Book Details

Book Information

This fascinating collection of essays charts for the first time the range of responses by scholars on both sides of the conflict to the outbreak of war in August 1914. The volume examines how scholars, like their compatriots from every walk of life, responded to the great crisis they faced and shows that with relatively few exceptions, scholars wanted to contribute to the war effort.

But how? Some joined up as soldiers, as in the case of the Leipzig New Testament Professor Caspar René Gregory, who at 67 was Germany's oldest volunteer. More commonly, biblical scholars and theologians put pen to paper as part of the torrent of patriotic publication that arose both in the United Kingdom and in Germany. This volume shows how in many cases scholars were repeating or refining common arguments about the responsibility for the war. In Germany and Britain, where the Bible was still central to a Protestant national culture, we also find numerous more specialized works, where biblical scholars brought their own disciplinary expertise to bear on the matter of war in general, and this war in particular. As such the volume offers new insights into the place of both the bible and biblical scholarship in early 20th-century culture.

Table of contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1: Institutions and Individuals

1. The Mobilization of University Academics, 1914–15 - Tomás Irish, University of Swansea, UK

2. For Christ and Kaiser: Caspar René Gregory and the First World War - Timothy Demy, US Naval War College, USA

3. Between Prophetic Critique and raison d'état: Rudolf Kittel on German Jews in the Great War and the Old Testament Hebrews in Biblical Israel - Lukas Bormann, University of Marburg, Germany

4. William Sanday, Modernism, and the First World War - Mark Chapman, University of Oxford, UK

5. SOTS, SBL, and WWI: Anglo-American Scholarly Societies and the Great War - Matthew A. Collins, University of Chester, UK

Part 2: Biblical Texts and Themes

6. Thou Shalt not Kill, Unless…: The Decalogue in a Kaiserreich at War - Paul Michael Kurtz, University of Cambridge, UK

7. 'Yahweh is Great!': The Construction of Israelite Holy War in and around the Time of the Great War - Nathan MacDonald, University of Cambridge, UK

8. Psalms, Patriotism and Propaganda: A Favourite Book in Wartime - Andrew Mein, University of Durham, UK

9. The Biblical Prophets in First World War German Scholarship - Susannah Heschel, Dartmouth College, USA