Maimonides Lecture on Scepticism (Rebekka Voß)

23 January 2024

Photo: UHH/SUB HH

We would like to invite you to a Maimonides Lecture on Scepticism on Tuesday, 23 January 2024, at 18:00. Rebekka Voß (Frankfurt am Main) will talk about "Judaism Sola Scriptura: Tolerance, Translation, and Salvation in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam".

Judaism Sola Scriptura: Tolerance, Translation, and Salvation in Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam

This lecture considers scepticism and intercultural exchange within the framework of the early modern Pietist mission to the Jews. In the first half of the eighteenth century, the Pietist mission prompted personal conversations between Christians and a significant number of Jews across Europe. Most Jews were surprisingly willing to speak with the missionaries, despite their evident agenda. These meetings between Pietist missionaries and Jews often resulted in an intense dialogue, entailing an intriguing cultural entanglement. In Amsterdam, the missionaries eagerly approached a number of sceptical Jews, who rejected certain rabbinic teachings about the Messiah, hoping to find these “Karaites” receptive to the Gospel. This missionary context is key to understanding spiritual unrest and debates about biblicising heresies and heterodox beliefs in Judaism in eighteenth-century Amsterdam.

I will focus on one of these scripturalists, the intellectual Eliezer Susman Rudelsum. He is otherwise known as the editor of Yiddish Bible translations and the author of two Dutch treatises on the study of the Hebrew language. Re-evaluating Susman’s oeuvre in light of his personal contacts with Pietist missionaries, Protestant Hebraists, and like-minded Jewish disbelievers sheds light on his worldview and reveals the full complexity of scepticism among Amsterdam Jewry in the eighteenth century. At a time when programmes for the unification of the monotheistic religions and universal peace were popular among Enlightenment thinkers, Eliezer Susman advanced a unique vision of coexistence. The basis of his envisioned brotherhood of Jews and Christians was a Judaism sola scriptura and the shared study of the Hebrew Bible.

Rebekka Voß is Associate Professor of Jewish History at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Date
Tuesday, 23 January 2024, 18:00

Venue
MCAS
Please contact MCAS for further information and registration.

Poster
[PDF]

Contact and registration
maimonides-centre@uni-hamburg.de