"Here, however, I will argue that the cultural politics of Orientalistik were defined much less by ‘“‘modern” concerns — such as how to communicate with or exert power over the locals — than by traditional, almost primeval, Christian questions, such as (1) what parts of the Old Testament are true, and relevant, for Christians? (2) how much did the ancient Israelites owe to the Egyptians, Persians, and Assyrians? (3) where was Eden and what language was spoken there? and (4) were the Jews the only people to receive revelation? The German Reformers’ attempts to clean up God’s Word had involved orientalist knowledge from the first — and indeed sixteenth-century humanists had already struggled with many of the philological and chronological questions that would plague their descendants 300 years later. Although new sources were added, the old ones — particularly the Old Testament, the church fathers, and classical authors — continued to exert a powerful effect on the imaginations of even the most cutting-edge scholars long beyond the Enlightenment."