What do you think?
Rate this book
Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes
The controversial Jewish thinker whose tortured path led him into the heart of twentieth-century intellectual life
Scion of a distinguished line of Talmudic scholars, Jacob Taubes (1923–1987) was an intellectual impresario whose inner restlessness led him from prewar Vienna to Zurich, Israel, and Cold War Berlin. Regarded by some as a genius, by others as a charlatan, Taubes moved among yeshivas, monasteries, and leading academic institutions on three continents. He wandered between Judaism and Christianity, left and right, piety and transgression. Along the way, he interacted with many of the leading minds of the age, from Leo Strauss and Gershom Scholem to Herbert Marcuse, Susan Sontag, and Carl Schmitt. Professor of Apocalypse is the definitive biography of this enigmatic figure and a vibrant mosaic of twentieth-century intellectual life.
Jerry Muller shows how Taubes’s personal tensions mirrored broader conflicts between religious belief and scholarship, allegiance to Jewish origins and the urge to escape them, tradition and radicalism, and religion and politics. He traces Taubes’s emergence as a prominent interpreter of the Apostle Paul, influencing generations of scholars, and how his journey led him from crisis theology to the Frankfurt School, and from a radical Hasidic sect in Jerusalem to the center of academic debates over Gnosticism, secularization, and the revolutionary potential of apocalypticism.
Professor of Apocalypse offers an unforgettable account of an electrifying world of ideas, focused on a charismatic personality who thrived on controversy and conflict.
Scion of a distinguished line of Talmudic scholars, Jacob Taubes (1923–1987) was an intellectual impresario whose inner restlessness led him from prewar Vienna to Zurich, Israel, and Cold War Berlin. Regarded by some as a genius, by others as a charlatan, Taubes moved among yeshivas, monasteries, and leading academic institutions on three continents. He wandered between Judaism and Christianity, left and right, piety and transgression. Along the way, he interacted with many of the leading minds of the age, from Leo Strauss and Gershom Scholem to Herbert Marcuse, Susan Sontag, and Carl Schmitt. Professor of Apocalypse is the definitive biography of this enigmatic figure and a vibrant mosaic of twentieth-century intellectual life.
Jerry Muller shows how Taubes’s personal tensions mirrored broader conflicts between religious belief and scholarship, allegiance to Jewish origins and the urge to escape them, tradition and radicalism, and religion and politics. He traces Taubes’s emergence as a prominent interpreter of the Apostle Paul, influencing generations of scholars, and how his journey led him from crisis theology to the Frankfurt School, and from a radical Hasidic sect in Jerusalem to the center of academic debates over Gnosticism, secularization, and the revolutionary potential of apocalypticism.
Professor of Apocalypse offers an unforgettable account of an electrifying world of ideas, focused on a charismatic personality who thrived on controversy and conflict.
656 pages, Hardcover
Published May 24, 2022
10 people are currently reading
189 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 30, 2024
Two things one learns about Jacob Taubes from this book. First, Jacob Taubes was a charlatan. Well, not exactly: the phrasing used here is that he was a "con but not a fraud." Which is to say that Taubes was who he claimed to be - no edits made by way of personal biography - but that there's no proof either that intellectually he was what he made himself out to be. Additionally, he was morally wicked. The moral stuff is distracting - he lied incessantly; he led two women to commit suicide, he was a terrible colleague, son, father, mentor, and mentee, a worse husband. Terrific lover, though - you can ask Susan Sontag. He was a Jew who loved Carl Schmitt and Heidegger, an ordained Rabbi of exquisite lineage (yichas) who paid no attention to the afterlife of the holocaust and was, in fact, happy to profit from it. Whatever. The truth is that, in the biography of an intellectual, none of that matters. Althusser and Norman Mailer aren't ultimately important because of what they did to their wives, even if that might be fun to bring up at Trivia.
