CHAPTER 5 The “Jewish Question” Crops Up Again

With the creation of a chair for studies in 1898 and with its occupation by Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938), the need to ensure the specialist knowledge of a Jewish lecturer for rabbinic studies or for Hebrew was no lon- ger urgent. Schlatter developed an academic program in Tübingen that turned decisively and consciously away from liberal theology and the history of reli- gions school based on the paradigm of Hellenism, and oriented itself to rabbinic Judaism.1 As in , where Schlatter had acted on behalf of ecclesiastical circles as a “positive” antidote to the liberal theology of Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) since 1893, he was appointed to the post in Tübingen in 1898 with a brief to defend biblical truth and the teachings of the Church against any encroachment on the part of inner-theological wavering. His four-decade ten- ure at the University of Tübingen made Schlatter into one of the most distin- guished and influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century. With his commentaries on the New Testament and his many sermons on a wide variety of topics, he had an enormous effect on German Protestantism. His acolytes considered his integration of historical and biblical perspectives in the tradition of Johann Tobias Beck (1804–78) to be the method of the future. This awoke not only among his opponents the impression that he was trying to measure the angles of a circle. As early as his initial lecture, Schlatter outlined on June 16, 1898 in Tübingen, his program for an attentive study of rabbinic literature, which he however con- sidered to be related to the New Testament only in its outward style. Inwardly, the two were “separated by a deep chasm.” Schlatter was a representative of a conventional Christian substitution theology, according to which the old Jewish way of thinking based on laws and rewards was superseded by the New Testament faith in . As the “positivism of the Gospels” would in con- trast to the legends of the Palestinian Jews be grounded on religious “facts,” Schlatter considered Christian theology to be infinitely more superior to Jewish

1 See on Schlatter’s time in Tübingen the detailed chapter seven in Werner Neuer, Adolf Schlatter. Ein Leben für Theologie und Kirche, 1996 (English translation as Adolf Schlatter: A Biography of Germany’s Premier Biblical Theologian, Grand Rapids/Michigan 1996), pp. 367–820.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004341883_006 114 CHAPTER 5 theology.2 One misunderstands Schlatter if one deems his interest in rabbinic literature, up to that point widely ignored, to be philosemitic. The clarification of the relationship between Christians and Jews that he strove for had as its goals first and foremost the confirmation of the superiority of the Christian religion and to convince Jews of the inner necessity for conversion to it. His occupation with rabbinic literature arose neither from a merely historical or academic interest, nor was it meant to smooth the way for an interreligious dialogue. It was entirely under the spell of the Christian history of salvation and wanted expressis verbis to prepare the path for a better-founded and there- fore more successful missionary activity. This kind of philosemitism, wishing to have the Jews take part in Christian salvation, a wish honorable only from an internal religious perspective, was characterized by a deep ambivalence towards Judaism that could very easily switch to antisemitism.3 By means of a theological differentiation between an older, authentic Judaism, and a degenerate modern one, it was possible to compensate for the amount of philosemitism that one apportioned to Jews who might be willing to be converted by that much more hate for the degeneration of contempo- rary Judaism. It was not for nothing that Schlatter described in a much-quoted statement his friendship with Adolf Stoecker (1835–1909), a pioneer of the modern antisemitic movement, as “the best that Berlin gave me.”4 The incor- poration of the language and literature of the rabbis into New Testament theol- ogy must therefore be understood in the context of a praeparatio evangelica, being one step ahead of the mission to the Jews as it creates the intellectual conditions for its later success. This is even conceded by Neuer in his biography of Schlatter, which has a clear hagiographic slant.5 Anders Gerdmar formulates

2 See the partial account of “Prof. Schlatters akademische Antrittsrede,” Kirchlicher Anzeiger für Württemberg 7, 1898, p. 227f. as well as Neuer, Adolf Schlatter, p. 369f. 3 Schlatter’s antisemitism has been discussed in recent times. See James E. McNutt, Adolf Schlatter and the Jews, German Studies Review 26, 2003, pp. 353–70; James E. McNutt., Vessels of Wrath, Prepared to Perish. Adolf Schlatter and the Spiritual Extermination of the Jews, Theology Today, 63, 2006, pp. 176–90; Anders Gerdmar, Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism. German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann, Leiden 2009, pp. 253–326 and Hermann Lichtenberger, Adolf Schlatter und das Judentum, in: Christfried Böttrich et al., eds., Zwischen Zensur und Selbstbesinnung. Christliche Rezeption des Judentums, Frankfurt a.M. 2009, pp. 321–46. 4 Adolf Schlatter, Rückblick auf meine Lebensarbeit, 2nd ed., Stuttgart 1977, p. 187, also quoted in Neuer, Adolf Schlatter, p. 311. 5 “Schlatter wanted to make a contribution through his work to the efforts of Christianity to meet Judaism with respect and understanding. In his view this was the only way for a fruitful Jewish mission.” Neuer, Adolf Schlatter, p. 412. Also Roland Deines, Die Pharisäer. Ihr