Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median and Mode
Puritans and Jews
1. PURITANS WERE MORE JEWISH THAN
PROTESTANTS
Hugh Fogelman
A Puritan is a name often misunderstood. During the
17th century English Civil War (known as the Puritan
Revolution), the Puritans were Protestant fundamentalists
who wished to “purify” the Church of England. Some of the
Puritans, known as Separatists “separated,” forming their own
church. The Puritans felt that Parliament, and not the King,
should have the final say and that the moral guidance for all
legal decision should come from the Jewish Bible which they
considered to be the highest authority in all matters.
The Puritans were obsessed with the Bible and came to
identify their political struggle against England with that of
the ancient Hebrews against Pharaoh or the King of Babylon.
Because they identified so strongly with ancient Israel, they
chose to identify with the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible).
(World Book Encyclopedia & Encyclopaedia Judaica) In 1620,
the “Separatists” sailed for America on the Mayflower. The
Separatists/Puritans who settled at Plymouth Colony called
themselves “Pilgrims” because of their wanderings in search of
religious freedom. The Puritan culture of New England was
marked from the outset by a deep association with Jewish
themes. No Christian community in history identified more
with the Israelites of the Bible than did the first generations of
settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed their
own lives to be a literal reenactment of the biblical drama of
the chosen people―they were the children of Israel and the
ordinances of God’s Holy covenant by which they lived were
His divine law. Since they viewed themselves as the persecuted
victims of the sinful Christian establishment of the Old
World (England), the Puritans also had a natural sympathy for
the Jews of their own time. The Protestant Puritan leader
Cotton Mather repeatedly referred to the Jews in his prayer for
2. their conversion as God's "Beloved People.” The New
Israel―The influence of the Hebrew Bible marks every step of
the Puritan exodus to their Zion in the wilderness of the New
World. The Jewish Bible formed their minds and dominated
their characters; its conceptions were their conceptions.
The "Separatists,” ready to depart from England for the new
land, fasted in a manner reminiscent of the fasts held by the
Israelites before any new undertaking. Their Pastor Robertson
read I Samuel 23:3-4 and then they sailed to the New
Canaan in America. The biblical basis for this procedure is
manifest; just as the ancient Israelites prayed and fasted
before undertaking an uncertain venture, so did the Puritans.
And once settled in America, the custom was retained and
frequently renewed. Early in 1620, the very year of the
Pilgrims' landing in the new Plymouth, a solemn day of prayer
was observed; Pastor Robinson spoke, again quoting from I
Samuel 23:3-4, by which he strove to ease their fears and
strengthen their determination. This custom, combining prayer
and fasting with biblical readings on momentous occasions,
persisted and as late as 1800, President Adams likewise called
a national day of prayer and fasting.
The next major group of Puritan settlers to arrive in New
England (1630) was headed by John Winthrop (1588–1649)
and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were ruled
initially by an elite of leading Puritan families - since the
colony itself was based on biblical principles and was moved by
the Puritan spirit of the Scriptures—was the Holy Jewish
Bible. The Puritans wholeheartedly believed that it was their
special mission to establish in America a society precisely
modeled on the precepts of Sacred Jewish Scriptures. The
Massachusetts Bay Colony was at the very least a state
inspired by and thoroughly devoted to the Jewish Bible. "If we
keep this covenant," Governor John Winthrop assured his
people, "we shall find that the God of Israel is among us, but if
we deal falsely with our God... we be consumed out of the good
3. land whither we are going." The Jewish covenant concept was
thus the bedrock of all Puritan religious communities.
When the Puritans, a bitterly persecuted people by the English
government, reached America, they drew clear analogies
between themselves and the Jews of antiquity. They constantly
referred to the Hebrew Bible, renewing the similarities to their
own experience, so that its philosophy and spirit came to
permeate their lives. Also, like Israel of old, the Pilgrims (and
their fellow Puritan counterparts) regarded them-selves as the
elect of God, so that throughout the Revolutionary War they
visualized their enemies as Amalekites or Philistines. And in a
manner reminiscent of the traditional Jewish Passover night,
the Pilgrims too memorialized their passage into freedom. In
searching the Scriptures for readings pertinent to their own
situation, the Puritans readily discovered the general
similarity between themselves and the ancient Israelites, and
proceeded to draw from it some very particular conclusions.
