The Jewish Reformation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michah Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
Moses Mendelssohn

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, Jews entered the German middle class with remarkable speed. This process has often been identified with Jews’ increasing alienation from religion and Jewish nationhood. In fact, this period was one of intense engagement with Jewish texts and traditions. An expression of this was the remarkable turn to Bible translation. In the century and a half between Moses Mendelssohn’s pioneering translation and the final one by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, German Jews produced fifteen different translations of at least the Pentateuch. Buber and Rosenzweig famously critiqued bourgeois German Judaism as a craven attempt to establish social respectability to facilitate Jews’ entry into the middle class through a vapid, domesticated account of Judaism. Exploring Bible translations by Moses Mendelssohn, Leopold Zunz, and Samson Raphael Hirsch, the author argues that each sought to ground a “reformation” of Judaism along bourgeois lines, which involved aligning Judaism with a Protestant concept of religion. They did so because they saw in bourgeois values the best means to serve God and the authentic actualization of Jewish tradition. Through their learned, creative Bible translations, Mendelssohn, Zunz, and Hirsch presented distinct visions of middle-class Judaism that affirmed Jewish nationhood while lighting the path to a purposeful, emotionally rich, spiritual life grounded in ethical responsibility.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Michah Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Economic Advancement

The Introduction lays out the subject matter, problem, and plan of the book. A central theme is the emergence of middle-class German Judaism and the fraught dynamics of German Jews’ quest for legal and social equality. The connection between Bible translation and a “Jewish Reformation” and the importance of Protestant categories of religion are investigated. Three forms of bourgeois, middle-class German Judaism are explored: Moses Mendelssohn’s Haskalah, Leopold Zunz’s moderate Reform, and Samson Raphael Hirsch’s Neo-Orthodoxy. It is argued that bourgeois German Judaism is best understood as a spiritual enterprise where social and economic advancement are means to religious development and ethical responsibility.

Sacred Torrents in Modernity: German Jewish Philosophers and the Legacy of Secularization

transversal ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-44
Author(s):  
Nils Roemer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Critical Response ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
Fault Lines ◽  
German Jewish

AbstractThis article investigates the ongoing interaction between the Jewish sacred past and its modern interpreters. Jewish thinkers from the eighteenth century reclaimed these ideals instead of dismissing them. Sacred traditions and modern secular thought existed in their mutual constitutive interdependence and not in opposition. When the optimism in historical progress and faith in reason unraveled in the fin de siècle, it engendered a new critical response by Jewish historians and philosophers of the twentieth century. These critical voices emerged within the fault lines of nineteenth and early twentieth century Jewish anti-historicist responses. What separated twentieth-century Jewish thinkers such as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Gershom Scholem from their nineteenth-century forerunners was not their embrace of religion but their critical stance toward reason and their crumbling faith in historical progress.

scholarly journals JEWISH PHILOSOPHY AND EDUCATION: THINKING ARGENTINA’S DIASPORA FROM THE THEOLOGY OF FRANZ ROZENZWEIG

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Taub
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Martin Buber ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
The Core ◽  
Jewish Philosophy ◽  
Hermann Cohen

Latin American Jewish philosophy requires us to rethink the categories of Philosophy and Judaism. In order to articulate these two dimensions it is necessary to understand that Jewish philosophy must start from the attributes of the Jewish tradition. The matter of the education and Jewishness comes from the beginning of Judaism. Throughout the Twentieth Century, the Diaspora in Modern States acquired its peculiarities in relation to these two dimensions, education and Jewishness. Both aspects have been developed in the work of Franz Rosenzweig, one the most important Jewish philosophers of the century. The main goal of this paper is to rethink the core of Rosenzweig’s thought and his dialogues with Martin Buber and Hermann Cohen. Therefore, we will be able to explain the diaspora’s peculiarities in relation to Jewish identity and education in Latin America, especially in Argentina.

