Heschel, Susannah
Senior Fellow: January–February 2024
Research Project: The Orient in the Occident: The Wissenschaft des Judentums, the Nahda, and the Critique of European Modernity
This study of the nineteenth-century Wissenschaft des Judentums focuses on Jewish scholarship that seeks to position Judaism in relation to the other major world religions, especially Christianity and Islam, but also Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and what was termed “paganism.” Jewish historiography included a sharp critique of Christian biases, European methods, and traditional Jewish modes of learning. In these ways, it bears interesting parallels to the nahda, the Arab renaissance of the same era that pursued similar goals using similar methods.
Jewish scholars employed philological analyses of ancient texts in order to prove very modern claims that held political and theological significance; for example, that Kantian ethics are inherent in the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. In so doing, they demonstrate an effort to undermine the standard Christian claims regarding Western culture and its origins in classical Greek civilisation. Jewish scholarship, which was widely read and discussed by European Christians as well as Jews, was an effort to generate scepticism regarding received historical and cultural assumptions. This study will demonstrate the politics underlying their rhetoric of scepticism, with its implications for historiography’s role in the twisted road of contemporary theological self-understanding.
Susannah Heschel is the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College.