FRANZ : PIONEERING SCHOLARSHIP IN JUDAISM

From the 1870s, salvation-historical Protestant interest in exegesis and the Jews entered a new phase, in which the triad scholarship in Judaism—a rather conservative-Protestant-Biblicist standpoint1—and missions to Jews were part of the same parcel.2 This new focus on research within Judaism meant a decisive new step in a research tradition that would fi rst inspire a range of exegetes of a conservative Lutheran or Biblicist brand, and later New Testament scholarship at large when occupied with Jewish studies.3 The triad can be found in Adolf Schlatter—who, although sometimes regarded as a scholarly outsider, is nevertheless a scholar with much in common with Delitzsch and Strack4—as well as in Rudolf and Gerhard Kittel.5 The base was the Institutum Judaicum in , founded in 1886 by Franz Delitzsch, as the continuation of a work started as early as in the 1870s,6 and a main propagator of

1 The point that Delitzsch invested the most interest and prestige in was the question of the Pentateuch, where Delitzsch’s position satisfi ed neither the conservatives nor the historical-critical camp, Siegfried Wagner, Franz Delitzsch. Leben und Werk, Monographien und Studienbücher (Giessen: Brunnen Verlag, 1991), 209–225; Siegfried Wagner and Arnulf Baumann, “Franz Delitzsch, Scholar and Missionary”, Mishkan 1 (1991), 49. 2 Wagner and Baumann, “Franz Delitzsch, Scholar and Missionary”; Wagner, Franz Delitzsch. Leben und Werk, 60. 3 Wiese, Wissenschaft des Judentums und protestantische Theologie im wilhelminischen Deutsch- land. Ein Schrei ins Leere?, 305, notes that the infl uence of Delitzsch and Strack eventually resulted in a new course of scholarship in relation to Wissenschaft des Judentums, e.g. with Gerhard Kittel and Strack’s disciple Paul Fiebig. Delitzsch’s conversion took place in 1832, see Wagner, Franz Delitzsch. Leben und Werk, 120, according to whom Delitzsch had a strong Lutheran profi le, 122. 4 Deines, Die Pharisäer. Ihr Verständnis im Spiegel der christlichen und jüdischen Forschung seit Wellhausen und Graetz, 39 n. 94; “wissenschaftliche Außenseiter”, 405. 5 Gerhard Kittel studied under Johannes Leipoldt in Leipzig, in Berlin where Strack was the leading Christian scholar of Judaism, in Greifswald (Dalman), and with Schlatter in Tübingen, Ibid., 412. 6 Ibid., 242–243. See Deines 242–262 for the Instituta Judaica, Delitzsch, Strack and Paul Billerbeck. On Delitzsch, see Wagner, Franz Delitzsch. Leben und Werk, Eckhard Plümacher, “Delitzsch, Franz Julius”, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, ed. Gerhard Krause and Gerhard Müller (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), and for Delitzsch and the Jews, Wolfgang Heinrichs, “Das Bild vom Juden in der protestantischen Judenmission des Deutschen Kaiserreichs. In Umrissen dargestellt von ‘Saat auf Hoffnung. Zeitschrift für die Mission der Kirche and Israel’ ”, Zeitschrift für Religions- und Zeitgeschichte 44 (1992), and Alan Levenson, “Missionary Protestants as Defenders and Detractors of Judaism: Franz 214 part ii. salvation-historical exegesis and the jews its ideas was the journal Saat auf Hoffnung.7 This was only three years after the creation of the Institutum Judaicum in Berlin by H. L. Strack. After Delitzsch’s death, the Leipzig institute was renamed Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum.

Delitzsch and Hermann Strack”, The Jewish Quarterly Review 92, no. 3–4 (2002). A brief overview of his work as a scholar and missionary is found in Wagner and Baumann, “Franz Delitzsch, Scholar and Missionary”. The Leipzig Institutum Judaicum was a re-establishment of the 1728 institute of the same name in , founded by Johann Heinrich Callenberg, a professor of Philosophy and an expert in Semitic languages, and Jewish history and theology, Clark, The Politics of Conversion. Missionary Protestant- ism and the Jews in 1728–1941, 47–48, whose scholarly and Pietist theological tradition Delitzsch wished to revive, Heinz-Hermann Völker, “Franz Delitzsch als Förderer der Wissenschaft vom Judentum. Zur Vorgeschichte des Institutum Judaicum zu Leipzig und zur Debatte um die Errichtung eines Lehrstuhl für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur an einer deutschen Universität”, Judaica 49 (1993), 90. On the history of the Berlin Institutum Judaicum, see Golling’s presentation in Ralf Golling and Peter von der Osten-Sacken, eds., Hermann L. Strack und das Institutum Judaicum in Berlin. Mit einer Anhang über das Institut Kirche und Judentum, vol. 17, Studien zu Kirche und Israel (SKI) (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum,1996), 70–122, which also tells the tragic story of how the institute under Johannes Hempel was put in the service of National Socialist anti-Semitism, in fi erce opposition to its founder, H. L. Strack, 117–121. During and after his lifetime, it was rumoured that Delitzsch’s Jewish benefactor Levy Hirsch was his biological father, and although Delitzsch himself denied this, it was used in the anti-Semitic propaganda against him, Wagner, Franz Delitzsch. Leben und Werk, 16–26. In any case, Levy Hirsch undeniably seems to have meant a great deal to Delitzsch during his upbringing and studies, Wagner, Franz Delitzsch. Leben und Werk, 25. Delitzsch was also highly involved in the early Messianic Jewish work in Kishinev in Russia, Wagner and Baumann, “Franz Delitzsch, Scholar and Missionary”, 52–53. For this, see especially the biography about Josef Rabinowitsch, Kai Kjær-Hansen, Josef Rabinowitsch og den messianske bevægelse (Århus: Forlaget OKAY-BOG, Den danske Israelsmission, Forlaget Savanne, 1988), and passim for Delitzsch’s part in the work. On the history of the institute, see also Hermann Lichtenberger, “Christlich-Jüdische Beziehungen dargestellt an der Geschichte des Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum”, in Brücke zwischen Kulturen und Völkern. Ein Bild für unsere Universität, ed. Rudolf Hausner (Münster: Coppenrath, 1993). 7 Heinrichs, “Das Bild vom Juden in der protestantischen Judenmission des Deut- schen Kaiserreichs. In Umrissen dargestellt von ‘Saat auf Hoffnung. Zeitschrift für die Mission der Kirche and Israel’ ”, 200. The prehistory of the institute is longer, Delitzsch having started to teach in 1871 at what was called the Institutum Judaicum. However, this was basically Delitzsch’s private enterprise, since the Centralverein für die Mission unter Israel—the base for the work, which was located on the premises where the institute started out and had its fi rst library—had not been able to recruit another teacher, Völker, “Franz Delitzsch als Förderer der Wissenschaft vom Judentum”, 96. From 1880 onwards, interest in the work grew, and in 1886 Delitzsch’s vision was realised in an institute with fi ve teachers and an ambitious programme of lectures in languages, the Talmud and Midrash, and the New Testament read in the light of this literature, as well as Jewish polemics and missions to Jews, Völker, “Franz Delitzsch als Förderer der Wissenschaft vom Judentum”, 97.