milieu of Iberian New Christians returning to Judaism in the sixteenth centu-
ry. The broader setting for the story was the Spanish Atlantic world. Yet at the
same time, the author and his book were connected to the Protestant and
English milieux. Indeed, one could say that the English version ofOrı ́gen de los
Americanoswas a different book altogether, so different was its reception in
England, where it caused a major stir.^29 English theological interest in Mon-
tezinos’s story was huge.^30
Shortly after Montezinos testified in 1644 in Amsterdam about his en-
counter with the hidden tribes in the mountains of South America, Ben-Israel
was “bombarded” by Christian scholars “from all parts of Europe” with inqui-
ries about his story. English scholars, with whom Ben-Israel—a rabbi of great
fame among both Jews and Christians—had been in contact for some time,
were particularly interested in Montezinos’s report.^31 A small circle of English
and Dutch philo-Judaists, who were highly interested in signs of the impend-
ing mass conversion of the Jews, engaged Ben-Israel in dialogue over many
theological and scholarly matters; they considered him, quite rightly, the father
of Judeo-Christian friendship.
Born in 1604 to a converso family who escaped Portugal and settled in
Amsterdam, where he became a rabbi, Ben-Israel made a name for himself
among Christian Hebraists and scholars as the “chief Doctor of the Jews.”^32
Hope of Israelcame as a result of Ben-Israel’s correspondence with John Dury
(Durie) ( 1597 – 1680 ), a “chaplain at The Hague,” and Nathaniel Holmes (or
Homes; 1599 – 1678 ), a “notorious millenarian” who had a career at Oxford and
served as a minister in London. Both independently wrote to Ben-Israel and
asked about the ten tribes in Jewish theology and thought. They were interest-
ed to know what the “Jewish Divine” had to say about Montezinos’s story—that
is, about the ten tribes in America.^33
There was an immediate reason for that correspondence. In 1648 , Thomas
Thorowgood ( 1595 – 1669 ), a Puritan minister from Norfolk, had circulated a
manuscript that argued that the ten tribes were in America. His was probably
the first comprehensive treatise on the subject in English.^34 Thorowgood was
not interested in the geographic problems that concerned the Spanish scholars
but rather in the possibility of converting the Native Americans to Christiani-
ty.^35 Thorowgood had read about the successes of another Puritan, John Eliot
( 1604 – 1690 ), in converting the Native Americans. For Thorowgood, this was
proof that a distant Jewish past was still present in America.^36 If the Indians
were the descendants of the ten tribes, he reasoned, that would explain why it
was easy to carry out missionary work among them. Note the Puritan emphasis
on “cultural grooming” and “civilizing” as an integral part of conversion to
Christianity. Having an Israelite past, as the ten tribes did, would help to
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