The Oera Linda Book is a manuscript written in imitated Old Frisian, purporting to cover historical, mythological, and religious themes of remote antiquity, from 2194 BCE to 803 CE. Among academics in Germanic philology, the document is considered to be a hoax or forgery. The manuscript first came to public awareness in the 1860s. In 1872, Jan Gerhardus Ottema published a Dutch translation and defended it as genuine. Over the next few years there was a heated public controversy, but by 1879 it was universally accepted that the text was a recent composition. Nevertheless, a public controversy was revived in the context of 1930s Nazi occultism, and the book is still occasionally brought up in esotericism and Atlantis literature. The manuscript's author is not known with certainty, hence it is unknown whether the intention was to produce a pseudepigraphical hoax, a parody, or simply an exercise in poetic fantasy. Historian Goffe Jensma published a monograph on the manuscript in 2004, De gemaskerde god (The Masked God), including a discussion of the history of its reception and a new translation in 2006. Jensma concludes that it was probably intended as a "hoax to fool some nationalist Frisians and orthodox Christians," as well as an "experiential exemplary exercise" by Dutch theologian and poet François Haverschmidt. He suggests that "the average well-educated nineteenth-century reader must have been able to translate the text if he wanted to. The pains of learning to read this language was to be rewarded with linguistic delicacies like the hundreds of puns, popular etymologies and funny words that were derived from almost every modern European language. When they were weary, the folksmothers for instance could retire to their ‘BEDRVM’ (bedroom)."
History of reception
19th century The Oera Linda Book, known in Old Frisian as Thet Oera Linda Bok, came to light in 1867 when Cornelis Over de Linden (1811–1874) handed the manuscript, which he claimed to have inherited from his grandfather, via his aunt, over to Eelco Verwijs (1830–1880), the provincial librarian of Friesland, for translation and publication. Verwijs rejected the manuscript, but in 1872 Jan Gerhardus Ottema (1804–1879), a prominent member of the Frisian Society for History and Culture, published a Dutch translation. Ottema believed it to be written in authentic Old Frisian. The book was subsequently translated into English by William Sandbach in 1876, and published by Trübner & Co. of London. Within the first few years after the appearance of the Oera Linda Book, its recent origin was established not only based on the exceptional claims being made, but also because of a number of anachronisms it contained. The text was nevertheless a source of inspiration for a number of occultists and speculative historians. While there was some debate among Dutch academics and in a number of newspapers about the book's authenticity during the 1870s, by 1879 it was widely recognized as a forgery.
Nazi Germany More than forty years later, beginning in 1922, Dutch völkisch philologist Herman Wirth revived the issue. Wirth published a German translation of what he dubbed the "Nordic Bible" in 1933, as Die Ura Linda Chronik. A panel discussion on Wirth's book at the University of Berlin on 4 May 1934 was the immediate impulse for the foundation of Ahnenerbe by Himmler and Wirth, together with Richard Walther Darré. Because of the infatuation of Himmler with the Oera Linda Book and its consequent association with Nazi occultism, it became known as "Himmler's Bible". Wirth's book was by no means universally acclaimed among the Nazi-era Nordicist academics, and the 1934 panel discussion was steeped in heated controversy. Alfred Rosenberg and his circle rejected it. Gustav Neckel had praised Wirth's work before publication, but upon seeing its content published a dismayed rescission. Speaking in defense of the book's authenticity were Walther Wüst and Otto Huth, besides Wirth himself. Speaking against its authenticity were Neckel, Karl Hermann Jacob-Friesen (who said it was a satirical hoax by Linden) and Arthur Hübner. Hübner was one of the most respected Germanists of his generation, and his verdict of the Oera Linda being a falsification settled the defeat of Wirth's party. The public defeat of Himmler's scholarly brand of "esoteric Nordicism" resulted in the foundation of Ahnenerbe, which attracted occultists such as Karl Maria Wiligut and was viewed with suspicion by the mainstream National Socialist ideologues of Amt Rosenberg. It was placed on the party's list of forbidden books.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
