The issue of the Jews deeply engaged Milton throughout his career, and not necessarily in ways that make for comfortable or reassuring reading today. While Shakespeare and Marlowe, for example,
critiqued rather than endorsed racial and religious prejudice in their writings about Jews, the same cannot be said for Milton. The scholars in this collection confront a writer who
participated in the sad history of anti-Semitism, even as he appropriated Jewish models throughout his writings. Well grounded in solid historical and theological research, the essays both
collectively and individually offer an important contribution to the debate on Milton and Judaism, and will inspire new directions in Milton studies. This book will be of interest not only to
scholars of Milton and of seventeenth-century literature, but also to historians of the religion and culture of the period.