It is the intellectual question that intrigues here: what is the measure of an intellectual who does not publish? How do we assess someone who, brilliant as an interlocutor, broad in their acquaintance with various schools of thought, is unable to execute, to produce something their peers think them worthy of producing? What's the measure of an engineer who doesn't build? One answer to the lack of production might be laziness. Or insecurity, or too much ambition. Or we might simply throw the whole rationalization out, concluding that techne alone is not enough: one must produce before we are to acknowledge them as the thing itself. Muller tries in many ways to answer that question in this book. And because the book is mostly an intellectual history, it is a wonderful survey of mid-twentieth-century social thought in Germany, Israel, and the United States. But Muller, though comprehensive, does not bother pursuing the interesting questions properly. Instead, he painstakingly lays out the minutest details of Taubes' life; every interaction is documented, every intellectual mentioned is accorded a mini-biography of their own. The richness of Taubes' life is mined, and Muller does provide explanations where necessary, but there's no analysis: the inferential step is often skipped or the wrong question asked. The book is thus thorough but boring, like it was written by an accountant, documenting everything yet not telling one much.
It is the intellectual question that intrigues here: what is the measure of an intellectual who does not publish? How do we assess someone who, brilliant as an interlocutor, broad in their acquaintance with various schools of thought, is unable to execute, to produce something their peers think them worthy of producing? What's the measure of an engineer who doesn't build? One answer to the lack of production might be laziness. Or insecurity, or too much ambition. Or we might simply throw the whole rationalization out, concluding that techne alone is not enough: one must produce before we are to acknowledge them as the thing itself. Muller tries in many ways to answer that question in this book. And because the book is mostly an intellectual history, it is a wonderful survey of mid-twentieth-century social thought in Germany, Israel, and the United States. But Muller, though comprehensive, does not bother pursuing the interesting questions properly. Instead, he painstakingly lays out the minutest details of Taubes' life; every interaction is documented, every intellectual mentioned is accorded a mini-biography of their own. The richness of Taubes' life is mined, and Muller does provide explanations where necessary, but there's no analysis: the inferential step is often skipped or the wrong question asked. The book is thus thorough but boring, like it was written by an accountant, documenting everything yet not telling one much.
September 4, 2025
Absolutely brilliant -- one of the finest biographies I have ever read, and I am quite a biography nerd. There is at least one sentence per page I wanted to highlight, with deep reflections about jewish identity, zionism, the nature of evil, ethics and so on. Kudos to Jerry Z Muller -- in my mind, he's up there with Ray Monk. As for the subject matter, Jacob Taubes seems to me like a demonic and twisted version of Walter Benjamin. Oh, how I'd wish Muller did the same for Benjamin.
March 13, 2023
Hands down one of the best biographies I’ve come across and my favorite book published in 2022. Muller does an incredible job in capturing a complex figure and fully unveiling their life and the physical and mental world they inhabited. There’s so much to take away concerning 20th century philosophical and cultural thought here and not only is it brought to life, but filtered out into easily digestible chunks. From his tumultuous marriages to his time at the FU and interaction with the leading minds of his day it’s such a captivating story and more so given the scant output of Taubes throughout his life. I likely won’t attempt trying to wade through most of the original source material presented here, but feel as if I have a decent understanding of the ideas presented and was certainly an introduction to ‘antinomian’ thought. And all of this with a personality that was quite frankly somewhat repugnant at times. Wonderfully written and executed.
October 27, 2022
I had never heard of Taubes until I read Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes (Princeton University Press) by Dr. Jerry Z. Muller, Professor Emeritus of history at The Catholic University of America.
Born into a Swiss Orthodox rabbinic family whose father was the chief rabbi of Zurich, with an intellectual capacity to match, Taubes was destined for greatness. However, by the time of his death in 1987, he had married a non-Jewish woman, drove two women to suicide, created countless conflicts, and would have fallen into obscurity, save for some dedicated students who ensured his writing continued into perpetuity.
A man who lived on the edge, his interests were those who were also on edge. From Paul to Sabbtai Zvi, Taubes lived in two worlds. He was a confidant of Rav Yoel of Satmar, ate at the table of Rabbi Dr. Saul Lieberman, frequented the tishes at Toldos Aron in Jerusalem, yet stuffed his face like a glutton at public events with non-kosher food, much to the chagrin of his colleagues.
