Luigi wrote:I stumbled on this today. Apparently back in 1923 German churchmen were feeling quite conflicted about preaching the old testament due to its clearly Jewish character. This apparently lead Heinrich Lhotzky to rewrite the old testament with all Hebrew names and terms replaced with German origin terms and names. Max Maurenbrecher, a commenter from the time sums up their mindset:
“Many German Nationals” he writes “will regard the book as a solution of their present difficulty, inasmuch as we must reject the Holy Scriptures in so far as they are the Scriptures of the Jewish people. The difficulty is solved when we realize that the Old Testament is greater than Judaism, that it is the revelation of a vast power which was not really understood by the Jews and which Judaism has brought to degeneration. Many clergymen after reading this book will again have the courage to preach from Old Testament texts. All National teachers to whom the Biblical stories have hitherto been a difficulty will find in this book now to tell the Old Testament stories to Germans and make them live.”
So seemingly this was quite satisfying to them lol Apparently they had no problem ignoring that Jesus and all his friends were Jewish. Interesting though that as early as 1923 this was part of popular thought to this extent. It reminds we of a decade later when the Germans labelled Charlemagne the slayer of Saxons and built a memorial to his victims, but then couldnt help themselves in clinging to him as a culture hero. Its all a little bit sad really, like a victim rationalizing the actions of their abuser.
http://pdfs.jta.org/1923/1923-04-06_068.pdf
That is fantastic Luigi. You find some cool stuff, not enough appreciation here for the things you share.
Not much in that PDF about it though... I wanted to know what names they used to replace the characters. 'Urd' is Abraham, but what name did they choose for Jesus?? LOL it would be funny almost no matter what they picked lol
This is interesting because as a fan of mythology, it is sometimes argued that the value of these stories is not in specific historical fact, but in the underlying truths the myths sort of POINT towards, not even really the story itself. A proper myth can be told in different ways and still give the same message, nothing is diminished.
I've also heard it argued that the much of the biblical myths are actually found in myths that PRE-date it, that a much older story was re-packaged into Jewish/Christian culture from old Egyptian myths etc... exactly as the Germans did in the link you sent.
I kind of like this idea.