MARTIN D. YAFFE, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, earned a B.A. from University of Toronto and a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University. He has taught at University of North Texas since 1968, and at Tel Aviv University in 1971-72. His research interests include political philosophy and Jewish thought. His book publications include: Shylock and the Jewish Question (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Leo Strauss on Moses Mendelssohn (University of Chicago Press, 2012); Judaism and Environmental Ethics: A Reader (Lexington Books, 2001); and a translation of Benedict Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise of 1670 (Focus Philosophical Library/Hackett, 2004), the philosophical founding document of both modern scientific biblical criticism and modern liberal democracy. He is currently at work on a translation (from the Latin) of Francis Bacon's New Organon of 1620, the philosophical founding document of modern science and technology; and a co-translation (from the German) of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan the Wise of 1779, a dramatic probing of the question of religious toleration.