In Search of the Hebrew People: Bible and Nation in the German Enlightenment. By OfriIlany. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 2018. 180 p. £45. 00/55. 00 (hb). ISBN 978‐0‐253‐03351‐2.

This erudite work introduces its readers to German history, biblical studies, and modern nationalism. Ofri Ilany is an expert on the history of ideas, German–Jewish relations, and the history of sexuality. In this concise 'and inspiring' (x) translation of his dissertation, the author surveys Old Testament scholarship in German from the eighteenth century to the present (cf. pp. 13–15). This volume appears in the new book series 'German Jewish Cultures', published by Indiana University Press and the Leo Baeck Institute, London. Ilany's lucid investigation of the role of the Hebrew people as 'alternative ancients' (compared to the impact of the Greek legacy on German culture) unearths neglected fields of theology and history that are central to the German approach to the Old Testament. They also mark the German return, during the second half of the eighteenth century, to the Old Testament 'to draw legitimacy precisely from the biblical notion of chosenness' (p. 1). Ilany takes up Jonathan Sheehan's thesis that 'the main thrust of biblical research during the Enlightenment sought a separation between the Old and New Testaments' (p. 104). From his particular view of German studies and biblical hermeneutics, he sheds light on the revaluing of the Old Testament in early Romanticism in reaction to the New Testament emphasis of the Late Enlightenment and the intellectual consequences of the rabid anti-clericalism of the French Revolution. Ilany's basic premise is simple yet surprisingly novel: that the historical image of the Hebrew nation (including a notable historical shift in how the word 'nation' is applied to the biblical text) emerged at the same time as Western nationalisms appeared, and both are rooted in a distinctly Christian mindset (p. 146). He develops this thesis in five concise chapters on the Bible and sources of German anthropology, the Mosaic Law and the German Enlightenment, eighteenth-century polemic on the extermination of the Canaanites, the Hebrew model and the birth of German national culture, and the debate over the Bible's relevance at the turn of the nineteenth century. Drawing upon sources from the sixteenth century to the present, Ilany touches upon a wide range of topics: the German-Hebraistic Renaissance, German and Jewish law, philosemitism, Protestantism, Catholicism, biblical teaching, Bible translation, cultural pedagogy, and the work and impact of the Prussian biblical scholar and orientalist Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791), who contributed to making the University of Halle into a distinct centre for early modern Pietism (Chapters 1 to 3). Ilany regards him, along with Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), as a co-founder of modern German study of the Old Testament (p. 5). Having already asserted early on that 'the echoes of traditional salvation history still reverberate in this story' (p. 37), Ilany arrives at a strong conclusion: 'In the final account, the national reading of scripture opens the door to a theological development no less—and perhaps more—radical than the sceptical criticism of Spinoza, Voltaire, and the deists' (p. 146). He thus makes a case for the neglected importance of the political (and cultural) implications of biblical hermeneutics in modernity: 'With the transformation of scripture into literature, secular poetry and literature become a form of new scripture' (p. 148). At the same time, he identifies this development as a 'fundamental break with the Pauline tradition' (p. 147). Ilany resists the temptation of offering a historical survey remote from its sources. Time and again he engages with the biblical text to ground each of his observations and theses. The book offers a compelling tour of German Christian Hebraism since the eighteenth century, thus addressing a lacuna in scholarship which has generally focused on Dutch, English, and American Hebraism (p. 7). Ilany shows how biblical criticism arose in response to the deist challenge, in turn shaping national self-understandings in the time of nascent nationalism. This volume includes brief and useful concluding summaries as well as endnotes for each chapter, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and an index. It thus comes equipped with everything future scholarship of the neglected late eighteenth-century turn to the Old Testament may wish for. It is a must-read for any scholar of biblical criticism and an important addition to any library concerned with Jewish and German studies, theology, and history alike.