Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

66 THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
Christianity's highly developed tradition of chronicles nor Islamic historical
literature appealed to rabbinical Judaism, which, with rare exceptions, refused
to examine either its near or distant past. 4 The chronological sequence of
events in secular time was alien to exilic time—a condition of constant alertness,
attuned to the longed-for moment when the Messiah would appear. The
distant past was a dim memory that ensured his corning.
Some sixteen centuries would pass before Jacques Basnage, a Normandyborn
Huguenot theologian who settled in Rotterdam, undertook to continue
the project of the Judean-born historian who had settled in Rome. The History
of the Jews from Jesus Christ to the Present Time, Being a Supplement and
Continuation of the History of Josephus was written in the early eighteenth
century by this Protestant scholar, mainly as an attack on the detested Church
of Rome. 5 In this work, as in that of Josephus, writing about the past was
designed to serve moral and religious purposes; it was not a work of research
in the modern sense, and uses scarcely any Jewish documents.
Designed to extend the work of Josephus, Basnage's book does not begin
with Genesis, though obviously as a devout theologian he did not doubt the
veracity of that biblical prologue. Indeed, following Martin Luther in the
sixteenth century, it was the Protestants who gave the Old Testament the
greater importance and prestige, noticeable especially in the Anglican Church
and its dissidents. But like most critics of the Catholic Church, Basnage did not
draw an unbroken line from the ancient Hebrews to the Jewish communities
of his time. He thought that the Old Testament belonged to all the offspring
of the "Children of Israel," a term that embraced the Christians no less, and
perhaps more, than the Jews, inasmuch as Christendom was the "true Israel."
While applying the term "nation" to the Jews, he did not intend its modern
connotation, and he discussed their history mainly as a sect persecuted for
its refusal to accept Christ as the savior. Basnage, who wrote about them with
4 Chronicles similar to that of Josephus generally began with the Creation, the rise of
King David and the reign of Josiah, then proceeded to Jesus and the Apostles, going on to
the rise of the Christianized Frankish kings. See, for example, Gregory of Tours, The History
of the Franks, London: Penguin Classics, 1976. It is worth noting that a work imitating that
of Josephus appeared in the tenth century CE, Sefer Yosiphon, Jerusalem: Bialik, 1974 (in
Hebrew), Rabbi Ahimaaz's genealogy, Megillat Ahimaaz (Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1974 [in
Hebrew]), appeared in the eleventh century. Shorter chronicles describing the tribulations
of the Jews began to appear in the twelfth century. On the lack of Jewish historiography,
see also Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory, Washington,
University of Washington Press, 2005.
5 Jacques Basnage, Histoire de la religion des juifs, depuis Jésus-Christ jusqu'à present:
Pour servir de supplément et de continuation à l'histoire de Josèphe, Den Haag: Henry
Scheurleer, 1706-7.