By shattering Christendom, the Reformation initiated a quiet transformation of Jacob & Esau: Christian Edom withered. Early modern Christian–Jewish coexistence and religious innovation meant that the typology ceased to provide orientation for ever-growing spheres of life. Jewish endorsement of imperial power became consistent. Protestant schoolbooks still vouchsafed Jacob's piety as did popular Yiddish and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) biblical compendia. But Hebraist scholarship rather than religious polemics set the Christian tone, and, in the aftermath of the exile of the Spanish Jews, the failure of the eschatological hopes of Edom-Rome seemed obvious. Alternatives emerged. In the Lurianic Kabbalah, Edom played a positive role in cosmological redemption, and, in Sabbatean theologies – so called after the would-be messiah Shabbetai Ẓevi (1626-1676) – hybrid visions of Jacob & Esau emerged. In contrast, Mendelssohn's Biur (German translation of the Pentateuch) and the Haskalah (Jewish enlightenment) retained the typology. For all the controversy they evoked, they bappear timid by comparison. Jewish emancipation would end religious syncretism by changing the rules for European integration but early modern models of coexistence represent a divergent mode of engaging tradition and remain edifying.