God's Sacred Tongue: Hebrew & the American ImaginationUniversity of North Carolina Press, 2004 - 349 pages 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. |
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Contents
PART I | 3 |
Lost Tribes and Found Peoples | 15 |
Hebrew at Harvard | 31 |
Copyright | |
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Ameri American Christian American Jewish American Jews American Protestant ancient Andover Andover Theological Seminary Arabic Biblical Researches Boudinot brew Bush chapter Christian Hebraists Christian Zionism church College congregation consul conversion culture divine Edmund Wilson Edward Robinson Edwards's England English European Ezra Stiles Frey Frey's German Greek Harper Harvard Hebraic Hebrew Bible Hebrew Grammar Hebrew language Hebrew studies historian Holy Land Ibid ideas influence intellectual interest Israeli Jerusalem Jewish Jewish community Jewish scholars Jonathan Edwards Joshua Seixas Judah Monis Judaic Judaism later learning Lost Tribes Merrill Merrill's missionary Monis's Mormon Moses Stuart Newport nineteenth century Nordheimer Nordheimer's noted Old Testament Palestine philological political president Professor published Puritan Rabbi Reinhold Niebuhr religion religious sacred tongue scholarly Scripture Seixas's Sewall Shearith Israel Smith Society Stiles's study Hebrew study of Hebrew synagogue teacher teaching texts Theological Seminary tion tradition translation University Press wrote Yale York Zionism