Julius Wellhausen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1844-05-17)17 May 1844 |
| Died | 7 January 1918(1918-01-07) (aged 73) |
| Education | Göttingen |
| Church | Lutheran |
Offices held | Professor of Old Testament atGöttingen,Greifswald,Halle andMarburg |
| Title | Doctor |
Julius Wellhausen (17 May 1844 – 7 January 1918) was a Germanbiblical scholar andorientalist. In the course of his career, his research interest moved fromOld Testament research throughIslamic studies toNew Testament scholarship. Wellhausen contributed to the composition history of thePentateuch/Torah and studied the formative period of Islam. For the former, he is credited as one of the originators of thedocumentary hypothesis.[1][2][3]
Wellhausen was born atHamelin in theKingdom of Hanover. The son of aProtestantpastor,[4] he later studiedtheology at theUniversity of Göttingen underGeorg Heinrich August Ewald and becamePrivatdozent forOld Testament history there in 1870. In 1872, he was appointedprofessor ordinarius of theology at theUniversity of Greifswald. However, he resigned from the faculty in 1882 for reasons of conscience,[5] stating in his letter of resignation:
"I became a theologian because the scientific treatment of the Bible interested me; only gradually did I come to understand that a professor of theology also has the practical task of preparing the students for service in the Protestant Church, and that I am not adequate to this practical task, but that instead despite all caution on my own part I make my hearers unfit for their office. Since then my theological professorship has been weighing heavily on my conscience."[6][7]
He becameprofessor extraordinarius of oriental languages in the faculty ofphilology atHalle, was elected professor ordinarius at Marburg in 1885 and was transferred to Göttingen in 1892, where he stayed until his death.[5]
Among theologians and biblical scholars, he is best known for his book,Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels (Prolegomena to the History of Israel); his work in Arabic studies (specifically, the magisterial work entitledThe Arab Kingdom and its Fall) remains celebrated, as well.[8] After a detailed synthesis of existing views on the origins of thefirst five books of the Bible, Wellhausen aimed at placing the development of these books into a historical and social context.[9][10] The resulting argument, called thedocumentary hypothesis, became the dominant model for many biblical scholars and remained so for most of the 20th century.
According toAlan Levenson, Wellhausen considered theologicalanti-Judaism, as well asantisemitism, to be normative.[11]
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Wellhausen was famous for hiscritical investigations into Old Testament history and the composition of theHexateuch. He is perhaps best known for hisProlegomena zur Geschichte Israels (1883, first published in 1878 asGeschichte Israels)[5] in which he advanced a definitive formulation of the documentary hypothesis. It argues that theTorah had its origins in a redaction of four originally-independent texts dating from several centuries after the time ofMoses, theirtraditional author.
Wellhausen's hypothesis remained the dominant model for Pentateuchal studies until the last quarter of the 20th century, when it began to be advanced by otherbiblical scholars who saw more and more hands at work in the Torah and ascribed them to periods even later than Wellhausen had proposed.
Regarding his sources, Wellhausen describedWilhelm de Wette as "the epoch-making opener of the historical criticism of the Pentateuch." In 1806, De Wette provided an early, coherent mapping of theOld Testament writings of the J, E, D, and P, authors. Soon after, he was cast out of his university post. Young Julius Wellhausen thus largely continued the work of de Wette.
A select list of his works are as follows:
In 1906Die christliche Religion, mit Einschluss der israelitisch-jüdischen Religion appeared, in collaboration withAdolf Jülicher,Adolf Harnack and others. He also produced less influential work as aNew Testament commentator, publishingDas Evangelium Marci, übersetzt und erklärt in 1903,Das Evangelium Matthäi andDas Evangelium Lucae in 1904, andEinleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien in 1905.[5]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Wellhausen, Julius".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 507.
