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Modern Semitics took its starting point in the exegesis of the Bible carried out by Christian Orientalists of the 19th century. Its tales gave rise to controversial notions about the people of the Semites, their origin, development, and language. The historicization of the Bible (Bible Criticism) and the establishment of Sanskrit philology in Europe were accompanied by an increasing difference of opinion between Semitic and Indo-European studies. With the addition of the classification “Aryan” to Indo-European, together with the simultaneous devaluation of Semitic, Jewish scholars found themselves challenged to make their own contributions, with which they questioned the findings and methods of their Christian colleagues, especially with regard to the evaluation of the religious and cultural accomplishments of the Semites.
Die moderne Semitistik nahm ihren Ausgangspunkt in der von christlichen Orientalisten des 19. Jahrhunderts betriebenen Exegese der Bibel. Deren Erzählungen gaben Anlass zu kontroversen Vorstellungen über das Volk der Semiten, dessen Herkunft, Entwicklung und Sprache. Die Historisierung der Bibel ( Bibelkritik) und die Etablierung der Sanskrit-Philologie in Europa gingen mit einer zunehmenden Differenz zwischen semitischen und indoeuropäischen Studien einher. Mit Hinzutreten der Wertung »arisch« zum Indoeuropäischen bei gleichzeitiger Abwertung des Semitischen sahen sich jüdische Gelehrte zu eigenen Beiträgen herausgefordert, mit denen sie die Befunde und Methoden ihrer christlichen Kollegen vor allem mit Blick auf die Beurteilung der religiösen und kulturellen Leistungen der Semiten infrage stellten.
The article begins with a brief sketch of the beginnings of Semitics and the Wissenschaft des Judentums, highlighting the theological roots of the former and the relation of each to Jewish emancipation in Prussia. The second section presents a close reading of Leopold Zunz’s Etwas über die rabbinische Litteratur (1818), a text that initiates the Wissenschaft des Judentums, and highlights several aspects of the work: the tension Zunz grapples with between rabbinic rupture and Jewish continuity, the former of which dominates; the contemporaneous use of “our science” and the relation between knowledge and the power it asserts; and the theological foundations of the program he proposes. It then looks at Zunz’s later writings, emphasizing the continuity of his thought and how he revises some of his earlier views. In closing, the article speculates as to why Zunz did not engage the field of Semitics.