Gustaf Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Gustaf Dalmans magnum opus, Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (AuS), published in seven volumes between 1928 and 1942 with a posthumous fragmentary eighth volume published in 2001, remains one of the greatest works of modern biblical scholarship. Beginning with a description of the course of the year and ending with funerary customs, the work comprehensively covers all aspects of late 19th and early 20thcentury life in Palestine and Syria. This article will investigate how a scholar deeply influenced by a sense of (Christian) mission to the Jews single-handedly invented a new strand of science (Palästinawissenschaft) and engaged in anthropological fieldwork and thinking before the rise of social anthropology as a discipline. Dalmans work represents a »radically ambivalent« (Z. Bauman) attitude towards Jews and Judaism which drove his scholarship and is often rooted in antisemitic tropes. That these tropes do not permeate the pages of Arbeit und Sitte is a schizophrenic strand that is so typical for biblical scholarship of the time.