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Document Details :

Title: A Very Wise Ancestor
Subtitle: Paul Christian Hilscher and the Library of Adam
Author(s): DEL SOLDATO, Eva
Journal: Lias
Volume: 40    Issue: 1   Date: 2013   
Pages: 13-27
DOI: 10.2143/LIAS.40.1.2998082

Abstract :
This article places for the first time in its context a singular booklet, published in 1703 and 1711 by the German theologian Paul Christian Hilscher: the De Bibliotheca Adami Schediasma. The work includes a list of books allegedly attributed to the first man, both as an author and as an owner. Though apparently a divertissement, the Schediasma represents instead an interesting episode of the biblical and para-biblical studies of its time, which contributed significantly to defusing long-lived legends on Adam and influenced the more famous works by Fabricius. On the other hand the work had also a polemical aspect, directed against Catholic writers such as Athanasius Kircher. The article offers therefore a practically unknown episode of the erudite debates of the eighteenth century, at the crossroads between anxiety over forgeries, search for order and apologetical conflicts.

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