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Millenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture

Volume I: Jewish Messianism in the Early Modern World

  • Book
  • © 2001

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Editors:
  1. Matt D. Goldish

    1. The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Richard H. Popkin

    1. University of California, Los Angeles, USA

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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xix
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  2. The Messianism of Isaac Abarbanel, ‘Father of the [Jewish] Messianic Movements of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’

    • E. Lawee
    Pages 1-39

  3. Patterns in Converso Messianism

    • M. Goldish
    Pages 41-63

  4. Syncretism and Millennium in Herrera’s Kabbalah

    • K. Krabbenhoft
    Pages 65-76

  5. Some Social Aspects of the Polemics between Sabbatians and Their Opponents

    • J. Barnai
    Pages 77-90

  6. Christian Interest and Concerns about Sabbatai Zevi

    • R. H. Popkin
    Pages 91-106

  7. Kabbalistic Messianism Versus Kabbalistic Enlightenment

    • A. P. Coudert
    Pages 107-124

  8. The Last Deception: Failed Messiahs and Jewish Conversion in Early Modern German Lands

    • E. Carlebach
    Pages 125-138

  9. Messianism in the Christian Kabbalah of Johann Kemper

    • E. R. Wolfson
    Pages 139-187

  10. The Charlatan at the Gottes Haus in Offenbach

    • H. Lenowitz
    Pages 189-202

  11. Dr. Samuel Jacob Falk: A Sabbatian Adventurer in the Masonic Underground

    • M. K. Schuchard
    Pages 203-226

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 227-246
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Keywords

About this book

The earliest scientific studies of Jewish messianism were conducted by the scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums school, particularly Heinrich Graetz, the first great Jewish historian of the Jews since Josephus. These researches were invaluable because they utilized primary sources in print and manuscript which had been previously unknown or used only in polemics. The Wissenschaft studies themselves, however, prove to be polemics as well on closer inspection. Among the goals of this group was to demonstrate that Judaism is a rational and logical faith whose legitimacy and historical progress deserve recognition by the nations of Europe. Mystical and messianic beliefs which might undermine this image were presented as aberrations or the result of corrosive foreign influences on the Jews. Gershom Scholem took upon himself the task of returning mysticism and messianism to their rightful central place in the panorama of Jewish thought. Jewish messianism was, for Scholem, a central theme in the philosophy and life of the Jews throughout their history, shaped anew by each generation to fit its specific hopes and needs. Scholem emphasized that this phenomenon was essentially independent of messianic or millenarian trends among other peoples. For example, in discussing messianism in the early modern era Scholem describes a trunk of influence on the Jewish psyche set off by the expulsion from Spain in 1492.

Reviews

`This volume is a major contribution to the understanding of Jewish and Christian messianism in early Modern Europe. It can be highly recommended to libraries and scholars of early Modern European intellectual history.'
Religious Studies Review, 29:3 (2003)

Editors and Affiliations

  • The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

    Matt D. Goldish

  • University of California, Los Angeles, USA

    Richard H. Popkin

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