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.
Awards and Recognition
- One of Eric Alterman's Best Books of the Year
- Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, Biography Category
"[A] fascinating, judicious biography. Professor of Apocalypse is at once a history of ideas, a gripping psychological melodrama and a study of the surprising power of intellectual charisma to make and unmake lives."—Mark Lilla, New York Times Book Review
"This comprehensive biography is an important one. . . . [Muller’s] cogently documented biography, empathic in its presentation and judgment, goes a long way in helping us put mortal flesh on the charismatic puzzle that was Jacob Taubes."—Steven E. Aschheim, Los Angeles Review of Books
"In Professor of Apocalypse Jerry Z. Muller accomplishes the nigh-impossible task of contextualizing the manifold reminiscences and myths surrounding Taubes into a clearly periodized and expertly documented account."—Eugene R. Sheppard, Times Literary Supplement
"Muller has written more than a biography of a talented and tormented Jew and professor of philosophy and religion. Through painstaking reconstruction of the myriad communities of scholars in which Taubes operated and the various worlds of ideas in which he revolved, Muller illuminates hitherto unconnected but fascinating chapters in European, American, and Israeli intellectual life."—Peter Berkowitz, Commentary
"A well-crafted, exhaustively researched, intellectually balanced biography."—Abigail Rosenthal, VoegelinView
"[Professor of Apocalypse] captures the complex personality of an exceptionally difficult man, and the complexity of the age he lived through. . . . Biographers often grow to despise their subjects. Not without cause, Muller at some points is clearly exasperated. But it speaks to his talent and patience that by the end of his book his readers cannot help but love Taubes, for all of his sins."—Daniel Miller, Mars Review of Books
"[A] remarkable biography of Jacob Taubes. . . . Muller has done a magisterial job at bringing this figure to life for us."—Jeffrey A. Bernstein, Journal of the Academy of Religion
"Muller’s account is excellent."—Wayne Cristaudo, The European Legacy
“Muller has written a fascinating biography of one of the most outrageous figures in modern Jewish intellectual life. Both a history of twentieth-century thought and a psychological case study of a disturbed mind and tormented soul, Professor of Apocalypse reads like a novel, a tragicomedy, and a spiritual pilgrim’s tale.”—Vivian Liska, author of German-Jewish Thought and Its Afterlife
“An exquisite and fascinating portrayal. More than the intriguing odyssey of an individual, Muller’s brilliant biography offers a magnificent story of an age saturated with intense anti-liberal trends of both the left and right and their failed quasi-religious redemptive quests.”—Moshe Halbertal, author of Maimonides: Life and Thought
“Jacob Taubes was one of the most transgressive personalities of the twentieth century. He prayed in Satmar synagogues and served pork to his Jewish guests. He carried out his multiple affairs in public and displayed them with pride. Jerry Muller tells Taubes’s story with enormous skill and empathy, rendering a vivid portrait of this complicated, conflicted, and contradictory figure. Taubes comes to life on these pages.”—John G. Gager, Princeton University
“By reconstructing the life of an astonishing intellectual who went so many places and knew nearly everyone, Jerry Muller has reanimated twentieth-century intellectual life from a new perspective. The results are captivating and delightful.”—Samuel Moyn, Yale University
