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The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. By Susannah Heschel. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008. xvii + 339 pp. $29.95 (clotìi).
The place of academic Christian dieology in Hitlers Germany has been surprisingly, even scandalously, underinvestigated. Heschels examination of Nazi-era Christian theology - its major figures and institutions - goes a long way toward exposing and correcting the wishful thinking and self-delusion that have characterized the field of European church history for half a century. A noteworthy contribution to the history of modern biblical scholarship and Jewish-Christian relations, this volume sheds much needed light on one of the darkest episodes in Christian history.
Heschels work advances the critical study of Third Reich Christianity pioneered by Doris Bergen, Robert Ericksen, Robert Krieg, and a handful of other scholars. Based on original research in German archival collections, the book...