The Rebirth of Revelation : German Theology in an Age of Reason and History, 1750–1850

__The Rebirth of Revelation__ explores the different and important ways religious thinkers across Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism modernized the concept of revelation from 1750 to 1850. "Revelation is a pillar of belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Historians regularly write that the Enlightenment dethroned it as the basis for knowledge of God and the world, replacing or at least supplementing it with reason. What Benes demonstrates is that in the late eighteenth century religious thinkers across the three main German confessions (Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism) rehabilitated the concept in important if untraditional ways. These thinkers were not entirely successful in reconciling reason, revelation, and history. A new generation of philosophers, including Feuerbach and Kierkegaard, attacked the concept again in the nineteenth century. But a secularized concept of revelation persisted and influenced numerous disciplines beyond theology, including history, linguistics, and natural philosophy (e.g. science). The dismantling of propositional revelation bestowed the privileges and agency once reserved for God onto human subjects, relegating religion to cultural practice, not divine truth. In addition to its comprehensive approach, Benes's manuscript stands-out for addressing not just the Protestant majority but also Catholic and Jewish thinking on revelation, highlighting both the common themes and the ways in which their intellectual trajectory differed."-- Provided by publisher

Despite being a pillar of belief in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the idea of revelation was deeply discredited over the course of the Enlightenment. The post-Enlightenment restoration of revelation among German religious thinkers is a fascinating yet underappreciated moment in modern efforts to navigate between reason and faith.

The Rebirth of Revelation compares Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish reflections on revelation from 1750 to 1850 and asserts that a strategic transformation in the term’s meaning secured its relevance for the modern age. Tuska Benes argues that "propositional" revelation, understood as the infallible dispensation of doctrine, gave way to revelation as a subjective process of inner transformation or the historical disclosure of divine being in the world.

By comparatively approaching the unconventional ways in which Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism have rehabilitated the concept of revelation, The Rebirth of Revelation restores theology to a central place in modern European intellectual history.