Ludwig Philippson and Hegelian Biblical Scholarship

• In Event: Jewish Hegelians

Abstract

Ludwig Philippson’s historical and exegetical writings are comprehensible only within a Hegelian framework: an erstwhile student of Hegel at the University of Berlin, Philippson understood his scholarship to be a response to the speculative biblical theologies of Wilhelm Vatke (DIE BIBLISCHE THEOLOGIE WISSENSCHAFTLICH DARGESTELLT, 1835) and Bruno Bauer (KRITIK DER GESCHICHTE DER OFFENBARUNG, 1838). By crafting a historiosophy deeply indebted to Hegel, Philippson posited an account of biblical history that defended the Bible from the ravages of historical criticism even as it also dismantled supersessionist tropes current in mid-nineteenth-century German scholarship.

Philippson develops his Hegelian historiosophy in two works. First, in his Die Israelitische Bibel (1839-1854), Philippson traces how the Bible evinces the organic unfolding of the Idea of Revelation in history, which, he argues, indicates the “inner unity” of the Bible. Philippson extended his treatment of the development of this Idea beyond biblical history in his 1846-47 public lecture series published as DIE ENTWICKELUNG DER RELIGIOESEN IDEE IM JUDENTHUME, CHRISTENTHUME, UND ISLAM (THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RELIGIOUS IDEA IN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY, AND ISLAM), which analyzed the development of the Religious Idea from the biblical epochs through to the modern era.

This paper illustrates the ways in which the language and categories of Philippson’s historiosophy are indebted to Hegel, then details how Philippson’s Hegelian biblical scholarship modifies and subverts central arguments of Vatke’s and Bauer’s biblical theologies. The paper ends with a consideration of the unique potentials and limits of categorizing Philippson as a Hegelian.

Author

• Alexandra Zirkle, SUNY, University at Buffalo