Panbabylonism

The Babel - Bible controversy - in the literature Babel-Bible- armed - is a altorientalistisch theological discourse of the early 20th century. Although it took place almost simultaneously with the controversy over the so-called Panbabylonismus and is often equated with it, both armed events both factually and with strictly distinguished.

The reason for the Babel - Bible controversy was a public lecture by the German Friedrich Delitzsch Assyriologists, which he held on 13 January 1902 in the presence of Emperor Wilhelm II in front of the German Oriental Society in the Sing- Akademie zu Berlin. In this lecture, he defended the thesis that Judaism and the Old Testament went back to Babylonian roots. Babylon must be considered as explainer and illustrator of the Bible. In response to sharp, not back deterrent also over personal defamation polemics of conservative Jewish and Christian side, he pointed out a year later in a second presentation of the cultural, moral, and eventually religious superiority of the Babylonian- Assyrian culture of the Old Testament Israelite and started against a traditional religious concept of revelation to argue.

The total of three lectures on "Babel and Bible " provoked a broad public discussion and a flood of writings that sought partly an understanding, but mainly Delitzsch from a conservative Christian and Jewish heading out disagreed sharply. The aim was both to his scientific interpretation as well as to the charges, especially on conservative Protestant side claim a revelation function of biblical texts in the sense of verbal inspiration. When his most productive main opponent of Bonn Old Testament scholar Edward King should apply.

Hugo Winckler then coined the term Panbabylonismus to describe the postulated by him far-reaching influence of the Assyrian thinking on the Israeli idea of ​​God, which he regarded as an echo of the astral cult. He was followed by Peter Jensen and Alfred Jeremias, who derived a large part of the narratives of the Old Testament from the Epic of Gilgamesh.

With the First World War, the decline of the History of Religions School and the advent of dialectical theology, the discussion became less important. Arguments from the Babel - Bible controversy were, however, in the debate about the Old Testament during the church struggle new meaning: Delitzsch himself spoke in his last years for the excretion of the Old Testament from the ecclesiastical use of and thus took demands of the German Christians anticipate. Some ideas inhabit today the popular scientific discussion.

A secondary consequence of the dispute was the popularization of the German excavation results in the Middle East such as the Ishtar Gate.