Revelation YAACOV SHAVIT · MORDECHAI ERAN THE HEBREW BIBLE REBORN: FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE TO THE BOOK OF BOOKS ≥ STUDIA JUDAICA FORSCHUNGEN ZUR WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS HERAUSGEGEBEN VON E. L. EHRLICH UND G. STEMBERGER BAND XXXVIII WALTER DE GRUYTER · BERLIN · NEW YORK THE HEBREW BIBLE REBORN: FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE TO THE BOOK OF BOOKS A HISTORY OF BIBLICAL CULTURE AND THE BATTLES OVER THE BIBLE IN MODERN JUDAISM BY YAACOV SHAVIT · MORDECHAI ERAN TRANSLATED BY CHAYA NAOR WALTER DE GRUYTER · BERLIN · NEW YORK (cid:2)(cid:2) Printedonacid-freepaperwhichfallswithintheguidelinesoftheANSI toensurepermanenceanddurability. ISBN 978-3-11-019141-7 ISSN 0585-5306 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData ACIPcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. BibliographicinformationpublishedbytheDeutscheNationalbibliothek TheDeutscheNationalbibliothekliststhispublicationintheDeutscheNationalbibliografie; detailedbibliographicdataareavailableintheInternetathttp://dnb.d-nb.de. (cid:2) Copyright2007byWalterdeGruyterGmbH&Co.KG,D-10785Berlin Allrightsreserved,includingthoseoftranslationintoforeignlanguages.Nopartofthisbook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopy,recordingoranyinformationstorageandretrievalsystem,withoutpermis- sioninwritingfromthepublisher. PrintedinGermany CoverDesign:ChristopherSchneider The Holy Scriptures are not immanently holy. It is the content that sanctifies the book, transform- ing it into the primary element and making its content secondary. The book exists forever, but its content is changed by life and learning. What have men not found in the Holy Scriptures from the time of Philo until the present day? … In the Holy Scriptures they all sought only the truth, each his own truth, and they all found what they sought, found it because they were compelled to, for if not, the truth would not be the truth and the Holy Scriptures would not be holy. Ahad Ha’am, “Perurim” (“Crumbs”) (1892), “The Sa- cred and the Profane,” In: Al Parashat Derakhim (At the Crossroads), Vol. I (Berlin, 1930), p.138. Acknowledgements Several institutions and individuals assisted in the writing and transla- tion of this book. The internal research fund of Tel Aviv University gave me two research grants; the Simon Dubnow Institute in Leipzig and its direc- tor, Prof. Dan Dinur, enabled me to spend two months in Germany, during which time I collected part of the source material, and I am grateful to the staff of the Institute for their hospitality and assistance. A special thanks is due to Ms. Grit Schorch of Leipzig for her help in locating a large portion of the sources, a difficult task which entailed much effort on her part. My brief but productive stay in Leipzig was doubly valuable, since a very large part of the research literature on Judaism, Bible study and research on the ancient Near East, including a great deal of the literature linked to the the Bibel-Babel controversy, was printed in that city, which in the past was the center of German publishing. The Bibliothèque de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris was extremely accomodating and I am grateful to the director Dr. Jean Claude Kuperminc and to the librarian, Ms. Gila Cooper, for her gracious readiness to assist me. The collection of Jewish books (Hebraica- und Judaica-Sammlung) at the Stadt-und Universitäts Bib- liothek in Frankfurt am Main was of great help too. We found numerous sources in the National Library in Jerusalem, as well as in the Sourasky Central Library, in particular in Yaacov Fermen’s collection of books, and in the Mehlmann library, both of them at Tel Aviv University. A number of colleagues read the manuscript and made valuable suggestions to improve it: Professor Yairah Amit, Dr. Ran Hacohen, Professor David Katz, Dr. Oded Lifschitz, Professor Nadav Na’aman, Professor Shmuel Feiner, and Professor Elchanan Reiner. I am grateful to them for their patience and cooperation. I am also indebted to Pro- fessor Robert Rockway for his help in identifying the participants in the Conference of Reform Rabbis held in Detroit in 1903. Without the dedicated assistance of Mr. Chaim Cohen, Mr. Oren Hugi, and Ms. viii Acknowledgements Liat Steir-Lvny, I would have been unable to overcome some of the difficulties involved in completing this book. Special thanks go to Dr. Gabriele von Glasenapp of Frankfurt University for her help in finding biographical details about some of the writers, and to Professor Chris- toph Schulte of the Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum in Potsdam. As in my previous books, this time too, the help I received from Professor David Shavit of DeKalb, Illinois, was inestimable. And finally, this work could not have been written without the cooperation of my co-author, Dr. Mordechai Eran, who in mid-2000 surprised me by generously offering to assist in the research. I told him about the subject and my plans, which evoked his enthusiasm, and within a short time he became a full partner in writing the study. The English version of this book could not have been published were it not for the interest shown in it by Mr. Yair Tzaban, and above all, the generous financial support of the Posen Foundation, which made it possible to expand the Hebrew version and have it translated into English, and we are profoundly grateful to it. “(cid:681)(cid:675)(cid:681)(cid:679)(cid:681)(cid:673)(cid:3)(cid:687)(cid:681)(cid:686)(cid:681)(cid:681)(cid:695)(cid:698)(cid:686)(cid:3)(cid:687)(cid:681)(cid:672)(cid:3)(cid:676)(cid:696)(cid:677)(cid:698)(cid:3)(cid:681)(cid:696)(cid:673)(cid:675)(cid:3)(cid:691)(cid:672)(cid:3)(cid:681)(cid:675)(cid:681)(cid:679)(cid:681)(cid:3)(cid:698)(cid:695)(cid:684)(cid:677)(cid:675)(cid:3)(cid:677)(cid:688)(cid:681)(cid:672)(cid:3)(cid:697)(cid:672)(cid:3)(cid:676)(cid:686)(cid:3)(cid:29)(cid:682)(cid:684)(cid:3)(cid:696)(cid:686)(cid:677)(cid:684)” ((cid:678)(cid:3)(cid:15)(cid:698)(cid:681)(cid:688)(cid:690)(cid:698)(cid:3)(cid:681)(cid:684)(cid:673)(cid:673)) [“In order to indicate that just as fire does not burn when isolated, so will the words of the Torah not be preserved when studied by oneself, alone”, Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Ta’anit, Henry Malter edn., Philadelphia, 1928, p.43.] Table of Contents Acknowledgements.................................. vii Introduction ....................................... 1 Part One The Biblical Revolution in Modern Jewish History and the Struggle over the Bible in the Nineteenth Century 1. “Back to the Bible”: The Biblical Revolution in the Nineteenth Century ........................... 17 2. Wellhausen and his School: The Jewish Response to Higher Criticism.............................. 85 3. “Truth Shall Spring out of the Earth”: The Initial Jewish Reaction to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East . 156 Part Two The War of The Tablets 4. The Babel-Bibel Controversy as a Typological Event .. 195 5. Friedrich Delitzsch and a Second ‘Tower of Babel’.... 206 6. Delitzsch’s Three Lectures on Babel and Bibel ....... 229 7. The Controversy in the German Arena: Theology vs. Science ..................................... 256 8. At War – Within and Without ................... 276 9. Contra Delitzsch: Revelation, Originality and Ethics.. 305 10. From Noah to the Sabbath ...................... 331 Part Three In Search of Jewish and Hebrew Bible Study 11. After Delitzsch: The Bible and Jewish Bible Study in Germany between the Two World Wars............ 355 12. Bible Criticism Arrives in Eretz Israel: Struggle and Re- ception ..................................... 371