The Bible as Cultural Translation

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-75
Author(s):  
Michah Gottlieb
Keyword(s):  
German Language ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
National Sentiment ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Radical Enlightenment

This chapter explores three aims of Mendelssohn’s Bible translation project: (1) strengthening Jewish national sentiment and halakhic practice, (2) invigorating German nationhood; and (3) fostering love and tolerance between German Jews and Christians. Mendelssohn aimed to strengthen Jewish national sentiment by revealing the beauty and rationality of the Bible. He sought to bolster halakhic practice by defending the Masoretic Text of the Bible and rabbinic interpretation. He aimed to invigorate German nationhood by using Bible translation to enrich the German language and contribute to a cosmopolitan vision of Germanness. By translating the Hebrew Bible into German, he sought to illustrate the translatability of religious truth thereby fostering tolerance and love between German Jews and Christians. Mendelssohn translated two main biblical texts-- the Pentateuch and the Psalms. His aims and exegetical methods in the two works are compared. The aims and methods of Mendelssohn’s Bible translations are also compared with two German Protestant translations with which he was familiar: Luther’s 1545 translation and the 1735 Radical Enlightenment Wertheim Bible of Johann Lorenz Schmidt. The claim that Luther’s translation is closer to the Hebrew original than Mendelssohn’s is refuted. Comparing Mendelssohn’s translation with Schmidt’s Wertheim Bible illustrates similarities and differences between Mendelssohn’s moderate religious rationalism and Schmidt’s radical religious rationalism.

DELIGHTFUL COXCOMBS TO INDUSTRIOUS MEN: FASHIONABLE POLITICS IN CECIL AND PENDENNIS

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 289-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Nicolay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Class A ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
A Site ◽  
Trade Office

THOMAS CARLYLE’S CONTEMPTUOUS DESCRIPTION of the dandy as “a Clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office, and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes” (313) has survived as the best-known definition of dandyism, which is generally equated with the foppery of eighteenth-century beaux and late nineteenth-century aesthetes. Actually, however, George Brummell (1778–1840), the primary architect of dandyism, developed not only a style of dress, but also a mode of behavior and style of wit that opposed ostentation. Brummell insisted that he was completely self-made, and his audacious self-transformation served as an example for both parvenus and dissatisfied nobles: the bourgeois might achieve upward mobility by distinguishing himself from his peers, and the noble could bolster his faltering status while retaining illusions of exclusivity. Aristocrats like Byron, Bulwer, and Wellington might effortlessly cultivate themselves and indulge their taste for luxury, while at the same time ambitious social climbers like Brummell, Disraeli, and Dickens might employ the codes of dandyism in order to establish places for themselves in the urban world. Thus, dandyism served as a nexus for the declining aristocratic elite and the rising middle class, a site where each was transformed by the dialectic interplay of aristocratic and individualistic ideals.

scholarly journals History and theory of Scripture translations

2008 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole
Keyword(s):  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Functional Equivalence ◽  
Historical Overview ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
History And Theory

This article argues for the importance of Bible translations through its historical achievements and theoretical frames of reference. The missionary expansion of Christianity owes its very being to translations. The early Christian communities knew the Bible through the LXX translations while churches today still continue to use various translations. Translations shape Scripture interpretations, especially when a given interpretation depends on a particular translation. A particular interpretation can also influence a given translation. The article shows how translation theories have been developed to clarify and how the transaction source-target is culturally handled. The articles discuss some of these “theoretical frames”, namely the functional equivalence, relevance, literary functional equivalence and intercultural mediation. By means of a historical overview and a reflection on Bible translation theories the article aims to focus on the role of Africa in translation history.

scholarly journals Immanuel Kant and Herman Cohen’s philosophy of religion

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-40
Author(s):  
Vladimir N. Belov ◽  
◽  
Aleksandra Yu. Berdnikova ◽  
Yulia G. Karagod ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Practical Philosophy ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Baruch Spinoza ◽  
Moses Mendelssohn ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Characteristic Features

