ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter critically examines the publications of Professor David C. Rapoport. Beginning with the early “Moses, Charisma, and Covenant” (1979), the chapter follows the development of Professor Rapoport’s study of religiously motivated terrorism, noting the deep strains of religiosity and biblical knowledge that permeate much of his writing. The chapter culminates with the impact of the Four Waves thesis on the field of terrorism studies. I will offer a brief analysis of the development of David Rapoport’s work, focusing heavily on the unique application of biblicism to modern Political Science.1 This immersion in sacred text in a period where the secular state university system in America strove mightily to separate religion from the Humanities and Social Sciences had the natural effect of making some of Rapoport’s early work little known beyond the circle of students who were fortunate enough to take part in his UCLA seminar “Politics in the Bible.”2 This emphasis on the importance of religion in contemporary political life positioned Rapoport to comprehend the emergence of religion as a motive force in terrorism decades before the 1979 Iranian Revolution confronted the field with irrefutable evidence that religion was neither dead, nor was it – as many terrorism scholars continue to this day to insist – a mere excuse for politics in clerical guise (so as to manipulate the uneducated and unwary).
