Johann Ernst Gerhard (1621-1668)

Asaph Ben-Tov, PhD (Jerusalem 2007), Habilitation (Erfurt 2019) is the author of Lutheran Humanists and Greek Antiquity (2009) and co-editor (with Yaacov Deutsch and Tamar Herzig) of Knowledge and Religion in Early Modern Europe (2013) and (with Martin Mulsow) of Knowledge and Profanation (2019).

Acknowledgements

List of Figures



Introduction: A Biography of a Seventeenth-Century Orientalist: Its Sources and Significance for Understanding Oriental Studies in Early Modern Germany



1 The Making of a Seventeenth-Century Orientalist

 1 First Academic Appearances

 2 Studying Oriental Languages

 3 Studying Ethiopic in Jena

 4 Commonplace Learning



2 Early Endeavours

 1 His Father’s Editor

 2 Inherited Enemies: The Case of Barthold Nihus

 3 History

 4 Biblical Scholarship and Antiquarianism

 5 The Syriac Bible



3 Harmonia Linguarum Orientalium

 1 Gerhard and the Tradition of Harmonic Linguistics

 2 Harmonia Linguarum Orientalium (1647)

 3 Some Immediate Reactions to the Harmonia

 4 Fata libelli



4 Travels in the Republic of Letters

 1 Altdorf, Nuremberg, and Regensburg

 2 Iter ad mare balticum – A Tour of War-Ravaged Northern Germany (1642)

 3 The Grand Tour: Itinerarium Belgicum (1650–1651)



5 Professor of History (1652–1655)

 1 Cyrus, Athens, Alexander the Great, and the Mirror of Princes



6 Umbra in luce: A Fragmented World History of Religion

 1 Professor of Theology

 2 The Armenian, Muscovite, Coptic, and Maronite Churches

 3 Armenia (1665)

 4 The Muscovites (1665)

 5 The Copts (1666) and the Maronites (1668)

 6 Beyond Church History

 7 Islam

 8 Umbra in luce (1667)

 9 An Unexpected Prelude: Justinian von Weltz (1621–1668?) and His Mission to the Heathens

 10 Shadow, Light, and Penumbra

 11 Christian Hoffmann’s Umbra in luce (1667)



A Hieroglyphic Farewell

 and Concluding Comments

Appendix: A Selection of Letters to Gerhard from Hiob Ludolf and Johann Zechendorff in the Gerhardina Collection

Bibliography

Index