Hitler holding up a bible free#

вЂњHis life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the founder of the new doctrine. Hitler, for example, drew upon the Temple incident of John 2:12-25 to indicate the evil, this worldly character of the Jews: A few years ago, while studying anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic readings of the New Testament, I came across some curious passages in what was perhaps the вЂњCaesarвЂќ of Nazi propaganda, i.e., Adolf HitlerвЂ™s Mein Kampf (German edition, 2 vols published in 19 translated by Ralph Manheim Houghton Mifflin Co., 1971). The other side was the more popular or propagandistic understanding of biblical texts as applied to European Jewish communities. However, it is important to recall that HitlerвЂ™s regime did not limit itself to those with doctorates and professorships when it comes to the Bible. It was a method of establishing intellectual support for an ideology underlying a set of political policies. Thus, Nazi GermanyвЂ™s tapping scholarly resources makes a great deal of sense. The same is true for research, which should be the foundation and end goal for all education.

Hitler holding up a bible free#

In a sense, I am reminded of Bertrand RussellвЂ™s criticism of education that is nationalistic in focus (e.g., Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction, 100-116), as such education is driven to вЂњkeep alive a bigoted nationalismвЂќ by вЂњpromot national prideвЂќ (105), thereby enabling States to have ideological and practical support from the population for furthering the objectives of those governing institutions, rather than to nurture a love of free inquiry that is necessary for вЂњindependence of mindвЂќ (107). Of course not all of German biblical scholarship in the 1930s and 1940s supported such lines of research. Susannah Heschel, in The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton University Press, 2008), as well as in numerous articles (e.g., Heschel, вЂњNazifying Christian Theology: Walter Grundmann and the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Church Life,вЂќ Church History 63.4 : 587-605), has done much to elucidate the role of Christian scholarship, especially biblical scholarship, in offering intellectual grounding for Nazi policy toward Jewish communities. KateвЂ™s blog has inspired me to write a follow up to her blog, though from a slightly different angle.Д«efore beginning, however, it might be helpful to direct readers to an important book on the topic that Kate addresses. In her recent blog on вЂњThe Curious Case of Gerhard Kittel,вЂќ Kate Daley-Bailey offers an important overview of the involvement of biblical scholars in promoting Nazi GermanyвЂ™s anti-Jewish policies.