God's Sacred Tongue

Shalom Goldman

Description

In a comprehensive examination of how Christian scholars in the United States received, interpreted, and understood Hebrew texts and the Jewish experience, Shalom Goldman explores Hebraism's relationship to American society. By linking history, theology, and literature from the colonial period through the twentieth century, Goldman illuminates the religious and cultural roots of American interest in the Middle East.

God's Sacred Tongue is structured around a sequence of biographical and intellectual portraits of individuals including Jonathan Edwards, Isaac Nordheimer, Professor George Bush (an ancestor of President George W. Bush), and twentieth-century literary critic Edmund Wilson. Since the colonial period, America has been perceived as a western Promised Land with emotional, spiritual, and physical links to the Promised Land of biblical history. Goldman gives evidence from scholarship, diplomacy, journalism, the history of higher education, and the arts to show that this perception is linked to the role Hebrew and the Bible have played in American cultural history.

The book's final section takes up the story of American Christian Zionism, among whose Protestant adherents political Zionism found much of its strongest support. Religious and cultural figures such as William Rainey Harper and Reinhold Niebuhr are among those who exemplify the centuries-old ties between America, the Land of Promise, and Israel, the Promised Land.

Sujets

• Hebrew
• Philosophie et théologie
• Movimiento de los Santos de los Últimos Días
• Joseph Smith (hijo)
• Universidad de Nueva York
• Universidad de Chicago
• Universidad Yale
• Selah Merrill
• Israel
• New York University
• Gershom Mendes Seixas
• Eli Smith
• Biblical archaeology
• Biblical hermeneutics
• William Rainey Harper
• Near Eastern archaeology
• Latter Day Saint movement
• Rabbinic literature
• Zionism
• Yale University
• University of Chicago
• Old Testament
• New Testament
• Mormon
• Joseph Smith, Jr.
• Judaism
• Hebrew language
• Harvard College
• Palestine
• Niebuhr
• Religion
• Edmund Wilson
• Edward Robinson
• History
• Promised Land
• Université de Chicago
• Université de New York
• Jonathan Edwards
• Université Yale
• Joseph Smith
• Église de Jésus-Christ des saints des derniers jours
• Hébreu

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798890877451
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

GOD’S SACRED TONGUE

God’s Sacred Tongue

Hebrew & the American Imagination              The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill&London

©  The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Set in Carter and Cone Galliard and Charlemagne types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Manufactured in the United States of America

The publication of this book was supported by a subvention from Emory College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Emory University.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldman, Shalom. God’s sacred tongue: Hebrew and the American imagination / Shalom Goldman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. --- . Hebraists, Christian—United States—Biography. . Old Testament scholars—United States—Biography. . Hebrew philology—Study and teaching (Higher)—United States— History. . Christian Zionism—United States—History. . Christianity and other religions—Judaism. . Judaism— Relations—Christianity. I. Title. .  .''—dc 

    

    

       

Poet, Scholar, Muse

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Moses turned, and went down the mountain, and the

two tablets of testimony were in his hand. The tablets

were inscribed on both sides; on the one side and on

the other side they were inscribed. The tablets were

the work of God, and the writing was the writing

of God, engraved on the tablets.

:–

I was harkening back to my Puritan forbearers

by studying ‘‘God’s sacred tongue.’’

 

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgmentsxiii Prologue

  Zion on American Shores: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 

 Lost Tribes and Found Peoples  A Tale of Two Teachers: Hebrew at Harvard  Ambivalence and Erudition in New Haven: Ezra Stiles, Yale College, and the Jewish Tradition  All Knowledge Is from the Hebrew: Jonathan Edwards as Biblical Exegete and Christian Hebraist  Evangelizing the Jews: Christian Missions and Jewish Responses  The American Jewish Community and Its Encounter with Christian Hebraism

  Scholars, Prophets, Mystics: Nineteenth Century 

 Christian Hebraism and Palestine Exploration: Moses Stuart, Edward Robinson, and Their Jewish ‘‘Informants’’  An Israelite Truly in Whom There Was No Guile: Isaac Nordheimer  Jews, Mormons, and Christian Hebraism in Early- Nineteenth-Century America: Joshua/James Seixas  American Hebraist and Proto-Zionist: Professor George Bush  The Careers of Selah Merrill: Nineteenth-Century Christian Hebraist, Palestine Explorer, and U.S. Consul in Jerusalem

 



 



 

 

