Unheil, curse, disaster: according to German scholar Gerhard Kittel, this is the Jewish destiny attested to in scripture. Such interpretations of biblical texts provided Adolf Hitler with the theological legitimatization necessary to realizing his final solution.
But theological antisemitism did not begin with the Third Reich. Ferdinand Baurs nineteenth-century Judaism-Hellenism dichotomy empowered National Socialist scholars to construct an Aryan Jesus cleansed of his Jewish identity, building on Baurs Enlightenment prejudices. Anders Gerdmar takes a fresh look at the dangers of the politicization of biblical scholarship and the ways our unrecognized interpretive filters may generate someone elses apocalypse.
Contents
Foreword
List of Illustration
1 Introduction: Exegesis as Legitimation of Elimination
On Theology, the Holocaust, and the Ethics of Interpretation
1Exegetical Legitimation of Replacement Theology
2Methodological Remarks and My Vantage Point
3Overview of the
Chapters
4Concluding Remarks
2 Salvation Comes from the Jews
Ideology and Exegesis in the Interpretation of John 4.22b
1The Ideological Tendency in the Exegetes Reception
2The Verse in the Overall Theology of the Fourth Gospel
3Summary
3 Baur and the Creation of the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy
1Baur and the Creation of the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy
2Revisiting the Textual Base
3The Jerusalem Church through Tübingen Spectacles
4Baurian Hermeneutics and the Emergence of the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy
4 Beyond Jewish and Hellenistic
The Historical Background of Early Christianity
1The Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy: A Background
2Some Areas in New Testament Exegesis Which Have Been Affected by the
Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy
3Beyond Two Church Theologies
4Conclusion: Early Christianity beyond the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy or
When Christians Were Jews
5 Christology beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Dichotomy
A Few Remarks on the History of Christological Scholarship
1From the Liberal Picture of Jesus to the School of the History of
Religions
2Post-Holocaust Development
3Conclusions
6 Adolf Schlatter and die Ordnungen
Schlatter between Christian and völkisch Ideology during 19331934
1Adolf Schlatter: A Background
2Schlatters Dialogue with völkisch Ideology
3Conclusion
7 A Germanic Jesus on Swedish Soil
Swedish-German Research in a Racist Key, 19411945
1Germanic and Nordic in German Ideology
2Arbeitsgemeinschaft Germanentum und Christentum: A Germanic-Nordic
Cooperation
3A Germanic Jesus on Swedish Theological Soil
4Conclusion: Germanic Inroads into Swedish Theology
8 Germanentum as Overarching Ideology
Cooperation between German and Nordic Exegetes during the Third Reich
1Old Norse Culture, National Socialism, and Theology in Swedish Academic
Salons
2The Bridge to Thuringia, the Brown Heartland of Deutsche Christen
9 Luthers Struggle against the Jews
A völkisch Reception of Luthers View of the Jews
1Religious Legitimation of Antisemitism
2Luther and Race
10 The Abused Paul and the Jews
1Reception Analysis and Reception Ethics
2Conclusion
11 The Nazi Bible. Another Jesus
The Gospels in the National Socialist Bible, Die Botschaft Gottes:
Theological Legitimation of Antisemitism
1The Making of Die Botschaft Gottes
2Some Observations on Die Botschaft Gottes and Its Overall Message
3The Gospel of John in Die Botschaft Gottes
4Concluding Reflections: Theological Legitimation of Antisemitism
12 Concluding Remarks
Exegesis and Legitimizing the Elimination of Jews and Judaism
1Exegetes Unaware of Anti-Jewish and Antisemitic Attitudes
2Historiography as Legitimator
3A Jewish Jesusbefore and after the Holocaust
4A Dark Ecumenism Legitimating Antisemitism
5Final Reflection: Elimination of Dangerous Texts
6Has Modern Christianity Been De-Judaized?
7The Final Question
Index
Anders Gerdmar, Th.D. (2001) in New Testament Exegesis from Uppsala University, was a researcher, senior lecturer, and author. His published works include Rethinking the Judaism-Hellenism Dichotomy (Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001) and Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism (Brill, 2009).
