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Boisi Center Interviews No the boisi center interviews no. 50: December 7, 2010 eric nelson is a professor of government at Harvard University. He spoke with Boisi Center associate director Erik Owens before delivering a presentation focused on his latest book, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Harvard/Belknap, 2010) at the Boisi Center. owens: In your new book, the thrust the 16th and 17th centuries is virtually Hebrew Bible as a political constitution of your argument is that the traditional backwards. When you look at renaissance that God had designed and which was account of the relationship between reli- political thought, i.e. humanist political therefore perfect and authoritative. gion and politics in the crucial period of thought, it is very secular; it is classiciz- Suddenly the task of political science European political thought—the 16th and ing and they are all trying to revive Greek becomes the task of emulating, or even 17th centuries—is backwards or wrong. and Roman antiquity. Their sources are replicating, the crucial sort of institutions Could you give us a short account of that and practices of this perfect republic. conventional wisdom and what you argue Political science now has to focus on a is precisely backwards? divinely authorized constitutional form. nelson: I take the conventional view to This changes the character of the disci- be that Western modernity emerges out pline enormously. of a process of secularization. This story The question then becomes, how do you usually attaches enormous importance study this thing that they began to call to the period I study—early modern the Hebrew Republic, the Respublica Europe—particularly the 16th and 17th Hebraeorum? Since the Bible gives you centuries. The argument is that after very fragmented and often contradictory centuries in which Europeans thought information about it, they found that about moral and political questions by they had to turn to the rabbis. This is the asking what would God like us to do and moment in which the study of Hebrew how does God wish for us to live, a set is exploding in the Protestant world. of simultaneous forces—i.e. the rise of The Protestant theorists I have in mind new science, philosophical skepticism, turned to the rabbinic corpus for the the destruction wrought by the religious purpose of illuminating this pristine, wars— supposedly led early modern the ancient Greek and Roman philoso- perfect, divinely authorized republic. political theorists and moral philosophers phers and historians. They do not sup- to initiate something which has been My book is about the consequences of pose that one needs recourse to revelation called the Great Separation. That is, they that encounter for moral and political in order to think about politics. decided that it was necessary to seques- philosophy. ter political science from theology and In the wake of the Reformation this owens: What is the relationship be- to make it autonomous so that it did not changes dramatically, particularly in the tween the turn to these Hebraic sources have to rely for its foundations on these Protestant world. As Protestants are sent and the revival of Hebrew language in divisive and dubious religious claims. back to the text of the Bible— particularly this period? What is the cause and effect? the Hebrew Bible—to a new and unprec- My argument in the book is that this edented degree, they begin to see the characterization of what happened in 1 the boisi center interview: eric nelson nelson: I would say that it works in commentaries, that is, compendia, which terials and then turns them into Latin so the direction of less to more. That is, the made the material readily available. that they are now available to everybody. first urgent requirement that is endorsed One of the most important texts, al- owens: Was there a conversation in by every Protestant—including Martin though virtually unknown today, is this that period among Jewish scholars and Luther who otherwise takes a very dim little book published in 1625 by a German the Protestants you are speaking of? view of rabbinic sources, and really has Hebraist named Wilhelm Schickard, who no interest in them, or rather has it out nelson: It is a fascinating question. has a plausible claim to being the inven- for them—is to learn Hebrew so as to The answer is sometimes yes and some- tor of the computer, in addition to being be able to study the Hebrew Bible itself. times no. Jews—often converted Jews, a very accomplished Hebraist. He writes The need to study the Biblical text in the but not exclusively—were extremely this book which he calls Mishpat Hamel- original language produces the first wave important in this story insofar as they ech, which in Hebrew is “the law of the of professorships in Hebrew and makes were the ones initially teaching Hebrew king,” or laws pertaining to kingship, and Hebrew an essential part of the Protes- to the Christians in question. From the then gives the Latin subtitle, Jus Regium tant curriculum. point of view of a Christian Hebraist, the Hebræorum. best thing was to have a converted Jew It is then these Hebraists, once they teaching you this material. But partic- know Hebrew and are ensconced in their ularly when you are talking about, for universities, who began looking at the example, Amsterdam after the 1590s corpus of rabbinic literature. They begin “Hebraism relies when the Portuguese Jews settled, very to publish editions, commentaries and in part on Jewish learned Jews were consulted even though translations by the end of the period I am they had not converted to Christianity. talking about. The entire Mishnah, that conduits; it relies This was a very fraught issue. Hebraism is, the central component of the Talmud, relies in part on Jewish conduits; it relies had been translated into Latin. Most of on Jewish tutors on Jewish tutors to teach Christians the major texts in rabbinic literature had to teach Christians Hebrew. It also relies on Jewish printing either been translated into Latin entirely, of the rabbinic Bible, which contains all or excerpted in accessible editions: that Hebrew...but for these commentaries and so on. But for is, the professors who do this for a living the most part, the Christian Hebraists then make the fruits of their erudition the most part, were not very fond of Jews. They were available to the wider republic of letters. studying this material while, as it were, So you have people who do not know He- the Christian holding their noses. brew very well who are nonetheless fully Hebraists were capable of consulting the rabbis. owens: Before I circle back around to contemporary scholarly understandings owens: Is it fair to say that the initial not very fond of of this period, which I want to get back wave was a theological undertaking as Jews.” to, could you lay out what you argue in opposed to a political one? your book is the upshot of this Hebrew nelson: Yes, the first and the most revival? You offer three thrusts that are urgent kind of motive was the notion that crucial to understanding the shift of the It is a compendium of all of the material it was a Christian duty to study scripture modern world. that he can find in the corpus of rabbinic and that in order to study scripture one literature on kingship and on the laws nelson: I focus on three transforma- had to learn Hebrew. and obligations of kingship. But before tions that take place in the 17th century owens: The Mishnah was not therefore he gets into all that, he first asks what did that I regard as being extremely import- mined selectively, but rather read and the rabbis think about kingship per se? ant and straightforwardly motivated by translated for broader purposes? Did they think it was a good idea or bad this encounter, although in different idea? He acknowledges that, although he ways. nelson: I would say it depends. Vari- throws in his lot with the Talmudic tra- ous tractates of the Talmud were being The first is the emergence of what I call dition—that is, the tradition that regards turned into Latin relatively early and so “republican exclusivism.” That is the kingship as a requirement for Israel—he people were reading them. But the major idea that republics are the only legiti- acknowledges that there is another side texts, the ones that clearly got into the mate regimes and that monarchy is an to the debate. He excerpts all of these ma- bloodstream most directly did so via illicit constitutional form. This argument 2 the boisi center interview: eric nelson emerges for the first time in the middle of the 17th century, straightforwardly as a reflection of Protestant immersion in a particular tradition of rabbinic commen- tary that understood the famous instance in 1st Samuel where the people ask for a king as a sin. Not as any sin, but as an instance of the sin of idolatry, in that they were choosing to bow down to flesh and blood rather than God. They were replac- ing God with a human being. This is a sin and monarchy, per se, in all its forms, is therefore illicit. The Christian scholars whom I am talking about gain access to this view via the compendia of rabbinic material that I have been talking about, chiefly Schickard. The first person to make this in redistributing wealth. There were a which is our familiar perspective on the argument, so far as I can see, is Milton.
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