Taubes seemed to revile in alienating people. He was mentored by Gershon Scholem, who got him a position at Hebrew University. However, he later alienated Scholem due to Taubes's treachery with another one of Scholem's students.
Taubes reminded me of Bar Kokhba, a man with massive potential, yet saw it all come crashing down. Taubes was as revolting as was brilliant. Muller's book is a fascinating insight into a man who reached the highest of intellectual levels, yet occupied himself with pride at the lowest levels of depravity.
Born into a Swiss Orthodox rabbinic family whose father was the chief rabbi of Zurich, with an intellectual capacity to match, Taubes was destined for greatness. However, by the time of his death in 1987, he had married a non-Jewish woman, drove two women to suicide, created countless conflicts, and would have fallen into obscurity, save for some dedicated students who ensured his writing continued into perpetuity.
A man who lived on the edge, his interests were those who were also on edge. From Paul to Sabbtai Zvi, Taubes lived in two worlds. He was a confidant of Rav Yoel of Satmar, ate at the table of Rabbi Dr. Saul Lieberman, frequented the tishes at Toldos Aron in Jerusalem, yet stuffed his face like a glutton at public events with non-kosher food, much to the chagrin of his colleagues.
Taubes seemed to revile in alienating people. He was mentored by Gershon Scholem, who got him a position at Hebrew University. However, he later alienated Scholem due to Taubes's treachery with another one of Scholem's students.
Taubes reminded me of Bar Kokhba, a man with massive potential, yet saw it all come crashing down. Taubes was as revolting as was brilliant. Muller's book is a fascinating insight into a man who reached the highest of intellectual levels, yet occupied himself with pride at the lowest levels of depravity.
May 6, 2023
Dit boek is veel tegelijk: 1. Een complete who is who van de intellectuele wereld in Taubes tijd; 2. Een psychologische, zelfs quasi psychiatrische diagnose van Taubes persoonlijkheid, met veel aandacht voor zijn relaties tot vrouwen; 3. Een theologisch/filosofisch assesment van zijn Intellectuele prestaties en Nachwirkung mn op het Paulus-debat 4. Een historisch relaas van academische poltiek en kinnesinne.
Absoluut een informatieve must-read voor Taubeskenners; als filosoof vond ik vooral thema’s 2 en 4 een beetje TE uitgebreid behandeld en daardoor onnodig dominerend over de andere thema’s. De auteur komt vanuit deze invalshoek op een eindoordeel uit dat Scholem overall op een hoger kwaliteitspeil zet dan ( de zijns inzien bijkans enkel plagierende) Taubes; vanuit de filosofische teksten beoordeel ik dat toch anders; zeker qua Paulus-interpretatie (vond en) vind ik Taubus bijdrage origineler en wijsgerig zondermeer vernieuwend.
Absoluut een informatieve must-read voor Taubeskenners; als filosoof vond ik vooral thema’s 2 en 4 een beetje TE uitgebreid behandeld en daardoor onnodig dominerend over de andere thema’s. De auteur komt vanuit deze invalshoek op een eindoordeel uit dat Scholem overall op een hoger kwaliteitspeil zet dan ( de zijns inzien bijkans enkel plagierende) Taubes; vanuit de filosofische teksten beoordeel ik dat toch anders; zeker qua Paulus-interpretatie (vond en) vind ik Taubus bijdrage origineler en wijsgerig zondermeer vernieuwend.
June 11, 2022
What an utter delight
June 29, 2025
Wild ride.
"The Power Broker" of Academic Jewish Studies in its scope and it's "hey look at this jerk" focus
"The Power Broker" of Academic Jewish Studies in its scope and it's "hey look at this jerk" focus
February 2, 2023
Biographie und Rundflug durch die intellektuelle Geschichte - tiefschürfend, umfassend - nichts, was sich so einfach mal wegliest. Der Autor gibt sich Mühe alle Themen erklärend anzureißen - trotzdem ein Lese-Marathon, den ich nur in Etappen hinbekomme.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews