In recent months, Herzl Institute scholars have published a series of books that will forever change how we look at the thought of the Bible and the way it has shaped the ideas of the Western world and beyond. Among the mind-shaping new books the Institute is fielding in 2017:
Ofir Haivry, John Selden and the Western Political Tradition (Cambridge) explores the Jewish foundations of the Anglo-American constitutional tradition as understood by John Selden, the greatest of 17th-century England’s conservative political thinkers. This is the first book to examine Selden’s political theory, showing how he used the Jewish people and the rabbinic tradition as the model for England and its common law.
Joshua Berman, Inconsistency in the Torah: The Limits of Source Criticism(Oxford) mounts to the most systematic critique of academic theories of biblical authorship in a generation in this breathtaking work. If you thought source criticism had won the scientific debate, it is time to rethink.
Jeremiah Unterman, Justice for All: How the Bible Revolutionized Ethics (Jewish Publication Society). A sweeping reconstruction of how the Hebrew Bible broke with the ethical theories of the ancient Near East to establish the basis for morality as we know it.
Taken together, these three works offer a thorough reconsideration of the place of Judaism in the history of Western civilization. Congratulations to all on a truly remarkable achievement, many years in the making!
