITA |a 1  |t 1 
LOK |0 000 xxxxxcx a22 zn 4500 
LOK |0 001 4251564375 
LOK |0 003 DE-627 
LOK |0 004 183243771X 
LOK |0 005 20230125155654 
LOK |0 008 230125||||||||||||||||ger||||||| 
LOK |0 040   |a DE-Tue135  |c DE-627  |d DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 092   |o n 
LOK |0 852   |a DE-Tue135 
LOK |0 852 1  |9 00 
LOK |0 935   |a ixzs  |a ixzo 
ORI |a SA-MARC-ixtheoa001.raw 
REL |a 1 
SUB |a REL