Adolph Hausrath
(1837-1909)
German theologian educated at Jena, Göttingen, Berlin and Heidelberg, where he became Privatdozent in 1861, professor extraordinary in 1867 and ordinary professor in 1872. He was a disciple of the Tubingen school. | Der Apostel Paulus (1865) | Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte (1868-1873, 4 vols.; Eng. trans.) | D. F. Strauss and die Theologie seiner Zeit (1876-1878, 2 vols.) | Lives of Richard Rothe (2 vols. 1902), and Luther (1904)
Wrote one of the definitive German “Zeitgeschichtliche Eschatologie”
(Präterismus) books of the 19th century:
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A History of the New Testament Times / VOL. ONE | VOL. TWO | VOL. THREE | VOL. FOUR (English translation of Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, 1868–1873, 4 vols) – “The Jewish false prophet, who raised the standard of rebellion, is plunged into the eternal pit no less than Nero, the Antichrist.” // “Thus ensued an anxious pause, which gave the Romans repose, and the Zealots a period for new saturnalia. Breathless expectancy brooded over Asia, and engendered the strangest rumours, which the Apocalypse of John shows us in the form current among the Jewish Christians. This was the momentary respite immediately before the coming of the great judgment of which John speaks. The angels stood on the four corners of the earth and held the four winds, so that no leaf stirred, nor any wave ; and another angel came from the east and sealed the saints on the forehead, so that they should be marked before the coming of the great judgment.”
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9/25/12: Adolph Hausrath on the history and theology of the First Roman-Jewish War (1895) – Masterful essay
“The Jews’ confidence of victory fell when they saw the abomination of desolation set up in the holy place. The upper town was defended half-heartedly.”
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“The Jews of Asia had at Jerusalem separate schools and synagogues. The ground on which these stood, was named Asia. The number of schools upon that ground was seven ; and these bore, respectively, the names which appear in the inscriptions to the seven epistles ; like the English schools at Rome, in the 8th century, which bore the names of the Heptarchy.” (Erklarung, p. 67)
“The news of the fall of Jotopata was received in Jerusalem with horror. Josephus was mourned as dead ; but when it became known that the late governor of Galilee was safe and sound in Csesarea, and that not as a Jewish prisoner, but a Roman spy, it did not need the arrival of John of Gishala to thoroughly embitter the populace against the leaders of the War-sanhedrin. Had not John of Gishala and every leader of the party of action constantly demanded the recall of the traitor while it was yet time ? Had not Eleazar, son of Simon, employed the proceeds of the spoils of Cestius in buying their favourite from the avaricious Annas and Jesus ben Gamaliel ? Had not an embassy with 40,000 pieces of silver been sent to Galilee to secure the young fellow ? Yet, after all, had not the chief men amongst them hindered the plans of the Zealots, Jesus ben Gamaliel invariably sending timely warning to Josephus through his father, so that he took corresponding precautions ? It can be understood that, after such experiences, confidence in the council of war was deeply shaken, and violent attacks and arbitrary arrests ensued. But Annas, the murderer of James, still thought it possible to play his treacherous part. While the people were amused with the noisy pretence of soldiering, over which Josephus himself makes merry, secret preparations were made to hand over the city to Vespasian.
At this point the two parties came to blows over the redistribution of the chief offices. The chief -priest was still Matthew, son of Theophilus, who had received the holy fillet from the hands of the enemy, Agrippa II. It was but common sense to demand, as the war party did, the placing of another man in supreme office. But the aristocracy turned a deaf ear to the popular demand. Then Eleazar, the conqueror of Cestius, and the other men of action, appealed to the family of Eliakim, their only supporters among the priestly families, and made them draw lots for the high-priesthood. The lot fell upon a country Levite, Phanias, son of Samuel, of the village of Aphta.” (Times of the Apostles, p. 229)
The Sadducees shed tears of rage at the consecration of a peasant to be high-priest ; and the Pharisees believed that the leaders had been seized with madness to have thus trampled the law underfoot.3 Now since this change of high-priest struck a deadly blow at their influence, Annas and Jesus did not hesitate to plunge into civil war, with the avowed intention of admitting the Eomans after they had overthrown the Zealots.4 Annas in person called to arms, drove back the Zealots into the temple, and occupied the outer forecourt.5 But the Sadducee could
WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID
Friedrich Bleek
“The same Abauzit wrote another treatise which belongs to this place (Essai sur 1’Apocalypse, 1730), in which he tries to show that the book was written under Nero, and is in its prophecy only a development of the sayings of Christ about the fall of Jerusalem; that all refers to the destruction of this Jewish capital and the Roman-Jewish war (ch. xxi. and xxii.); to the more extensive spread of the Christian Church after that catastrophe.
Similar is the interpretation of Wetstein (De Interpretatione libri Apocalypseos) in his New Testament, II. 889 and following; 1752), who refers the main contents to the Romish-Jewish war and the contemporary civil war in Italy, but understands the thousand years (ch. xx.) as the fifty years after the death of Domitian until the insurrection of the Jews under Bar Cochba, and takes the heavenly Jerusalem as a type of the great spread and rest of the Christian Church after the complete subjection of the Jews.
Further, Johann Christoph Harenberg’s (Professor at Brunswick, died 1774) Erklarung der Offenbarung Johannis: Es entwickelt sich zugleich die Frage, wo wir jetzt in der Zeit der Anzeigen solcher Offenbarung leben; Braunschw. 1759, 4), which refers all to Jerusalem as far as ch. xviii., understanding Babylon as that city; but the following chapters he refers to the development of the Christian Church till the last day. ” (pp. 56-57)
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