Joel Klenk and Jan Reitzner examine the interpretations of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) by Ferdinand Christian Baur and August Gottreu Tholuck and analyze them as exemplary contributions to the productive reception history of a prominent New Testament text in the 19th?century German-speaking academic world. The study begins with the thesis that fundamental transformations of theological scholarship during this decisive period can be observed in the ways the Sermon on the Mount was appropriated and reinterpreted. Methodologically, the study combines approaches from reception history, impact history, and exegetical history to develop an understanding of exegesis as a form of productive reception in which the text and the interpreter are engaged in a dynamic interplay. Commentary literature is thus understood as a metatext that realizes the semantic potential of a biblical text in ever new historical contexts. The analysis shows that Tholuck interprets the Sermon on the Mount christologically and soteriologically, combining philological precision with the piety of the revival movement; his extensive engagement with Jewish, Islamic, and international scholarship is particularly noteworthy. Baur, by contrast, integrates the Sermon on the Mount into a comprehensive historical?critical reconstruction of the emergence of early Christianity and understands it as an expression of Jesus' original moral?ethical religiosity, which he situates within a broader historical framework in relation to the Christian consciousness of his own time. The study demonstrates that, despite their differences, both authors are united by significant commonalities, including their engagement with the Sermon on the Mount and their shared claim to practice scholarly theology.