Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische Theologie im wilhelminischen Deutschland

The struggle of Jewish Studies in Germany for its academic integration during the 'Second Reich' was part of an intensive argument over the conception of Judaism on the part of liberal Protestant theology and religious studies. Living in a time of aggravated anti-Semitic agitation, Jewish scholars were especially sensitive to the anti-Jewish patterns of thought of Christian theologians, whom they challenged in what has always been the Christians' own sacrosanct domain - the interpretation of the Old and the New Testament. Thus the Jewish scholars were insisting that Christian theologians finally take note of both Jewish biblical exegesis and the Jewish depiction of the pharisaic and rabbinical Judaism, that they accept Jewish scholars as their academic equals and overcome their distorted images of Jewish religion and ethics. Christian Wiese analyzes these scholarly debates in the context of their time and shows how Protestant theologians reacted to the Jewish challenge.