The Specter of Marcion
Decanonizing the Old Testament in Twenty-First-Century Germany
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4846642 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yaniv Feller (0000-0002-7990-7531, University of Florida, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 103 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 409-430 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Religion (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4189 • E-ISSN: 1549-6538 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/726458 |
| OpenAlex | W4388916155 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 25 |
Notger Slenczka’s 2013 call to decanonize the Old Testament provoked a public outcry in Germany, one that extended far beyond the ivory tower but received little attention in the English-speaking world. This article explains the controversy, which included public accusations of antisemitism; analyzes the origins of Slenczka’s view; and looks at potential Jewish responses to such a claim. The Old Testament, Slenczka argues, is a revelation to the Jews but not to Christians. In modern times, he believes, Christians can no longer claim that they are spoken to in the Old Testament, and the text should therefore be relegated to the status of apocrypha, enlightening but not part of the Protestant canon. Slenczka was seen as breaching decades-long attempts to develop Jewish-Christian dialogue in the aftermath of the Holocaust, which explains the harsh reactions to his work. I show how the controversy exposes deeper anxieties about the specter of Marcionism and a Christianity without the Old Testament. After explaining Slenczka’s argument, I show its debt to Adolf von Harnack, the person more responsible than any other for interest in Marcion in the interwar period. The article then offers three possible Jewish replies to Slenczka’s argument, relying, among others, on earlier Jewish responses to debates about Marcion: rejection, disengagement, and engagement. Although rejection is the most common, engagement is another possibility, which tentatively offers a new path for Jewish-Christian exchange in the twenty-first century
Antisemitism · Apocrypha · Appropriation · Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Epistemology · Judaism · Literature · New Testament · Old Testament · Protestantism · The Holocaust · Theology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Philosophy · Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity · Religious studies
From Aher to Marcion
Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism
Tertullian contra Marcion
The Jewish Imperial Imagination
Cultural Memory and Early Civilization
Das Wesen des Christentums
Gnosis and Judaism in Nineteenth Century Christian Thought
The Philosophical Foundations of Soloveitchik's Critique of Interfaith Dialogue
Jewish Conscience of the Church
Judaism
The Ways that Never Parted
Border Lines
From enemy to brother
The Man of Faith and Religious Dialogue
Gnosis and History
The Invention of World Religions
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |