Abstract

Jacob Rhenferd (1654–1712), professor of Hebrew and Oriental languages at the University of Franeker in the United Provinces, is a mostly forgotten figure. This article analyses his theological and historical scholarship, with special attention to his use of Jewish mystical texts. It argues that Rhenferd’s conception of philologia sacra was profoundly shaped by kabbalistic insights and that a recourse to Kabbalah provided him with an idiom to articulate anew some foundational Reformed doctrines. Conversely, a comparison with the kabbalistic studies of some of his contemporaries highlights the incipient difficulties faced by a kabbalistic approach to Christian doctrine and its history. The article uses the case of Rhenferd to propose some historiographical revisions about the role of Kabbalah in Christian scriptural philology around the turn of the eighteenth century, about its institutional currency in prominent Reformed academies and, more broadly, about the validity of ‘Christian Kabbalah’ as a category in modern scholarship.