They firmly believed that the Hebrew prophets were speaking
to them as directly as they had spoken to the Israelites. Thus
the history of the Israelites as related in the Bible served,
according to the ministers of the day, as a mirror in which the
Puritans could see their own activities reflected. Still
considering themselves as Christian Protestants, the Puritans
related to the Israelites and their Jewish belief for their
fundamental “grounding.
In this respect they differed sharply from the majority of
traditional Christian theologies. To the Puritans the primary
lesson of the Old Testament was that a nation as well as an
individual could enter into a covenant with God. The Puritans
reasoned in America the concept of the covenant would assume
new dimensions. Once they reached the colonies a new factor
entered into the matter of the covenant. In this New Israel the
Puritans established a completely new society based solely
upon the Jewish concept of a covenant between God and man.
Thus the Puritans made certain of the biblical system they
4. wished to establish in the New World. When, during a
convention of Puritan ministers at Boston on May 26, 1698,
they confirmed the belief that "under the Old Testament, the
Church was constituted by a covenant." Because of this
concept, the Puritan Church was notruled by a formal and
rigid papal hierarchy but derived its direction immediately
from God, ruled by His word as revealed in the sacred Jewish
Scriptures.
The Bible was in all circumstances and for all occasions the
ultimate source of knowledge and precedent. The Jewish Bible
was the inspired word of God which was for them a matter of
absolute conviction, and, hence, indisputable. Accordingly,
failure to abide by the strict reading and literal interpretation
of the Scriptures was severely punished: If any "Christian, so
called,” spoke contemptuously of the Scripture, or the holy
penmen thereof, they were to be punished by fine or whipping.
Laws were also passed punishing those who violated the
Sabbath. Laws and regulations adopted by them, which, at the
present day, are stigmatized as singularities, were in many
instances, the legitimate fruits of their strict adherence to the
teaching of the Bible.
Most of the official acts of the colonies were determined by the
Jewish Scriptures. One of these, the Connecticut Code of 1650,
adopted a near Mosaic form of government. Its fifteen Capital
Laws, Pentateuchal citations and language are later found in
the Massachusetts Code of 1660. The guide of
early Connecticut was Thomas Hooker, a man deeply touched
by the Bible and its spirit, and called by some "the founder of
American democracy." He wrote in a letter (1648) to Governor
Winthrop of Massachusetts on the subject of liberty under the
law: Sit liber judex, as the lawyers speak. Deuteronomy 17:10–
11: "Thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform,
according to the sentence of the law. Thou shalt seek that Law
at his mouth: not ask what his discretion allows, but what the
Law requires." The Puritans' incorporated the Mosaic code and
5. injunctions from the Old Testament into their own legal
framework. It is worthy of note that fully half of the statutes in
the Code of 1655 for the New Haven colony contained
references to or citations from the Old Testament,
while only three percentreferred to the New Testament.
Accordingly, the first settlers in New England called
themselves "Christian Israel." Comparison of the Puritan
leaders with the great leaders of ancient Israel—especially
Moses and Joshua—were common. So the names of Daniel,
Jonathan, Esther, Enoch, Ezra, Rachel and a host of others
were in constant use among the Puritans. Interestingly
enough, there was a conspicuous absence of the names of
Christian saints. Names of cities, towns and settlements
likewise derived from Hebraic sources. This widespread use of
biblical names, however, was not confined to the naming of
offspring, cities and towns - names of many biblical heights
were eventually bestowed upon the great mountains
of America. Mount Carmel and Mount Horeb, home of the
Prophets, were popular names, as was Mount Nebo, the final
resting place of Moses. Names
like Mount Ephraim, MountGilead, Mount
Hermon, Mount Moriah, Mount Pisgah, were all popular as
well. Some mountains in the New World were even
called Mt. Sinai, Mount Zion and Mount Olive. .
