Hanna Liss
Sollen die Glöckchen wieder klingen? Die Beschreibung der Priestergewänder in Ex 28 und die Hermeneutik ihrer ‚altneuen’ Rekonstruktionen

The first part of this paper deals with the biblical description of the Priestly garments in Exod. 28 (39), presenting also selected explanations from later Medieval Commentary Literature like Rashi and Ramban. Since the biblical depiction attaches so much significance to the Priestly garments, it is not surprising that modern scholarship from the 19th century onwards has undertaken intensive historical-archaeological research as to their original appearance and possible reconstruction. However, at the latest from the date of the (re-)foundation of the state of Israel, the question of the re-erection of the Temple and the reconstruction of the utensils for the sacrificial service had gained a more and more prominent role among Jewish Orthodoxy and fundamentalistic circles that nowadays make extensive use of archaeological studies to actually construct kosher garments as the ultimate prerequisite of the re-installation of the sacrificial cult as their main target. The Temple service that for centuries had been a mere exegetical issue had suddenly become a (theo-)political subject matter. In that, the current debate on the rebuilding of the Temple had not only launched theological and hermeneutical problems but likewise had shown the unforeseeable political risk that is linked to the present-day question of the Temple Service.

Ulrich Sahm
Rund um den Tempelberg von Jerusalem werden die Steine zum Politikum

Philip Davies
When Memory Meets the Past: Archaeology and Amnesia

Archaeology in Israel has until recently always served to support the cultural memories of Judaism and of Christianity. More recently, 'post-Zionist' archaeology has, however, demonstrated that cultural memories represented by biblical narratives about ancient Israel are not always reliable history, and that archaeology must not only seek to verify such memories where possible, but also to contribute to understanding the creation of fictional memories where these exist.
While restoration of a Jewish (or Israelite) site through excavation is a legitimate activity, the deliberate obscuring or even suppression of non-Jewish cultural memory so as to create a distorted image of an exclusively 'Jewish' history denying the validity of other presences and other cultural memories is both unethical and contrary to valid historical and archaeological principles. Where such distortions are used to promote exclusive Jewish presence (as currently in the case of Silwan village), they must be resisted. Differing cultural memories relating to the same places often exist together and deserve equal respect. The 'land of Israel' has always been, and still is, a land of others as well.

Yuval Gadot, Oded Lipschits, Manfred Oeming
Tieferes Verstehen. Erwägungen zur Epistemologie der Archäologie am Beispiel der Ausgrabung von Ramat Rahel (Jerusalem)

The article examines the epistemology of archaeology based on the case example of the excavations at Ramat Rahel, the southern most area of Jerusalem. It first describes the hermeneutical changes that occurred over the past 20 years that are aimed at creating "objective"archaeology for the eastern Mediterranean instead of traditional "biblical archaeology". The article then examines for the case of the Iron Age and Persian artefacts found at Ramat Rahel how interpretation is always also determined by politial, military and economic contexts as well as the ideological convictions of the excavators. Looking at the first interpretation of the artefacts by Yohanan Aharoni (1954-1962), it can be shown how the needs and struggles of the young state of Israel subtly influenced the reconstruction of the supposed history of this ancient site. The leaders of the recent excavation (2005-2009) present a brief overview of their newest findings as well as their own interpretations and hypotheses. They discuss self-critically how their own personal backgrounds and their ideological influences are noticeable in their own reconstructions that they have developed independently - including the differences between them.

Hans-Peter Kuhnen
Die archäologische Konstruktion von Geschichte: Das Beispiel der jüdischen Aufstände gegen Rom

Though archaeological research on the period between Herod and Bar Kochba started in Jerusalem with the discovery of Robinson’s famous arch 170 years Holy Land archaeology for many decades was limited to illustrate the records of Flavius Josephus and the contemporary written sources. Only in the last three decades archaeology became aware of its specific contribution to history and started to develop a historical narrative of its own. Behind the political and religious events as recorded by Josephus begins to emerge a complex social and economic change of the country. Jerusalem’s city economy was reshaped by new, highly specialised industrial activities, as for example the production of stone vessels, mould-blown glass or fine painted pottery. This corresponded with a process of regional diversification of Palestine’s rural economy, with certain areas specialized on animal husbandry, on field crops or tree plantations, or on the production of luxury goods. This in turn stimulated far-reaching trade also with foreign provinces.
Grave archaeology however shows that from a demographical point of view all these developments were carried on the shoulders of the autochthonous population which, except for the aristocracy, opposed itself to modern Roman concepts of representation and afterlife.
In sum, archaeological evidence opens new views on the Ancient Holy Land and prevents us from being too dependent on selective historical information by the written sources.

