In Search of the Hebrew People

Ofri Ilany is a postdoctoral fellow at the Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and a lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

"Thanks to its erudition, the monograph could serve as an effective introduction to German history, biblical studies and modern nationalism, among other fields."—German History"Ilany's book has much to offer to biblical scholars invested in understanding the development of their field, but also to scholars of 18th- and 19th-century Germany and to those interested in the relationship between the academy and the ideological process of nation building more broadly."—Reading Religion"Recommended."—Choice"Sound, well-informed, and original. No one seriously interested in the history of biblical criticism will be able to ignore this work."—Mark Somos, author of Secularism and the Leiden Circle"lany's study is a significant, deeply erudite contribution to our understanding of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German culture and politics."—H-Judaic

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction 1. Troglodytes, Hottentots and Hebrews: The Bible and the Genesis of German Ethnography2. The Law and the People: Mosaic Law and German Enlightenment3. The Eighteenth-Century Polemic on the Extermination of the Canaanites4. "Is Judah Indeed the Teutonic Fatherland?" The Hebrew Model and the Birth of German National Culture5. "Lovers of Hebrew Poetry": The Battle over the Bible's Relevance at the Turn of the Nineteenth CenturyConclusion BibliographyIndex