American Zion: The Old Testament as a Political Text from the Revolution to the Civil War

252 Pages·2013·1.286 MB·English

by  Eran Shalev

American Zion
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American Zion
The Old Testament as a Political Text from the
Revolution to the Civil War
Eran Shalev
New Haven and London
Published with assistance from the foundation established
in memory of Amasa Stone Mather of the Class of 1907, Yale College.
Copyright © 2013 by Yale University.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations,
in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or pro-
motional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. offi ce) or
[email protected] (U.K. offi ce).
Set in Granjon and Garamond types by
Newgen North America.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shalev, Eran, 1970–. American Zion : the Old Testament as a political text
from the Revolution to the Civil War / Eran Shalev.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-18692-5 (cloth : alkaline paper) 1. United States—
Politics and government—1775–1783. 2. United States—Politics
and government—1783–1865. 3. United States—Religion.
4. Bible. O.T.—Political aspects. 5. Bible. O.T.—
Criticism, interpretation, etc. 6. Bible and politics—
United States—History. 7. United States—Relations—
Israel. 8. Israel—Relations—United States. 9. Nationalism—
United States—History. 10. Political culture—
United States—History. I. Title.
E302.1.S525 2013
322′.10973—dc23
2012026939
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
publication of this book is enabled by a grant from
Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford
To Gabi and Uzi, with love
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. “The Jewish Cincinnatus”:
Biblical Republicanism in the Age of the American Revolution 15
Chapter 2. “The United Tribes, or States of Israel”:
The Hebrew Republic as a Political Model before the Civil War 50
Chapter 3. “A Truly American Spirit of Writing”:
Pseudobiblicism, the Early Republic, and the Cultural Origins of the
Book of Mormon 84
Chapter 4. Tribes Lost and Found:
Israelites in Nineteenth-Century America 118
Chapter 5. Evangelicalism, Slavery, and the Decline of an
Old Testament Nation 151
Conclusion. Beyond Old Testamentism:
The New Israel after the Civil War 185
Notes 193
Index 231
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Acknowledgments
American Zion has profi ted enormously from a supportive cadre of friends
and colleagues. Many helped and encouraged me as ideas matured into chap-
ters, which in turn developed into a complete manuscript. I am particularly
grateful to friends who read the manuscript generously and provided me
with indispensable criticisms and suggestions. Although I carry the sole re-
sponsibility for the book’s content and form, the unsurpassed advice and sup-
port of David Bell, Jack Greene, Laura Kalman, Ken Moss, David Niren-
berg, Peter Onuf, Carl Richard, and Avihu Zakai helped and inspired me to
an extent and in ways that they would fi nd hard to imagine.
I had the good fortune of working with a thought ful and supportive edi-
tor in Jennifer Banks, and to profi t from the astute and most helpful com-
ments of the manuscripts’ reviewers, James Byrd, Shalom Goldman, and
Mark Noll. I would also like to deeply thank Ory Amitay, Ayelet Ben Yis-
hai, Menachem Blondheim, François Furstenberg, Dan Heaton, Richard
John, Nitzan Lebovic, Phil Morgan, Fania Oz-Salzberger, Nathan Perl-
Rosenthal, Murray Rosovsky, Dorothy Ross, Jonathan Sarna, Zur Shalev,
Milette Shamir, Hannah Spahn, Yael Sternhell, Molly Warsh, Amit Yahav,
and Michael Zakim.
The Israel Science Foundation provided me with a generous grant to write
this book, for which I am very thankful. I presented chapters at Notre Dame’s
history department, New York University’s Atlantic History Seminar, the
Kennedy Institute of Berlin’s Free University, and the American Studies
Forum at Tel Aviv University. I thank Patrick Griffi n, Karen Kooperman,
Hannah Spahn, and Millete Shamir and Michael Zakim, who invited me to
those thought provoking venues. An early version of chapter 1 appeared as
“‘A Perfect Republic’: The Mosaic Constitution in Revolutionary New En-
gland, 1775–1788,” New England Quarterly 82:2 (June 2009), 235–263. Parts of
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