Böcker av Matt Goldish

Scholarship has generally viewed the Salem judges as credulous, cruel, or stupid but this book makes the case that the strong intellectual background of the judges at the Salem witch trials was the major reason that they were prepared to accept spectral evidence and touch tests, and to condemn so many accused witches. Many histories of the Salem witch-trials have focused on the accusers and the accused. The judges, however, were the valve which regulated which accusations would be accepted in evidence. Several of the judges--Stoughton, Winthrop and Sewell in particular--had exceptionally strong intellectual backgrounds. The judges' close advisors, the Boston ministers, Increase and Cotton Mather notable among them, were some of Massachusetts Bay colony's most learned men. Why, then, were the judges and ministers not more liberal or enlightened in their treatment of accused witches? This book argues it was because they were steeped an intellectual tradition which insisted that scientists and philosophers must believe in the reality of an invisible world, which included witches. The fear was that the philosophy of Descartes and certain interpretations of natural philosophy (science) would lead to the association of science and philosophy with atheism and heresy. Exponents of this group often expressed their fears in some form of the dictum: no witches, no invisible world, no God. The chapters uncover the work of the Cambridge Platonists Henry More and Joseph Glanville, but included other leading members of the Royal Society and major thinkers, who launched an attack on contemporary authors (whom they called "Sadducees") who cast doubt on witch beliefs or doctrines of the afterlife. Their work included the collecting of witch stories from all over, to create a proof de consensus gentium that witches are not only real, but present an existential danger to society. Matt Goldish argues that those judges and ministers involved in the Salem witch-trials were heavily influenced by this tradition and explains their zealous treatment of the accused. Specters, Science, and Skepticism in Salem is essential reading for students and scholars of the history of the Salem witch-trials and the history of witchcraft more broadly.

In Jewish Questions, Matt Goldish introduces English readers to the history and culture of the Sephardic dispersion through an exploration of forty-three responsa--questions about Jewish law that Jews asked leading rabbis, and the rabbis' responses. The questions along with their rabbinical decisions examine all aspects of Jewish life, including business, family, religious issues, and relations between Jews and non-Jews. Taken together, the responsa constitute an extremely rich source of information about the everyday lives of Sephardic Jews. The book looks at questions asked between 1492--when the Jews were expelled from Spain--and 1750. Originating from all over the Sephardic world, the responsa discuss such diverse topics as the rules of conduct for Ottoman Jewish sea traders, the trials of an ex-husband accused of a robbery, and the rights of a sexually abused wife. Goldish provides a sizeable introduction to the history of the Sephardic diaspora and the nature of responsa literature, as well as a bibliography, historical background for each question, and short biographies of the rabbis involved. Including cases from well-known communities such as Venice, Istanbul, and Saloniki, and lesser-known Jewish enclaves such as Kastoria, Ragusa, and Nablus, Jewish Questions provides a sense of how Sephardic communities were organized, how Jews related to their neighbors, what problems threatened them and their families, and how they understood their relationship to God and the Jewish people.

The tale of Shabbatai and his prophets has mainly been explored by specialists in Jewish mysticism. Goldish shifts the focus of Sabbatean studies from the theology of Lurianic Kabbalah to widespread 17th-century belief in latter-day prophecy, integrating this messianic movement into the early modern world, making its story accessible to readers.