In the second half of the sixteenth century, humanists and Calvinists created a unique text genre, the so-called politia judaica-literature, that was centered around the model of the ancient Jewish polity and the political laws of Moses. Markus M. Totzeck, for the first time, surveys the beginnings, the first works, and early writers of the politia judaica-literature. The author examines the decisive ancient traditions and sources, and shows that the model of the Mosaic polity influenced early-modern political thinking, especially in the seventeenth century.
J.F. Gerhard Goeters Award for the History of Reformed Protestantism 2017.
