ABSTRACT
At a relatively late stage in his career Ludvig Holberg published a Jewish History of 1,458 pages in two volumes in Danish. Jewish History mirrors the intellectual debate of the early eighteenth century as it combines both sacred and modern, universal and national, history with Bible criticism and discussions of miracles and prophecies within a providential narrative. In holding on to the Jewish cultural survival as a miraculous sign of providence, Holberg legitimizes Jewish culture in a European context, albeit as an example of God's strict punishment – but also mercy. Occasionally Holberg merges his sources, as when a chapter on different tribes of Canaan, compiled from An Universal History, is placed within the section dominated by Prideaux. Humphrey Prideaux and Jaques Basnage are authors with ideological profiles that Holberg can relate to, and unlike Sale and Psalmanazar they constitute authorial presences that he often explicitly comments on or deviates from.