Nathanja Hüttenmeister und Andreas Lehnardt
Die Fragmente mittelalterlicher jüdischer Grabsteine in Bommersheim

In winter 2007/08 fragments of Jewish tombstones which were enclosed in Bommersheim Castle, whose destruction dates back to 1382, were discovered during excavation work in Bommersheim, a village near Frankfurt am Main. 19 of the well over 75 individual fragments bear Hebrew characters. Four of the tombstones can be dated back to the years 1292, 1289/90 or 1298/99, 1301/2 and 1310. A comparison with preserved tombstones from the 13th and 14th century from the Jewish cemetery Frankfurt am Main which is only 14 km away, unfolds a great correlation both with respect to the tombstone material as well as the style and phrasal formulation. This increases the probability that these tombstones were taken from the cemetery in Frankfurt and installed at Castle Bommersheim as spoils after the expulsion of the Jews from Frankfurt in 1349.

Annette Weber
Bibel, Babel und Bilder. Die Bedeutung der Archäologie für jüdische Kunst zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts

In the aftermath of the Bible-Babel quarrel initiated by Friedrich Delitzsch in 1903 Moses Ephraim Lilien created a series of illustrations for the Bücher der Bibel (1908-1912), which show his fascination with ancient Oriental cultures. He went so far as to show Moses in the attire of an Assyrian High Priest, an idea probably taken from Immanuel Benzingers handbook Hebräische Archaeologie, which was deeply influenced by Delitzsch’ Panassyrian ideas. Whereas Lilien accepted highly ideological interpretations of archaeological findings as a base for creating authentic Jewish iconography, his contemporary Rabbi Salomon Samuel of Essen was more cautious when consulting the architect Edmund Körner in building the new local synagogue. He also acknowledged the impact of archaeology on modern Jewish culture, but he restricted its usage to quotations of decorative details. In his view authentic Jewish culture had to be multifaceted and multipolar in order to meet the manifold spiritual requirements of a modern Jewish community.

Außerhalb des Schwerpunkts:

Johannes Fried:
„George und seine Juden“ – Jüdische Persönlichkeiten im Kreis Stefan Georges

At the beginning of the 20th century, German poet Stefan George was considered a social institution, in particular his attitude as being liberal towards Jews. It was the Jews that first acclaimed him being an innovative, almost revolutionary poet; reciprocally, George’s circle offered the very best chance of assimilation to intellectual Jews. But how did the relationship between George and the Jewish members of his circle develop over time? Did the arising anti-Semitic tendency have any impact on the idea of man as prevailing within the circle? This question leads into the heart of George’s “Neues Reich”: the catastrophe which struck the European Jews was the cardinal practical test for the circle as for the idea of man created by its “Meister”. These thoughts reveal George’s ambivalent attitude towards the so called “Jüdischen”. Eventually, in the years 1930 to 1933 the “völkisch” motivated frictions among the disciples demonstrated how fragile the ethics of Secret Germany were: since 1933, the Jewish disciples of George had to help themselves.

Christian Wiese
Revolte wider die Weltflucht: Hans Jonas’ Auseinandersetzung mit Martin Heidegger und dem modernen Existenzialismus

The article analyses Hans Jonas’s complex relationship to Martin Heidegger since the 1920s and identifies his ongoing confrontation with his teacher’s philosophy as the subtext to the different facets of his own philosophical thinking. Jonas’s work, including his interpretation of ancient Gnosticism, his philosophy of biology, his ethics of responsibility as well as his ethical-theological speculations are interpreted as a response to what he perceived as a fatal nihilistic element inherent in Heidegger’s thinking that was responsible for the latter’s political failure during the Nazi Era. By analysing Jonas’s devastating critique of Heidegger and relating it to the Jewish dimension of Jonas’s biography and thought, the article points to the ultimate thrust of the latter’s philosophy: The memory of the Holocaust as the fundamental historical event of the past century was a first cruel culmination of the same nihilistic indifference to the value of life that inheres in contemporary society’s destructive and fatalistic attempt to escape awareness of the danger of an irreversible destruction of natural life on earth, and contemporary ethics has to respond by initiating an intellectual “revolt against escapism”.

Jens Mattern
Jüdische Gnosis in der Moderne? Zum Denken von Jacob Taubes und Emmanuel Lévinas

At least since Eric Voegelin put modernity’s legitimacy into question by declaring its essentially Gnostic character, the discussion concerning the relationship between modernity and Gnosticism has become central for modern self-reflection. Against the background of this discussion, this article proposes an interpretation of Jacob Taubes and Emmanuel Lévinas and examines the question of whether the modern constellation of thought and existence leaves room for a Jewish form of Gnosticism. Whereas Jacob Taubes participated actively in the aforementioned discussion, formulating a Gnostic position he considered faithful to the radically critical attitude towards a false world emerging in ancient Israel, Lévinas did not explicitly refer to Gnosticism as a point of reference for his thought. Nonetheless, the author interprets Lévinas’ thought as a distinctly Jewish Gnosis: attempting the escape from being as the absolute evil towards the wholly Other, the movement of this thought leads in a fascinating reversal to the rediscovery of being as creation. The interpretation of Taubes and Lévinas allows for the thesis that under modern conditions, Jewish thought can take up Gnostic forms since the creator God, rejected by ancient Gnosticism in favor of a foreign, wholly-other god, has become himself a radically unknown God: In the modern constellation of thought and existence a Gnostic movement of thought can, thus, turn into its radical other.

