Katz, David S. 1953-

PERSONAL:

Born January 24, 1953, in New York, NY; son of Edward M. and Phyllis S. Katz; married Sarah P. Kochav, August 20, 1978 (divorced, March 21, 2002); married Amy E. Singer, September 24, 2002; children: Dana, Raphael, Ilana. Education: Columbia University, B.A., 1974; Oxford University, B.Phil., 1976, Ph.D., 1978. Hobbies and other interests: Fountain pens.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Tel-Aviv University, Department of History, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.

CAREER:

Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel, lecturer, 1978-82, senior lecturer, 1982-87, associate professor, 1987-90, professor, department of history, 1990—, Abraham Horodisch chair for the History of Books, 1994—. Military service: Israel Defense Forces Reserve, Captain.

MEMBER:

Jewish Historical Society of England, Israel Historical Society, British Society for Jewish Studies, Israel Society for the Study of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (founding member), Ecclesiastical History Society, British Society for the History of Philosophy, Royal Historical Society of England (fellow), European Association for Jewish Studies.

WRITINGS:

Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603-1655, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1982.

Sabbath and Sectarianism in Seventeenth-Century England, E.J. Brill (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor, with Jonathan I. Israel) Sceptics, Millenarians, and Jews, E.J. Brill (New York, NY), 1990.

(Editor, with Yosef Kaplan) Gerush ve-shivah: Yehude Angliyah be-Hilufe ha-Zemanim (title means "Exile and Return: Anglo-Jewry through the Ages"), Israel Historical Society (Jerusalem, Israel), 1993.

The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1994.

(With Richard H. Popkin) Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1998.

(Editor, with James E. Force) Everything Connects: Essays in Honor of Richard H. Popkin, E.J. Brill (Boston, MA), 1998.

God's Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2004.

The Occult Tradition: From the Renaissance to the Present Day, Jonathan Cape (London, England), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

David S. Katz's long and productive academic career as a historian has focused on the often tenuous position of Jews in the history of England, particularly in the seventeenth century, when Oliver Cromwell raised the possibility of officially readmitting Jews after centuries of exclusion. This is the central topic of Katz's first book, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603-1655. In it, Katz tells the story of the events leading up to the great Whitehall Conference when Cromwell unsuccessfully proposed lifting the medieval ban of Jews living in England. In noting the events leading up to the Conference, Katz provides anecdotes about Jews unofficially living in England, including the man who opened the first coffee shop in Oxford in 1650 only to be put out of business four years later by another Jew, as well as a Jew who petitioned King James I to be allowed to convert to Christianity. Katz also brings to life Christian Judiazers who kept the Saturday Sabbath and circumcised themselves, as well as the British Christians who opposed Cromwell's petition. Blair Worden of the London Review of Books called Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603-1655 a "remarkable study," and W.M. Lamont of the Times Literary Supplement wrote, "This is a splendid first book on an important theme."

In Katz's next book, Sabbath and Sectarianism in Seventeenth-Century England, he delves deeper into the Saturday Sabbatarians, who held that Christians as well as Jews were required to honor the seventh day of the week and follow certain other Mosaic strictures. Reviewing the book in the Times Literary Supplement, Patrick Collinson observed that Katz "provides the first definitive account of the seventeenth-century origins of the seventh-day movement." Nicholas Tyacke wrote in the English Historical Review that Katz "favors intellectual rather than social explanations of the phenomenon" and "does full justice to the important ‘Jewish’ dimension." While some of this group ended by simply converting to Judaism, others did not, and their intellectual descendants can be found among the Seventh-Day Baptists and Adventists.

After coediting Sceptics, Millenarians, and Jews, a group of essays dealing with some of the key figures in the readmission of Jews to England, Katz published The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850. Geoffrey Alderman noted in the English Historical Review that "Professor Katz's volume is carefully titled. His major focus is the role of Jews in English history, rather than in Anglo-Jewish history." Choice reviewer F. Krome wrote that Katz "places the history of the Jews of England squarely within the context of English history," as when Henry VIII sought to enlist Jewish scholars in his quest to divorce Catherine of Aragon. Reviewer James Shapiro wrote in Shakespeare Quarterly: "This, the third and last part of what can retrospectively be seen as Katz's trilogy … brings to a close what will remain for a long time the most important archival investigation of Jews in early modern England." Shapiro added that "Katz's greatest strength is his capacity to untangle long-standing controversial issues," such as the "Jewish Conspiracy" in Elizabethan England and the position of Jews in the Glorious Revolution.

