early modern period, the sources of knowledge changed dramatically, to almost
exclusively Christian. These sources are newer—much newer—and are based
on observations of the world, not on divine revelation or inspiration.
In Abraham Farissol’scosmographiafrom the 1520 s, notations on the ten
tribes drew on Talmudic sources, though his information on other issues was
based on new gentile geographies; indeed, his brilliance lay in placing Talmu-
dic geography in the context of the global geography of his time. (Recall his
rejoicing that gentile geography seemed to be accepting Jewish notions of the
tribes’ existence and location.) Just over a century later, Ben-Israel’s 1650 Hope
of Israel—while referencing Talmudic sources and biblical exegeses—placed
the weight of geographic authority on the contemporary gentile geography to
which Farissol had alluded. Another century later, though, in Lampronti’s
Fiume Sabbatico,the Talmudic sources have disappeared altogether. By the
1750 s, Lampronti’s entry on the ten tribes pretty much ignored them.^25 Over
two centuries, the transformation was complete: by the late eighteenth century,
the overwhelming majority of opinions on the tribes were generated by non-
Jewish sources. This gradual shift does not mean that the original biblical and
Talmudic sources had lost their authority, nor that the ten tribes had lost their
special place in Jewish thinking. Rather, what these changes reflect is the
decline in their relevance for this particular debate. After nearly three centuries
of dramatic transformations in geographical writing and thinking, the new
world geography increasingly ruled the day.
This posed one problem: while earlier Jewish sources enjoyed the authori-
ty of scripture and divine inspiration, these much later geographies did not.
Perhaps this accounts for the fact that the final section of Lampronti’s treatise
resorts to reaffirming the most basic Jewish belief that the ten tribes were to
remain hidden until the end of days, when they would reunite with the rest of
the Jews. It is as if he was troubled by the emergence of the ten tribes as a
geographic and secular (or at least gentile) mystery and wanted to remind both
himself and his readers that whatever others might be debating about the
tribes and their location, what the Jews really ought to do is to stick to the
prophecy promising their return. This reunion, he assures his readers, is going
to be the work of God, not of modern geography, and will happen “according
principally to the prophecy of Ezekiel in chapter 37 ”(principalmente di quella
d’Ezechiel cap. 37 ).^26 Ezekiel 37 consists of the so-called dry bones vision, in
which God orders the prophet to take two sticks and write upon them the
names of Judah and Ephraim: “Join them one to another into one stick; and
they shall become one in thine hand.” And indeed, the two sticks become one.
“Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither
they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their
lu
(lu)
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