Verslag omtrent een overoud handschrift bij het Friesch Genootschap, uitgebracht door Dr. J. G. Ottema

Large 8vo. pp. 20. Bookplate of J. J. Kalma on front pastedown. Ottema’s first publication on the Oera Linda Book; bound with 27 other pamphlets, prospectuses, reviews, and offprints from the library of J.J. Kalma, including Jan Beckering Vinckers’ De onechtheid van het Oera Linda-Bôk, aagetoond uit de wartaal waarin het is geschreven (Haarlem, 1876, see Bib# 4103050/Fr# 1401).

Thet Oera Linda bok is a ‘family chronicle’ forged circa 1850 by Cornelis over de Linden, a Dutch civil servant, François HaverSchmidt, and Eelco Verwijs to establish over de Lindens allegedly noble descent but also to trick Frisian nationalists and Bible fanatics. Despite the obvious presence of much nonsense in the text, the editor of the manuscript, the scholar Jan Gerardus Ottema, believed it to be genuine. It traced the history of Frisia from 2193 BC forward, advancing the claims of a ‘Nordic’ race earlier than any migratory invaders. Although briefly fashionable in its time, with editions in Dutch (first edition, see Bib# 4103044/Fr# 1395) and English (1876), it was already being dismissed by Jan Beckering Vinckers in 1876, and later scholarship sought mainly to determine the inventor. But in 1933 Herman Wirth revived its thesis of Nordic racial primacy, which naturally enough attracted Nazi ideologues. See G. Jensma, “How to Deal with Holy Books in an Age of Emerging Science. The Oera Linda Book as a New Age Bible.” In: Fabula, 48 (2007), 1-2, pp. 229-249.

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