as Postel and Ge ́nebrard, and Spanish writers such as Jose ́de Acosta and
Gregorio Garcı ́a. With respect to geography, the list included contemporary
geographers and cosmographers from the Jewish Abraham Farissol to Abra-
ham Ortelius and many others. Ben-Israel also included Jewish chroniclers
such as Joseph ha-Kohen ( 1496 – 1575 ) and Azariah Dei Rossi, whose works are
considered the earliest examples of modern Jewish historiography, and also
Josephus, the last Jewish historian before the early modern period.^50
The inclusion of these historians was significant and bespoke a highly
inclusive approach: “And because I intend a continuation of Josephus’History
of the Jews,our famous historian; I entreat, and beseech all Learned men, in
what of the World soever they live (to whom I hope that shortly this Discourse
will come) that if they have any thing worthy of posterity, that they would give
me notice of it in time,” asks Ben-Israel.^51 The request that every learned man
in the world send materials on Jews to Ben-Israel is very revealing.Hope of
Israelwas only one chapter in a “world history” of the Jews that meant to pick
up where Josephus left off. Quite significantly, the circumstances within which
this Jewish world history was conceived and produced involved an intense
dialogue about the ten tribes. In fact, the history of the ten tribes, as recorded in
Hope of Israel,was the very first chapter of the comprehensive Jewish history
that Ben-Israel planned to write, but never completed.
Ben-Israel’s request that all learned men from all parts of the world, not
necessarily only Jews, send him materials relevant to this Jewish history he
envisions further accentuates the inclusive drive of his project and his
desire to have as knowledgeable a common ground for it as possible. The
theological common ground upon whichHope of Israelrested was sufficiently
vague so that Christian readers could interpret it according to their own theologi-
cal considerations. On the other hand, the geographical common ground was
simply presented as one whole. Following the story of Montezinos, with which
the book itself opened, the geographical trajectory tracing the ten tribes that Ben-
Israel presented to his readers followed all sources of Jewish and other nations
alike, resulting in a rich jigsaw puzzle of world geography in relation to prophecy.
Ben-Israel seems to have left no writer, prophet, or traveler unmentioned, nor any
place unspecified. In this regard, he gave new and concrete meaning to Isaiah’s
prophecy of the return and, more important, presented a potent tool, perhaps
even a method, for further accommodation of prophecy and geography. The
global aspects of Isaiah’s prophecies, discussed at length in the second chapter
of this book, came to life forcefully inHope of Israel,which quoted this particular
prophet more than anyone else. But whereas Isaiah’s world was the world created
by Assyrian imagery, Ben-Israel’s Isaiah now referenced a much larger one. In
discussing the various possible paths the tribes took to the America, he wrote:
lu
(lu)
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