# Adam Boreel

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Adam_Boreel
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Adam_Boreel.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Boreel
> Source revision: 1331710168
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{Short description|Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar}}
'''Adam Boreel''' (2 November 1602, [Middelburg](/source/Middelburg%2C_Zeeland) &ndash; 20 June 1665, [Sloterdijk, Amsterdam](/source/Sloterdijk%2C_Amsterdam)) was a Dutch [theologian](/source/theologian) and [Hebraist](/source/Hebraist). He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the [Collegiants](/source/Collegiants) were also often called Boreelists.<ref>Andrew Cooper Fix, ''Prophecy and Reason: The Dutch Collegiants in the Early Enlightenment'', Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991, p. 45</ref><ref>Margaret Lewis Bailey, ''[Milton](/source/John_Milton) and [Jakob Boehme](/source/Jakob_B%C3%B6hme), A Study of German Mysticism in Seventeenth Century England'', New York: Haskell House, 1964 (first published 1914), p. 90</ref><ref>[Adriaan Koerbagh](/source/Adriaan_Koerbagh), ''A Light Shining in Dark Places, to Illuminate the Main Questions of Theology and Religion'', Michiel Wielma, ed. & trans., Leiden NLD: Brill, 2011 (originally published in Amsterdam, 1668), p. 12</ref> Others involved in the Collegiants were [William Ames](/source/William_Ames_(Quaker)), [Daniel van Breen](/source/Daniel_van_Breen), [Michiel Coomans](/source/Michiel_Coomans), [Jacob Otto van Halmael](/source/Jacob_Otto_van_Halmael) and the [Mennonite](/source/Mennonite) [Galenus Abrahamsz de Haan](/source/Galenus_Abrahamsz_de_Haan).

==Biography==
Boreel was ordained into the [Dutch Reformed Church](/source/Dutch_Reformed_Church), but broke away. In ''Ad legem et testimonium'' (1645), he argued the [sola scriptura](/source/sola_scriptura) position that no religious authority other than the Bible should be acknowledged.<ref>[http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/encyc/encyc02/htm/iv.v.ccxxix.htm Bornhaeuser, Karl Bernhard]</ref> He was attacked by [Johann Hornbeek](/source/Johann_Hornbeek) (''Apologia pro ecclesia Christiana non apostatica'' 1647), and by [Samuel Maresius](/source/Samuel_Maresius).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.gameo.org/index.asp?content=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gameo.org%2Fencyclopedia%2Fcontents%2FB67410.html |title=GAMEO |access-date=2007-09-29 |archive-date=2007-09-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929101910/http://www.gameo.org/index.asp?content=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gameo.org%2Fencyclopedia%2Fcontents%2FB67410.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Boreel's associates included [Peter Serrarius](/source/Peter_Serrarius), a fellow [millenarian](/source/Millenarianism), [Baruch Spinoza](/source/Baruch_Spinoza), who moved with the Collegiants after exclusion from the Amsterdam Jewish community, and [Henry Oldenburg](/source/Henry_Oldenburg), a correspondent. Boreel was close also to [John Dury](/source/John_Dury). They were a fringe group, but are considered important as representative of the 'Third Force', trying to reconcile religious orthodoxy with scientific [scepticism](/source/scepticism).<ref>[Jonathan Israel](/source/Jonathan_Israel), ''The Dutch Republic'' (1995), pp. 587-591.</ref> In the early 1660s the Collegiants became harder to distinguish from other movements, of [Quaker](/source/Quaker)s, [anti-Trinitarian](/source/anti-Trinitarian)s, and [Socinian](/source/Socinian)s.<ref>Israel, p. 913.</ref> Adam Boreel is reputed to be the author of ''Lucerna Super Candelabrum'' (''[The Light upon the Candlestick](/source/The_Light_upon_the_Candlestick)'', 1663), a mystical text accepted by both the Collegiants and the Quakers.<ref>[William Sewel](/source/William_Sewel), ''The history of the rise, increase, and progress of the Christian people called Quakers'', Third Edition, Philadelphia: Samuel Keimer, 1728 p. 16</ref>

==Interest in Judaism==
Boreel took a close interest in [Judaism](/source/Judaism), working with [Menasseh Ben Israel](/source/Menasseh_Ben_Israel) and [Judah Leon Templo](/source/Judah_Leon_Templo). Among his projects with the latter were a reconstruction of [Solomon's Temple](/source/Solomon's_Temple) and editions of the [Mishnah](/source/Mishnah).<ref>J. T. Young (1998), ''Faith, Alchemy and Natural Philosophy: Johann Moriaen, Reformed Intelligencer, and the Hartlib Circle'', p.47.</ref>

==References==
<references/>

==Sources==
*Ernestine G.E. van der Wall, '''Without Partilitie Towards All Men': John Durie on the Dutch Hebraist Adam Boreel'', pp.&nbsp;145–150 in J. van den Berg and E.G.E. van den der Wall, eds., Jewish-Christian Relations in the Seventeenth Century, Leiden: Kluwer, 1988
*Ernestine van der Wall, ''The Dutch Hebraist Adam Boreel and the Mishnah Project'', LIAS 16. (1989) 239–63, [https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/dspace/bitstream/1887/8260/1/3_908_019.pdf online scan]
*Robert Iliffe, ''Jesus Nazarenus Legislator: Adam Boreel's defence of Christianity'', in Heterodoxy, Spinozism and Free Thought in Early Eighteenth Century Europe, S. Berti, F. Charles-Daubert and R. Popkin, eds., (Kluwer: Amsterdam) 1996, 375–96

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boreel, Adam}}
Category:1602 births
Category:1665 deaths
Category:17th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians
Category:17th-century Dutch theologians
Category:Dutch Calvinist and Reformed theologians
Category:People from Middelburg, Zeeland
Category:Christian Hebraists

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Adam Boreel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Boreel) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Boreel?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.