Johann Heinrich Hottinger and the Systematic Organization of Jewish Literature

Abstract

The authors explore the influence of the Swiss theologian, Orientalist, and Christian Hebraist, Johann Heinrich Hottinger, who preceded Shabbetai Bass in developing and implementing a classified Hebraica-Judaica bibliography. His ideas and theories have heretofore not been closely examined by Judaica bibliographers or researchers of Jewish intellectual history. Hottinger’s innovation was his degree of abstraction: that of analyzing a collection according to its contents. A study of his theories and classification systems can stimulate and encourage a renewed look at early practices and offer insights that can be relevant to current research. Unless otherwise noted, translations from the original Latin, Hebrew, and other languages are the authors’.