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Religions of the Book adds to a growing
body of scholarship on Christian perceptions
of Muslims and Jews. The collection
is somewhat uneven, but several strong
The Religions of the Book: Christian Perceptions, 1400-1660
Edited by Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 213 pp., ISBN 9780230020047.
Book Reviews
Insight Turkey Vol. 12 / No. 3 / 2010 259
articles make this volume well worth reading.
Raphael Hallett's article on Luther and
the Jews is polished and persuasive. This
careful examination of Luther's writings
challenges the view that the reformer radically
changed his stance on the Jews toward
the end of his life; instead, Hallett deftly
argues, both Luther's early and later writings
on the Jews exhibit a consistent anxiety
about the group as a threat to Protestant
identity. Colin Imber's "Crusade of Varna,
1443-1445" does a fine job unraveling the
complex strands that formed the campaign
in which Sultan Murad II defeated
the Christian host led by King Vladislav of
Poland and Hungary. Most Christian goals,
he explains, were local and political, but
papal involvement provided the glue that
made it a crusade. This essay is best read as
a companion to Imber's excellent Crusade
of Varna (Ashgate, 2006) as it reveals how
he interprets the texts he has edited and
translated.
Palmira Brummett's article on Christian
iconography c. 1550-1689 offers a sophisticated
analysis of how Europeans used
maps and rhetoric to show Ottomans and
Europeans as polar opposites, and to situate
the Europeans in a more favorable light.
For example, European maps of Hungary
and the Balkans where the Ottoman state
was well established often misleadingly depicted
Ottoman control as a temporary encampment.
Eliane Glaser's article explores
debates in England during the civil war
period over religious toleration of the Jews,
and the separation of church and state.
Calls for tolerance have been interpreted
as unmitigated support for the Jews, but
as Glaser argues, the Jews were generally
invoked as an extreme example: i.e. England
should be so tolerant of all faiths that
even the Jews should have freedom of conscience.
The real goal, however, was tolerance
of Christian sects, not non-Christians.
Finally, Anthony Bale presents an intriguing
discussion of different ways of "reading"
Jews in late medieval England, which often
extended beyond texts. The essay includes
an edifying focus on Margery Kempe and
the ‘virtual' Jew in her visions of the Passion,
despite the absence of Jews in England
for over a century following their exile in
1290.
Other essays in the volume are less
satisfying. Gerald MacLean's essay on
Milton and the Muslims is a fascinating,
but frustrating, read. MacLean unearths
subtle references to Islam and contemporary
Muslim empires, even noting lacunae
in geographical descriptions that may reveal
Milton's unease with the extent of the
Ottoman Empire. But the references are
oblique - depending heavily, for example,
on adjectives often used in the English
discourse of Islam, without directly mentioning
anything patently Islamic. There is
simply not enough clear evidence to support
MacLean's view of Milton as significantly
influenced by Islam. Nonetheless,
it is a well written and provocative essay.
The remaining essays are harder to comprehend,
bearing the mark of conference
papers in need of revision or fleshing out.
Matthew Birchwood's essay has interesting
points about the ways in which tumultuous
English religious debates and politics may
have stimulated an interest in the Polyglot
Bible, heresy, and Islam. Unfortunately, the
essay lacks organization and a clear central
argument. More disappointing is the
Insight Turkey Vol. 12 / No. 3 / 2010
Book Reviews
260
article by one of the book's editors, Matthew
Dimmock, on early Christian perceptions
of Muhammad and Islam. Dimmock
makes some useful observations, but there
is no clear thesis or narrative to the essay,
nor does he ever define what he means by
"early Christian." His approach is also critically
superficial and flat, citing multiple
texts in succession without any discussion
of the author, audience, or circumstances
of composition.
Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield's editors'
introduction to the book provides
some useful historical and textual background
by introducing several moments
and works that shaped Christian perceptions
of Jews and Muslims. The introduction
succeeds in its goal of demonstrating
the sense of a shared tradition between the
three faiths, but more attention could be
given to the antagonism between the faiths,
particularly the rash of exiles and pogroms
suffered by the Jews on the continent. Also
missing is an articulation by the editors of
what distinguishes the early modern period
from others. Continuities and differences
from the Middle Ages deserve to be highlighted
to help the reader make better sense
of the period as a whole and appreciate the
larger importance of the volume to studies
of the three faiths.
More problematic is the editors' contention
that the self-other binary model is "naïve
and reductive" (15). This suggests that
scholars who employ the self-other dichotomy
do so uncritically and without nuance,
and that the approach in these essays is
ground breaking. Yet one struggles to think
of recent scholarship on perceptions and
relations between the faiths that ignores the
limits of the self and other model or fails
to probe the gray areas between the poles.
One also struggles to find studies that do
not use the self-other binary as a starting or
a central point. It is still a valid model that
speaks to scholars who regularly encounter
more hostile than tolerant rhetoric about
the other in their sources. Indeed, every
essay in Religions of the Book cites multiple
sources that affirm the self-other model,
even as they strive to show moments of cooperation,
respect, or exchange. If the editors
have found an alternative to a self and
other model, whether nuanced or naïve, it
is not apparent in the introduction or the
essays.
The afterword by Jerry Brotton notes
the scholarly work that remains to be done
on a range of sources from all three traditions.
Indeed, no single scholar or essay
collection can hope to capture the panorama
and complexity of perceptions, let alone
interactions of the three faiths. Brotton also
wisely cautions readers about the dangers of
oversimplifying moments of seeming tolerance
and openness, not the least of which
is a tendency among British and American
scholars to celebrate all things Ottoman in
the Renaissance while ignoring the harsher
realities of government by imperial theocracy.
One shortcoming of this afterword is
the peremptory discussion of recent scholarship,
but Brotton succeeds in closing the
work with some very good questions for
further study.
Despite some of its shortcomings, this is
a welcome collection of essays on a diverse
range of subjects. The editors are to be congratulated
for bringing them all together in
this thought provoking publication.
Nancy Bisaha, Vassar College