Katz brings these themes of Jewish assimilation and Christian millenarianism forward to the present in Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium, written with Richard Popkin. Confronting apocalyptic movements like the Branch Davidians, "the authors argue convincingly that ‘much of modern religious radicalism can be traced to earlier groups and theologies,’" wrote a reviewer in the Economist. Covering both European origins and American developments, the authors place various apocalyptic prophets, from Paracelsus to David Koresh, clearly in relation to their predecessors and their successors. In doing so, according to a Booklist reviewer, "they provide great insight into the philosophical and theological roots of contemporary movements as diverse as the Mormons, the People's Temple, and the Christian Coalition. Acquaintance with those roots helps in understanding … the social and political conversations those movements inform."

While many volumes focus on the writing of the English Bible, Katz's God's Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism is a study of how it is and has been read. His well-known readers include John Locke and Isaac Newton, and Katz notes how the reading of the English Bible has impacted history. Katz covers the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in greatest detail. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Bible's message was being challenged, and during the eighteenth century, the Bible was considered merely a literary text. In the nineteenth century, readers applied Darwin's theories to their readings and found their modern views very different in comparison. Katz also discusses the ways in which the Sabbath has been observed and how English Bible reading has been impacted by outside influences.

Theological Studies reviewer Roger L. Omanson noted that Katz "clearly sets the contexts for the individuals and movements that he discusses, while he also frequently allows the major figures who played influential roles in the changing attitudes toward the Bible to speak for themselves, quoting entire paragraphs from their writings. Lesser-known persons whose influence was limited but nevertheless influential are also discussed."

Katz emphasizes that when many readers interpret the Bible differently, the result is skepticism and disagreement. An example is when seventeenth-century Christians attempted to resolve the chronology of the Old Testament. Similarly, no amount of research would provide a satisfactory conclusion regarding the number of Israelites who fled Egypt or the size of Noah's ark. In the final section of the book, Katz argues that American fundamentalism represents a return to the literal translation and authority of the Bible. Roger E. Moore wrote in Christian Century: "But the comparison should not be carried too far. Fundamentalism is a contemporary movement that reacts against the secularism and individualism of the modern world; it is not merely a rebirth of sola scriptura." Moore concluded by writing: "Katz's book allows us to see biblical controversies in historical context and affords us important insight into the ways the Bible has transformed, and been transformed by, Western culture."

"Katz's book is intellectual history at its very best and provides some lessons for the present," commented Lawrence S. Cunningham in Commonweal. Cunningham noted that like contemporary fundamentalists who have inherited the principle of sola scriptura, "the readers of the apocalyptic novels so much in vogue today are descendants of sects like the Fifth Monarchy Men, a seventeenth-century group that favored a hallucinatory reading of Scripture. And there are more than one figure in Katz's book who sought consolation in the ‘secret’ Gnostic gospels—a reminder that the cult of Dan Brown and the scholarly effusions of Elaine Pagels are nothing new."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1999, review of Messianic Revolution: Radical Religious Politics to the End of the Second Millennium, p. 1488.

Choice, March, 1995, F. Krome, review of The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850, p. 1189.

Christian Century, July 13, 2004, Roger E. Moore, review of God's Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism, p. 35.

Christianity and Literature, spring, 2005, Michael G. Ditmore, review of God's Last Words, p. 436.

Church History, June, 2005, Peter J. Theusen, review of God's Last Words, p. 378.

Commonweal, September 22, 2006, Lawrence S. Cunningham, review of God's Last Words, p. 33.

Economist, December 4, 1999, review of Messianic Revolution, p. 6.

English Historical Review, October, 1991, Nicholas Tyacke, review of Sabbath and Sectarianism in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 1002-1003; April, 1997, Geoffrey Alderman, review of The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850, pp. 474-475.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, April, 2005, Crawford Gribben, review of God's Last Words, p. 384.

Journal of Theological Studies, April, 2005, P.M. Olivers, review of God's Last Words, p. 267.

Library Journal, March 15, 2004, Augustine J. Curley, review of God's Last Words, p. 83.

London Review of Books, May 20, 1982, Blair Worden, review of Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603-1655, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, January 26, 2004, review of God's Last Words, p. 249.

Shakespeare Quarterly, fall, 1995, James Shapiro, review of The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850, pp. 371-375.

Theological Studies, June, 2006, Roger L. Omanson, review of God's Last Words, p. 435.

Times Literary Supplement, June 4, 1982, W.M. Lamont, review of Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1603-1655, p. 602; February 17-23, 1989, Patrick Collinson, review of Sabbath and Sectarianism in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 155-156.