DAVID HALPERIN has just published a book on Shabbetai Zvi:

Sabbatai Zevi
Testimonies to a Fallen Messiah
David J. Halperin

Sabbatai Zevi stirred up the Jewish world in the mid-seventeenth century by claiming to be the messiah, then stunned it by suddenly converting to Islam. The story is presented here for the first time through contemporary documents, written by Sabbatai’s followers and by one of his detractors, in translations that brilliantly capture the vividness of this landmark episode in early modern Jewish history.

AUTHOR INFORMATION

David J. Halperin is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He trained in Semitic languages at Cornell University, in Near Eastern Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, and in rabbinics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1977. From 1976 through 2000 he taught the history of Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was repeatedly recognized for excellence in undergraduate teaching. He is the author of The Merkabah in Rabbinic Literature (1980), The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiel’s Vision (1988), Seeking Ezekiel: Text and Psychology (1993), and Abraham Miguel Cardozo: Selected Writings (2001).

(Via Jack Sasson's Agade list.)

I've known since the mid-90s that Halperin was working on this book and I've very glad to see it's out. There has been surprisingly little work done on Shabbetai since Scholem's massive monograph.

For more on Shabbetai Zvi, go here and follow the links. This post also discusses one of Halperin's earlier monographs in relation to Shabbetai.