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The Mosaic Constitution

Political Theology and Imagination from Machiavelli to Milton

Graham Hammill author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:The University of Chicago Press

Published:22nd Jun '12

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The Mosaic Constitution cover

It is a common belief that scripture has no place in modern, secular politics. Graham Hammill challenges this notion in "The Mosaic Constitution", arguing that Moses' constitution of Israel, which created people bound by the rule of law, was central to early modern writings about government and state. Hammill shows how political writers from Machiavelli to Spinoza drew on Mosaic narrative to imagine constitutional forms of government. At the same time, literary writers like Christopher Marlowe, Michael Drayton, and John Milton turned to Hebrew scripture to probe such fundamental divisions as those between populace and multitude, citizenship and race, and obedience and individual choice. As these writers used biblical narrative to fuse politics with the creative resources of language, Mosaic narrative also gave them a means for exploring divine authority as a product of literary imagination. The first book to place Hebrew scripture at the cutting edge of seventeenth-century literary and political innovation, "The Mosaic Constitution" offers a fresh perspective on political theology and the relations between literary representation and the founding of political communities.

"The Mosaic Constitution is an extraordinary work of scholarship - remarkable in its depth and range, remarkable in its implications for the field. The scale and texture of the historical scholarship show the kind of period fluency and scholarly gravitas that will place Graham Hammill squarely in the ranks of the most accomplished of contemporary analysts of the early modern era." (Christopher Pye, Williams College)"

ISBN: 9780226315423

Dimensions: 24mm x 17mm x 3mm

Weight: 624g

344 pages