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[An 18th Century Jewish response to Paine, distributed by a Jewish bookseller, owned by the first American Kosher Butcher] Levi, David [Paine, Thomas; Solomon Etting] : A DEFENCE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT: IN A SERIES OF LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THOMAS PAINE, AUTHOR OF A BOOK ENTITLED, "THE AGE OF REASON…” [DEFENSE]

New York : Printed by William A. Davis, for Naphtali Judah, 1797

1st edition. Original leather boards. 12mo, 240 pages. 17 cm. Singerman 114. ESTC W20118; Evans 32376. Printed for Naphtali Judah, one of the earliest prominent Jewish booksellers in America; This copy owned by Solomon Etting, the first American Shochet (Kosher butcher), with his signature and “Baltimore” penned on the title page in a period hand. Solomon Etting (1764-1847) , was a "businessman, political figure, and Jewish civic rights leader [who] became a shohet at the age of 18, the first American Jew to serve in this capacity….Solomon subsequently became a banker, a shipper, a founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and an important businessman. He was prominent in the Baltimore Republican Society, a Jeffersonian political club. He was a leader in the defense of Baltimore against the British in the War of 1812, during which his 18-year-old son Samuel was wounded in the battle at nearby Fort McHenry. Etting was a ‘manager’ of the Maryland State Colonization Society, which sought to promote the resettlement of blacks [sic] in Africa. Etting was active in the Baltimore German Society and served as its vice president from 1820 to 1840….In 1801 he purchased land for a Jewish cemetery in Baltimore. He also led in the struggle for Jewish civic rights, opposing the Maryland law requiring of officeholders a Christian oath. As early as 1797 [this year of this publication] he appealed to the State Legislature on behalf of a ‘sect of people called Jews, deprived of invaluable rights of citizenship and praying to be placed on the same footing as other good citizens.’ This petition initiated a three-decade struggle, which ended successfully in 1826. Soon thereafter, Etting served as a Baltimore councilman. Solomon Etting's second wife was the daughter of the prominent leader Barnard Gratz" (EJ, 2007). This copy also bears the later booklate of an institution founded by members of the Gratz family, so we presume this marriage to have played a part in the book’s sojourn there. British-Jewish scholar David Levi's (1742-1801) defense of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) against rationalist critiques of scriptural authority by none other than American patriot Thomas Paine. Paine made the attack in his in his 1793 work "The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology" 4 years earlier, and Levi's responses are addressed directly and defiantly to Paine himself. This work is unusual in that most religious defenders of the Bible against Paine were Christian, while Levi is of course Jewish. In fact, Levi is considered the first Jewish writer to theologically defend Judaism as such in English. A copy lacking any significant provenance sold at auction in 2021 for over $2750. SUBJECT(S): Bible. Old Testament -- Apologetic works. OCLC: 3108953. Blindstamp to title page, which has been archivally repaired at gutter. 19th Century spine (added later) very worn, lacking top inch of backstrip (spine covering) and hinges showing through front and back. Internally, quality paper and binding remain bright and strong. About Good- Condition overall. (AMR-70-6)

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