.
Puritan obsession with the Bible led them to try and
incorporate many aspects of the Jewish commandments into
their lifestyle based on their literal interpretation of Hebraic
laws. One of the most significant was the concept of the
Sabbath as a day of rest and meditation. Puritan Sabbath
observance began at sundown and no work of any kind, even
household chores, was allowed for the next 24-hours. Sabbath
observance was strictly monitored by local officials.
In summary: The majority of the earliest settlers were
Puritans from England. Unlike their cousins back home, these
6. American Puritans strongly identified with both the historical
traditions and customs of the ancient Hebrews of the Old
Testament. They viewed their emigration from England as a
virtual re-enactment of the Jewish exodus
from Egypt: England was Egypt, the English king was
Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean their Red Sea, America was
the Land of Israel, and the Indians were the ancient
Canaanites. They were the new Israelites, entering into a new
covenant with God in a new Promised Land.
These settlers found themselves in a New World which had no
existing laws or govern-ment. Their first task, therefore, was to
create a legal framework for their communities and the first
place they looked for guidance was the Hebrew Bible. Thus
most of the early legislation of the colonies of New
England was determined by Scripture. The most extreme
example was the Connecticut Code of 1650 which created a
form of fundamentalist government based almost entirely on
Jewish law using numerous citations from the Bible. The same
held true for the code of New Haven and many other colonies.
At the first assembly of New Haven in 1639, John Davenport
clearly declared the primacy of the Bible as the legal and moral
foundation of the colony: "Scriptures do hold forth a perfect
rule for the direction and government of all men in all duties
which they are to perform to God and men as well as in the
government of families and commonwealth as in matters of the
church ... the Word of God shall be the only rule to be attended
unto in organizing the affairs of government in this
plantation."
Thanksgiving which has evolved into a national day of
feasting and celebration was initially conceived by the
Pilgrims, in 1621, as a day similar to the Jewish Sukkot, the
holiday of joy as told in Leviticus 23:40. It was for the Puritans
and is for the Jews a day of great joy because it was the time
of the year for the gathering grain and fruits from their fields
into their homes. A time for introspection and prayer, because
7. it was God, not man who allowed the first
harvest.
Notes
1. H. B. Alexander, "The Hebrew Contribution to the Americanism of the Future"
in: The Menorah Journal, VI, no. 2 (1920), 65–66.
2. W. De-Loss Love, Jr., The Fast and Thanksgiving Days (1895), 61–62.
3. Cf. S. Morgan, "Responsibilities of a Puritan Parent," More Books: The Bulletin of
the Boston Public Library, XVII, no. 4 (1942), 141–159.
4. S. Broches, Jews in New England (1942), 4–6.
5. J. Davis, New England's Memorial (1669), 36.
6. C. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702), III, 100; cf., Appendix, Bay Psalm
Book.
7. P. Miller, The New England Mind (1939), 475.
8. Ibid., 477.
9. I. Mather, The Order of the Gospels (1700), 30.
10. P. Miller and T. H. Johnson, The Puritans (1938), 49, 54.
11. J. Banvard, Plymouth and the Pilgrims (1856), 204, 231–2.
12. R. Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (1700), 152.
13. P.M. Simms, The Bible in America (1936), 337–342.
14. L. I. Newman, Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements (1925), 641.
15. P. Masserman and M. Baker, The Jews Come to America (1932), 69.
16. C. Mather, op. cit. I, 109–110.
17. J. Davis, op. cit., 272.
18. G. R. Stewart, Names on the Land (1945), 123 ff.
19. C. E. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the
Revelation, 1600–1688 (1931), 445 ff.
20. C. Mather, op. cit. I, 63.
21. G. R. Stewart, loc. cit.
22. L. M. Friedman, Jewish Pioneers and Patriots (1942), 96.
23. Sivan, Gabriel, The Bible and Civilization, Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House,
1973, p. 236.
24. Katsh, Abraham I., The Biblical Heritage of American Democracy, New York: p.
97. Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1977, Chapter 3 & 5.