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The Rebirth of Revelation
German Theology in an Age of Reason and History, 1750-1850
Tuska Benes (Author)
9781487543075
Hardback, published 22 February 2022
368 pages, 2 b&w illustrations, 3 b&w maps
23.6 x 15.7 x 3 cm, 0.62 kg
"Benes focuses on the period between 1750 and 1850 in the German lands, which boasted some of the most important intellectual minds of the period. They include Lessing, Mendelssohn, Kant, Herder, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. The most intriguing part of Benes’s book, however, is not the responses of these intellectual giants; rather, her approach is. She provides a much broader picture, including the religious struggles that haunted Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish intellectual communities at the time." - Ulrich Groetsch, University of North Alabama (Central European History)
Despite being a pillar of belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the idea of revelation was deeply discredited over the course of the Enlightenment. The post-Enlightenment restoration of revelation among German religious thinkers is a fascinating yet underappreciated moment in modern efforts to navigate between reason and faith. The Rebirth of Revelation compares Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish reflections on revelation from 1750 to 1850 and asserts that a strategic transformation in the term’s meaning secured its relevance for the modern age. Tuska Benes argues that "propositional" revelation, understood as the infallible dispensation of doctrine, gave way to revelation as a subjective process of inner transformation or the historical disclosure of divine being in the world. By comparatively approaching the unconventional ways in which Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism have rehabilitated the concept of revelation, The Rebirth of Revelation restores theology to a central place in modern European intellectual history.
List of Illustrations Introduction 1. Historical Revelation in the Protestant Enlightenment Reason and Revelation: Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff 2. The Comparative History of Religion, 1770–1800 David Hume and the Comparative History of Religion 3. God’s Word in Comparative Mythology, 1760–1830 The Divine Origins of Language: Hamann and Herder 4. Revelation in Nature from Physicotheology to G.H. Schubert Natural Theology and the Collapse of Intelligent Design 5. The Philosophy of Revelation: Schleiermacher, Hegel, and Schelling Schleiermacher: Revelation as Subjective Experience 6. The Epistemology of Grace: Revelation in Catholic Theology, 1770–1850 Enlightened Catholicism and the Semi-Rationalist Defense of Revelation 7. Revelation in Jewish Religious Thought from Mendelssohn to Geiger Revelation and the Law: Moses Mendelssohn 8. Revelation Imperiled in Protestant Religious Thought, 1820–1850 Revelation and Neo-Confessionalism: August Tholuck Conclusion Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Reimarus and the Neologians on Pagan Salvation
G.E. Lessing on the Historicity of Revelation
The Kantian Critique of Revelation
J.G. Herder’s Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts (1774)
The Comparative Religious History of Christoph Meiners
J.A. Starck and J.G. Hamann on Rational Ur-Monotheism
The Göttingen School of Comparative Religious History
The Ursprache and Mosaic Revelation: Friedrich Schlegel
J.A. Kanne’s Elusive Ursprache
The Language of Revelation Nationalized: Friedrich Rückert
The Symbolism of God’s Word: Joseph Görres
Restoring Revelation to Naturphilosophie
Nature Divested of Sacred Tradition
G.H. Schubert in the Spinoza Renaissance
Physica Sacra: The Urwelt, Creation, and Scripture
The Self-Revelation of God in Hegel
The Dark Ground of Revelation in Schelling
The Moral Necessity of Revelation for Georg Hermes
The Comparative History of Religion in Enlightened Catholic Theology
Syncretism in Post-Kantian Catholic Histories of Religion
Catholic Philosophies of Revelation: Anton Günther and J.S. Drey
The Neo-Scholasticism of Joseph Kleutgen
Kant and Pre-Mosaic Revelation: Saul Ascher
Salomon Ludwig Steinheim on Primordial Revelation
Revelation as Historical Experience: Samson Raphael Hirsch
Jewish Philosophies of Revelation: Salomon Formstecher and Samuel Hirsch
The Genius of Revelation: Abraham Geiger
The Self-Revelation of Humanity: Ludwig Feuerbach
Søren Kierkegaard: Revelation in Existentialist Thought