The article analyzes the main characteristic features of the philosophy of religion of the founder of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism Hermann Cohen. Special attention is paid to Cohen’s criticism and reinterpretation of Kant’s “practical philosophy” from the point of view of the philosophy of religion: Cohen supplements and expands Kant’s provisions on moral law and moral duty, interpreting them as divine commandments. The authors emphasize the fundamental importance for Cohen of the “internal similarity” between Kant’s ethical teaching and the main provisions of Judaism. The sources of Kant’s own ideas about the Jewish tradition are shown, which include the work of Moses Mendelssohn “Jerusalem” and the “Theologicalpolitical treatise” by Baruch Spinoza. Cohen’s criticism of these works is analyzed an much attention is paid to the consideration of Cohen’s attitude to Spinoza’s philosophical legacy in general. The interpretation of the postulates of Judaism by Cohen (and their “inner kinship” with Kant’s moral philosophy) in ethical, logical, and political contexts is presented. Cohen’s understanding of such religious-philosophical and doctrinal phenomena as law, grace, Revelation, teaching, the Torah, messianism, freedom, the Old Testament and the New Testament, etc. is provided and analyzed. The main points of Cohen’s religious teaching as “ethical monotheism” are considered; in particular, the authors analyze his understanding of the idea of God as “the only one”, which is highlighted in the works of Paul Natorp. It is concluded that Cohen’s philosophy of religion, which is based on the postulates of Judaism as well as Kant’s “practical philosophy”, could be characterized by the terms “ethical monotheism”, “universalism” and “humanism”.

Diaspora in Modern Jewish Thought

2021 ◽  
pp. 136-150
Author(s):  
Noam Pianko
Keyword(s):  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Moses Mendelssohn ◽  
A Value ◽  
Theodor Herzl ◽  
Theoretical Evolution ◽  
Hermann Cohen ◽  
Horace Kallen ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Modern Jewish Thought

This chapter explores the broad contours of concepts of diaspora in modern Jewish thought. Philosophers, intellectuals, religious thinkers, and non-Zionist nationalists who disagreed on the ideal political structure for Jewish collective life (including Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Simon Dubnow, Hannah Arendt, Mordecai Kaplan, and Horace Kallen) shared a commitment to diaspora as a value, rather than just a fact, of modern Jewish life. Yet the emergence of the terminology of diaspora in tandem with the rise of nationalism and Zionism shaped the theoretical evolution of diaspora as the binary opposite to homeland and statist visions of Jewish identity. As a result, seminal Zionist theorists deeply critical of diaspora life, such as Theodor Herzl, Achad Ha’am, and David Ben-Gurion, also had a key role in framing the significance of diaspora. Modern theories of diaspora internalized and contested the privileged position of territory and sovereignty demanded by the rise of nationalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Digitization of Bibles in Greater China (1661–1960)

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-254
Author(s):  
Simon Wong
Keyword(s):  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Indigenous Languages ◽  
Chinese Han ◽  
Greater China ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
Eastern Christianity ◽  
Bible Translations ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Language Groups

Bible translations in (or for) Greater China may be classified into three categories: Chinese, Han dialects, and indigenous languages. All these language groups witness translation activities by Protestant missionaries. However, in its earliest history, Bible translation was pioneered by missionaries of Eastern Christianity in the seventh century or even earlier, whereas from the Catholic side, clear historical narrative has recorded Bible translation work in the thirteenth century by John of Montecorvino (1247–1328) into a Tatar language. Sadly, this work was not preserved. The earliest extant Bible translation in this vast area was published in 1661 in the Siriya language of Taiwan. This article reports on two major digitization projects: digitization of old Chinese Bibles (1707–1960), including 51 translations in total, and digitization of Bibles in Han dialects/fangyan and indigenous languages (1661–1960)—about 50 languages (including dialects) and 60 translations. These two projects represent the largest and most systematic full-text digitization of the Bible heritage of the area ever undertaken.

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