The Kaiser’s goulash
William II, Emperor of Germany, prepares a goulash by adding a plate full of noted figures from the past, such as “Kant, Goethe, Shakspere [sic], Moses, Homer, William the Great, [and] Hammurabi” to a large pot labeled “Progressive Revelation.” The spirit of Robert Ingersoll stands next to the pot, asking why he has been excluded from the mix. Caption: Bob Ingersoll — What’s the matter with me?
Comments and Context
Keppler’s cartoon, which actually pokes fun at the pretensions of the prominent American atheist Robert Ingersoll, despite his death a few years earlier, actually misses the point of a swirling international controversy, at least in intellectual circles, although the public at large in several countries were participants. The German Oriental Society was established to mirror the venerable American group centered at Yale. Kaiser Wilhelm II was an early and enthusiastic supporter, especially in his nation’s efforts to engage in Egyptology and Assyriology. He attended the first two lectures by the anthropologist Friederich Delitzsch, whose unfolding thesis placed Old Testament history and Mosaic law as subsequent, and inferior to, that of Babylon and Hammurabi. His lecture series was titled, Bibel und Babel (Bible and Babylon). The Kaiser, who was an accomplished scholar and fervent Christian, wrote a long letter in both German and English, defending the traditional view of historical revelation as being of two sorts — God working through men, science, the arts, and statecraft; and God working through the Church and Divine inspiration; he called the former (as many scholars since the Enlightenment did) “Progressive Revelation.” The letter achieved wide distribution around the world, and led to a longer debate between the kaiser and scholars. Keppler, who like cartoonist father, frequently took the side of sceptics and liberal theologians, dismisses the Kaiser’s references to the figures he tossed into his goulash. In fact Wilhelm cited them all, but approvingly.
