Background
He was born in 1810 in Frankfurt, Germany,
(Preface to the First Edition. The following pages owe the...)
Preface to the First Edition. The following pages owe their origin to aC ourse of Lectures before a limited audience of educated persons. As they met with friends among those, so they seek them now among an educated public at large. Ought subjects of such serious, profound importance as those considered in these pages to venture into the vast market of life, if their treatment claims to present new results gained from new points of view? It can not be contested that the results which science has apparently established with the aid of all the means at her command, should be made the property of all educated people. But as long as such proof has not been furnished in full, would it not be preposterous to drag them before the public at large? I have seriously considered these doubts. For the views expressed herein differ in important points from those generally prevailing, and I have thus far not had the opportunity to substantiate all of them so fully as to be able to refer to works previously published. I can only refer to my book, The Original Text and Versions of theB ible, to my essay, Sadducees and Pharisees, and a few other shorter articles published in my Jewish Review forS cience and Life and in other periodicals. Notwithstanding those doubts, I could not resist the temptation presented by a finished manuscript. Considering that life is short and time is fleeting, I think myself to have the permission of saying with the wise Hillel, Praise toG od, day by day. It is not always advisable to defer and repress that which we deem useful until, perchance, it might become more useful. It shall remain the literary task of my life to elaborate, in closer connection and more exhaustively, the historical views presented in these pages. In the mean time I trust that they may in their present form disclose the background, afford an insight into the serious studies (Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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He was born in 1810 in Frankfurt, Germany,
Geiger's friends provided him with financial assistance which enabled him to attend the University in Heidelberg, to the great disappointment of his family. His main focus was centered on the areas of philology, Syriac, Hebrew, and classics, but he also attended lectures in Old Testament, philosophy, and archaeology. After one semester, he transferred to the University of Bonn, where he studied at the same time as Samson Raphael Hirsch. Hirsch initially formed a friendship with Geiger, and with him organized a society of Jewish students for the stated purpose of practicing homiletics, but with the deeper intention of bringing them closer to Jewish values.
In 1832 Geiger went to Wiesbaden as a rabbi and in 1835 helped to found the Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für jüdische Theologie (“Scientific Journal of Jewish Theology”), which he then edited. In 1838 he became junior rabbi in Breslau (now Wrocław, Pol. ), where his known Reform leanings aroused Orthodox opposition. Remaining in Breslau until 1863 (he became senior rabbi in 1843), Geiger organized the Reform movement there and wrote some of his most important works, including a translation into German of the works of Judah ben Samuel ha-Levi (1851), considered the greatest Hebrew poet of 12th-century Spain, and Geiger’s own magnum opus, Urschrift und Übersetzungen der Bibel in ihrer Abhängigkeit von der innern Entwicklung des Judentums (1857; “The Original Text and the Translations of the Bible: Their Dependence on the Inner Development of Judaism”). In the latter work, Geiger analyzes the Sadducees and the Pharisees, Jewish sects in whose history he sees a paradigm of a basic idea of Reform Judaism: in some respects, the Jewish religious consciousness grows and changes, and this development is reflected in the succeeding editions and translations of the Bible.
In a series of rabbinical conferences at Brunswick (1844), Frankfurt (1845), and Breslau (1846), Geiger incisively presented other main tenets of Reform Judaism: the necessity of simplifying ritual and of using a liturgy spoken in one’s native tongue; an emphasis on the prophetic teachings as presenting the core of Judaism, a core that will not lose validity with changing time and place, unlike other components of religion; and a deemphasis on a return to the land of Israel. Geiger’s last years were spent as a rabbi at Frankfurt and at Berlin, where he also lectured at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Institute of Jewish Science”), the liberal seminary.
(Preface to the First Edition. The following pages owe the...)
Geiger sought to demonstrate Judaism's central influence on Christianity and Islam. He believed that neither movement possessed religious originality, but were simply a vehicle to transmit the Jewish monotheistic belief to the pagan world.
Quotations: Geiger argued that, “Reform Judaism was not a rejection of earlier Judaism, but a recovery of the Pharisaic halakhic tradition, which is nothing other than the principle of continual further development in accord with the times, the principle of not being slaves to the letter of the Bible, but rather to witness over and over its spirit and its authentic faith-consciousness. "
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Robert Geiger