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Jews and Judaism played a significant role in the history of the expansion of Europe to the west as well as in the history of the economic, social, and religious development of the New World. They played an important role in the discovery, colonization, and eventually exploitation of the resources of the New World. Alone among the European peoples who came to the Americas in the colonial period, Jews were dispersed throughout the hemisphere; indeed, they were the only cohesive European ethnic or religious group that lived under both Catholic and Protestant regimes, which makes their study particularly fruitful from a comparative perspective. As distinguished from other religious or ethnic minorities, the Jewish struggle was not only against an overpowering and fierce nature but also against the political regimes that ruled over the various colonies of the Americas and often looked unfavorably upon the establishment and tleration of Jewish communities in their own territory. Jews managed to survive and occasionally to flourish against all odds, and their history in the Americas is one of the more fascinating chapters in the early modern history of European expansion.
Calvinism must be assigned a significant place among the forces that have shaped modern European culture. Even now, despite its history of religious fragmentation and secularization, Europe continues to bear the marks of a pervasive Calvinist ethos. The character of that ethos is, however, difficult to pin down. In this volume, many of the traditional scholarly conundrums about the relationship between Calvinism and the cultural history of Europe are revisited and re-investigated, to see what new light can be shed on them. For example, how has the ethos of Calvinism, or more broadly the Reformed tradition, affected economic thinking and practice, the development of the sciences, views on religious toleration, or the constitution of European polities? In general, what kind of transformations did Calvinism’s distinct spirituality bring about? Such questions demand painstaking and detailed scholarly work, a fine sample of which is published in this volume.
In this book Christoph Stumpf investigates theological influences upon the legal theory of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), who is regarded by many as the "father of modern international law". The author analyses how Grotius has contributed to the transformation and further development of international law from its roots in Christian theology to a trans-religious law of nations. From the theological substance in Grotius' views on international relations the author concludes that Grotius' legal theory can be perceived as a theological system of international law.
Tracing key biblical topics recurrent in Grotian and Hobbesian discourses on the church-state relationship, The Sovereign and the Prophets examines Spinoza’s Old Testament interpretation in the Theologico-political Treatise and elucidates his effort to establish what Hobbes could not adequately offer to the Dutch: the liberty to philosophize. Fukuoka develops an original method for understanding seventeenth-century biblical arguments as a shared political paradigm. Her in-depth analysis reveals the discourses that converged on the question, ‘Who stands immediately under God to mediate His will to the people?’ This subtly nuanced theme not only linked major theoreticians diachronically—from the Remonstrants such as Grotius to the anti-Hobbesian jurist Ulrik Huber (1636–1694)—but also synchronically built the axis of resonances and dissonances between Leviathan and the Theologico-political Treatise.
New England colonial pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was well aware of the threat that Deist philosophy posed to the unity of the Bible as Christian Scriptures, yet remarkably, his own theology of the Bible has never before been examined.In the context of his entire corpus this study pays particular attention to the detailed notes Edwards left for "The Harmony of the Old and New Testament," a "great work" hitherto largely ignored by scholars. Following examination of his "Harmony" notes, a case study of salvation in the Old Testament challenges the current "dispositional" account of Edwards's soteriology and argues instead that the colonial Reformed theologian held there to be one object of saving faith in Old and New Testaments, namely, Christ.
Cicero has played a pivotal role in shaping Western culture. His public persona, his self-portrait as model of Roman prose, philosopher, and statesman, has exerted a durable and profound impact on the educational system and the formation of the ruling class over the centuries. Joining up with recent studies on the reception of Cicero, this volume approaches the figure of Cicero from a ‘biographical’, more than ‘philological’, perspective and considers the multiple ways by which different ages reacted to Cicero and created their ‘Ciceros’. From Cicero’s lifetime to our times, it focuses on how the image of Cicero was revisited and reworked by intellectuals and men of culture, wh...
This book shows how a group of early-seventeenth-century writers excluded theologically grounded argument from a wide range of disciplines, from the natural sciences to international relations. Somos uses richly contextualised portraits of Scaliger, Heinsius, Cunaeus and Grotius to develop a new model of secularisation as a contingent, cumulative, and incomplete process, with some unintended consequences. Facing severe conflict, the Leiden Circle realised that rival claims that staked their truth-content and validity on religious belief were ultimately irreconcilable. Gradually they removed such claims from acceptable discourse, contributing to the comprehensive secularisation that defines modernity. If blindness to religious claims has become definitive of modern politics, Somos concludes, recollecting its historical complexity and contingency is essential for overcoming some of its failures.
Jan Stievermann's pioneering study of Cotton Mather's Biblia Americana examines this Puritan scholar's engagement with the Hebrew Bible as Old Testament. The author focuses specifically on Mather's struggle to uphold or modify traditional typological and allegorical readings in the face of a growing awareness of the historicity of Scriptures. Other key issues include Mather's interventions in the contemporary debates over the legitimacy of Christian interpretations of the prophets, as well as over the authorship, provenance, genre, and spiritual import of texts such as Ecclesiastes and Canticles. Stievermann's book yields fascinating insights into an underappreciated phase of exegesis that was at once traditionalist and innovative, apologetically oriented, pious, and open to new modes of historical-textual criticism. Moreover, it shows how Mather's biblical exegesis fits into the broader development of Puritan theology and identity. --
This is a new, critical edition (in two-volumes) of Gerardus Joannes Vossius' Latin Poeticae institutiones (1647), with a translation in English, an introduction, annotations and a commentary. In appendices the De artis poeticae natura ac constitutione and De imitatione are published, with a translation.
Offers an overview of Grotius' work and thought, from his historical, theological and political writing to his seminal legal interventions.