Kolloquiumsberichte

Yaacov Shavit
Über die Bibel als Geschichtsdokument und Geschichte in der Bibel
Beginning with a short introduction on the motivations behind the modern quest for extra-biblical proofs that the biblical historical record (mainly in the Books of Kings) is accurate and reliable, the article argues that it is misleading to regard the Bible—even in its historical books—as ‘history’ in any modern sense. However, the core of the historical narrative in Kings can be verified, and the books are not story, but history, even though they do not provide, nor were they meant to provide, a full, detailed and accurate picture of the history of Israel and Judea, and even though its authors and editors re-worked their various sources and earlier versions—both written and oral—according to their theological-historical conceptions and their literary strategies. Thus, the right approach to the book’s historical trustworthiness is the “middle-road approach,” i.e., to treat each and every ‘historical unit’ separately.
The main argument of this article is that Kings are the product of a small group of scribes and were not written in order to gain the status of the “formal history” of the people of Israel during the First Temple period—and that they could not have gained this status during that period. Rather, the books may have been only one historical version of many other existing versions. However, the writers, even when they re-told past events, based on previous sources, in many cases had to make creative decisions about what to preserve and what to omit from the different previous versions and layers of the ‘story’, and did not produce a ‘coherent’ final version, mainly because of their reluctance to delete some of the older materials, but rather to retain them.

Meron Piotrkowski
Theokratie am Extrem: Die Auflösung der Formen jüdischer Staatlichkeit und die Genese der 4. Philosophie

In Josephus’ later works, viz. his opus magnum, ‘The Jewish Antiquities’ and his apologetic two-volume, ‘ contra Apionem,’ he propagates a form of Jewish constitution, which he himself terms a ‘Theocracy’(c. Ap. 2.165). What he means by that, is a divinely ordained set of laws (the Torah) that are safeguarded by the priestly aristocracy, of which Josephus himself is a proud member. This concept – and its observance – is synonymous with God’s will, who according to this concept, is perceived as the sole ruler of all things. In the year 6 CE, Josephus reports on the so called ‘4th Philosophy’ of a certain ‘Judas the Galilean’ (Ant. 18.23-24) that also propagates, what we may understand as a ‘Theocracy,’ viz. the sole rule of God. However, Josephus condemns Judas’ philosophy in the strongest tones. Nevertheless, one may understand that two ‘theocracies’ subsisted in Judaea during the Roman period and my quest was to inquire the circumstances of the genesis of these ideas. I found that the major differences of Josephus’ concept of ‘Theocracy’ vs. Judas’ concept was that, according to the former’s model, priests are of essential importance to maintain and to make theocracy work. This stands in contrast to Judas’ concept, in which priests are all but of importance and this, so I sought to reveal, is due to the historical circumstances and the current political world in which Judas lived. As such, he lived in a period in which the all important office of the Jewish High Priesthood of the Hellenistic era experienced a drastic decline in the Roman Period and this is what shines through in Judas’ concept of theocracy, that merely deletes the priests, so that God’s rule is perceived to be a ‘direct’ form of rule, as opposed to the ‘indirect’ form inherent in Josephus’ concept.

Annette Weber
Fragen zur Textumsetzung: Michelangelos Sitzstatue des Moses und ihre Ikonografie im Vergleich zu biblischen Quellen

On February 4th 2009, the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien has organised an interdisciplinary workshop, dealing with Vasari’s statement, that the Jews of Rome were fascinated with Michelangelo’s statue of Moses and visited him every Shabbat in San Pietro in Vincoli. The present paper preliminarily summarizes the contribution dealing with the question of how Jewish visitors might have perceived the statue. Familiar with the Biblical text of Exodus 33 and 34, when Moses returned with a shining face from his second meeting with the Lord, they might have understood the statue as reflecting the very moment of Theophany, because it was then when Moses’ face started to shine according to Rashi. This interpretation would implicate a close linking of text and image and it is to ask whether Michelangelo could have been aware this kind of interpretation. There is indeed such a possibility, as Michelangelo has had apparently contacts to Egidio da Viterbo and his circle, who were involved in the study of the Hebrew Bible and its literal interpretation. In addition, the literal reading of the statue according to the Biblical text provides some further opportunities to understand its significance as a personal monument for Pope Julius II., while the very process of sculpting might have started only after 1518.

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