This book assesses the complexity and fluidity of Christian identity from the reign of Elizabeth I and the early Stuart kings through the English Revolution, and into the Restoration. Throughout this period, which included debate about readmission of the Jews, England was preoccupied with Jews and Israel. As the Reformation sharpened national identity and prompted reconsideration of the relation of Christianity to Judaism, English people showed new interest in Jewish history and Judaism and appropriated biblical Israel's history in the Hebrew Bible, even as reformed Christianity was to be purg ... More

This book assesses the complexity and fluidity of Christian identity from the reign of Elizabeth I and the early Stuart kings through the English Revolution, and into the Restoration. Throughout this period, which included debate about readmission of the Jews, England was preoccupied with Jews and Israel. As the Reformation sharpened national identity and prompted reconsideration of the relation of Christianity to Judaism, English people showed new interest in Jewish history and Judaism and appropriated biblical Israel's history in the Hebrew Bible, even as reformed Christianity was to be purged of Jewish elements. The mix of identification and opposition, affinity and distance, in English attitudes toward Jews held positive possibilities for Jewish‐Christian relations as well as negative. Grounded in archival research, this book analyzes writings ranging from those of Foxe and Hooker to Milton's and Dryden's, from sermons to lyrics, from church polemic to proposals for legal and economic reform. Literary figures discussed include Herrick, Vaughan, Bunyan, Milton, and Dryden. Attention is also paid to publications associated with James I, Charles I, and Cromwell, and writings by and about such figures as William Prynne, Gerrard Winstanley, Margaret Fell, George Fox, Menasseh ben Israel, Abiezer Coppe, and Anna Trapnel.