140 - [Andrew Bonar and Robert MacCheyne]: Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839. London 1843

[Andrew Bonar and Robert MacCheyne]: Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839. London 1843 First edition,in 8vo,contemporary brown blinded cloth,spine restored,text clean,very few spotting in some pages,complete 550p. three engravings and three maps, overall in very good condition. The book was written by Andrew Bonar and Robert Murray M’Cheyne, two influential Scottish ministers. They were sent by the Church of Scotland to investigate the condition of Jewish communities across the Levant to determine the best locations for establishing Christian missions A landmark volume that remains one of the most detailed religious and social surveys of the Mediterranean and the Levant from the mid-19th century. The narrative documents their journey through the regions they have been researching.The mission traveled through Corfu and Syra and spent time there.They focused heavily on education and the moral state of the people. They provide a unique Scottish Presbyterian perspective on the Greek Orthodox Church and the Jewish populations in the Greek ports. They have stayed later in Smyrna and Constantinople. Their account of the Jewish quarters in the Ottoman capital is incredibly detailed. They document the languages spoken (Ladino, Hebrew or Greek), the trade guilds, and the religious tensions within the city during the era of the Tanzimat reforms They traveled along the coast, observing the Jewish communities in the ports of the Black Sea. A very rare travel account of the 1830s in newly independent Greece and the Levant with a very particular perspective.