Jacob Taubes

Jacob Taubes

Full name	Jacob Taubes
Born	February 25, 1923(1923-02-25) Vienna, Austria
Died	March 21, 1987(1987-03-21) (aged 64) Berlin, Germany
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
Influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Max Weber
Influenced Giorgio Agamben, Peter Sloterdijk, Norbert Bolz

Jacob Taubes (February 25, 1923 – March 21, 1987) was a sociologist of religion, philosopher, and scholar of Judaism.

Taubes was born into an old rabbinical family. He was married to the writer Susan Taubes. He obtained his doctorate in 1947 for a thesis on "Occidental Eschatology" and initially taught religious studies and Jewish studies in the United States at Harvard, Columbia and Princeton University.

From 1965 he was Professor of Jewish Studies and Hermeneutics at the Free University of Berlin. He has influenced many contemporary thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Susan Sontag, Avital Ronell, Marshall Berman and Peter Sloterdijk.

Taubes' books include Occidental Eschatology [Stanford UP, 2009] and The Political Theology of Paul [Stanford UP, 2004].

References

• Joshua Robert Gold, "Jacob Taubes: 'Apocalypse From Below'", Telos 134 (Spring 2006): 140–56.