Mendelssohn and the Protestant Pedants: The Skeptical Rabbis, the Principle of Noncontradiction, and Judaism’s Spiritual Dialogue

This study explores the extent to which Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem engages with Protestant sources in its portrayal of rabbinic tradition, which will allow further light to be shed on the pivotal role of rabbinic Judaism and its representations within the emotionally charged polemics surrounding Jewish...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Strauss, Zeʾev 1986- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge Univ. Press 2023
In: Harvard theological review
Year: 2023, Volume: 116, Issue: 4, Pages: 599-625
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Mendelssohn, Moses 1729-1786 / Rabbinic Judaism / Protestantism / Truth / Contradiction
IxTheo Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
AX Inter-religious relations
BH Judaism
CC Christianity and Non-Christian religion; Inter-religious relations
KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history
KDD Protestant Church
Further subjects:B Christian W. von Dohm
B Johann D. Michaelis
B Rabbinic Judaism
B Jewish Enlightenment
B Johann A. Eisenmenger
B the principle of noncontradiction
B Jewish emancipation
B Moses Mendelssohn
B Skepticism
B Religious Pluralism
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Summary:This study explores the extent to which Mendelssohn’s Jerusalem engages with Protestant sources in its portrayal of rabbinic tradition, which will allow further light to be shed on the pivotal role of rabbinic Judaism and its representations within the emotionally charged polemics surrounding Jewish emancipation in eighteenth-century Prussia. This examination demonstrates that Mendelssohn’s idealized perception of rabbinic thought is deeply embedded in anti-rabbinic Protestant works, whose framework aids him in shaping his own unique outlook. By analyzing Mendelssohn’s deployment of the notion of contradiction, this article shows how his argumentative strategies in Jerusalem efficaciously counter well-known Protestant patterns of critique against rabbinic Judaism. By focusing on his idiosyncratic quotations and insinuations, it recovers the Christian works that he draws on and appropriates for his apologetic objectives and establishes that he uses Johann A. Eisenmenger for his depiction of the nature of rabbinic discursive practices while speaking out against "many a pedant" for their assertion that the rabbis disregarded the principle of noncontradiction. This article argues that Mendelssohn is alluding to eighteenth-century Protestant theologians who unreservedly follow Eisenmenger’s anti-rabbinic perspective and elaborates on how Mendelssohn entirely reframes this view as a conceptual strength of Judaism’s dialogical essence, thus rendering it compatible with the Enlightenment-based Weltanschauung.
ISSN:1475-4517
Contains:Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S0017816023000329