The Christian Hebraism of John Donne: Written with the Fingers of Man's Hand

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research for this book was supported by the following sources: a grant from the Office of the Dean, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University in 1998; a fellowship from the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies (CAJS) at the University of Pennsylvania in January–February 2000; two grants from the Israel Science Foundation (grants no. 846/02 and 1538/04) in 2002–2005; and a James. M. Osborn Fellowship in English Literature and History at the Beinecke Library, Yale University in January–February 2005. I would like to thank: my many colleagues from the John Donne Society, for a stimulating intellectual and collegial environment ; my colleagues from Ben-Gurion University—Chaim Cohen, Mayer I. Gruber, Howard Kreisel, Daniel Lasker and Yishai Tobin—with whom I consulted in my study of the intellectual and linguistic background of the medieval Jewish exegetes; Father David Nyhouse from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem for his assistance in locating Latin material; Seth Jerchower from CAJS for his assistance with the Complutensian Polyglot; the editor of this series, Albert C. Labriola, and Duquesne University Press Director Susan Wadsworth-Booth for their generous encouragement and editorial expertise throughout the preparation of the manuscript. Sadly, during the preparation of this book for publication , Professor Labriola passed away. He was to the utmost a gentleman and a scholar, and will be greatly missed. May his memory be blessed. I would also like to thank an anonymous Acknowledgments ix reviewer of my manuscript, who realized the image of the “ideal reader” in an invaluable response to my work. I would like to thank the Beneicke Library of Yale University for access to the Evelyn Simpson Papers, in the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University (OSB MSS 90). Simpson’s daughter, Mary Fleay, has graciously given me permission to quote extensively from her mother’s correspondence and papers. I have not been able to locate the holders of copyright for the letters of various scholars with whom Evelyn Simpson corresponded: David Capell Simpson, George Reuben Potter, Don Cameron Allen and Otto Lehman. If these heirs are located, future editions of this book will be corrected. Lastly, I would like to thank Cathy Keating, First Lady of the State of Oklahoma in 1995, for her help in obtaining copies of the various speeches made during the “A Time of Healing” prayer service, as well as Rabbi David Packman for a printed copy of his remarks. Diverse material from earlier essays have been included in several places: portions of the discussion of Christian Hebraism (introduction and chapter 1) and the discussion of the sermons on the Penitential Psalm 6:1 and 6:6–7 (chapter 2) are from “From ‘Tav’ to the Cross: John Donne’s Protestant Exegesis,” in John Donne and the Protestant Reformation: New Perspectives, ed. Mary Arshagouni Papazian, copyright © 2003, Wayne State University Press, with the permission of Wayne State University Press; portions of my essay “High Holy Muse” appear in a further discussion of the sermon in the Penitential Psalm 6:6–7 (chapter 2); and portions of my essay “The Presence of Abraham Ibn Ezra in Seventeenth-Century England” appear in the discussion of “The Literal Sense: Moralized Grammar” (chapter 4). I would like to thank Wayne State University Press, Ben-Gurion University Press (“High Holy Muse”) and Heldref Publications (“The Presence of Abraham Ibn Ezra”) for permission to include passages from these essays. The “Appendix: Hebrew and Aramaic Texts” cites passages from the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud and x Acknowledgments medieval Jewish exegetes; all of these texts are considered to be in the public domain. Finally, I would like to thank the following for their generous assistance in providing funding for the research and publication of this book: Professor Avishai Henik, former dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University; Professor Mark Gelber, as department chair, and the Conrad and Chinita Abrahams-Curiel Fund of the Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, Ben-Gurion University; Professor Moshe Justman, dean of the Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Ben-Gurion University; and Professor Rivkah Carmi, president, Ben-Gurion University. ...