Karl August Wünsche was a German Christian Hebraist

Christian Hebraist

A Christian Hebraist is a scholar of Hebrew who comes from a Christian family background/belief, or is a Jewish adherent of Christianity. The main area of study is that commonly known as the Old Testament to Christians , but Christians have occasionally taken an interest in the Talmud, and...

.

He devoted his attention almost exclusively to rabbinic literature

Rabbinic literature

Rabbinic literature, in its broadest sense, can mean the entire spectrum of rabbinic writings throughout Jewish history. However, the term often refers specifically to literature from the Talmudic era, as opposed to medieval and modern rabbinic writing, and thus corresponds with the Hebrew term...

. After completing his commentaries on the Book of Hosea

Book of Hosea

The Book of Hosea is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible. It stands first in order among what are known as the twelve Minor Prophets.-Background and Content:...

(1868) and Book of Joel

Book of Joel

The Book of Joel is part of the Hebrew Bible. Joel is part of a group of twelve prophetic books known as the Minor Prophets or simply as The Twelve; the distinction 'minor' indicates the short length of the text in relation to the larger prophetic texts known as the "Major Prophets".-Content:After...

(1872), he wrote Neue Beiträge zur Erläuterung der Evangelien aus Talmud und Midrasch (1878), the most complete collection of the parallel passages of the Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 and the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 since the works of John Lightfoot

John Lightfoot

John Lightfoot was an English churchman, rabbinical scholar, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge.-Life:...

 and Johann Christian Schöttgen

Johann Christian Schöttgen

Johann Christian Schöttgen was a German biblical scholar. He is mainly known for his Horae Ebraicae et Talmudicae in universum Novum Testamentum which follows on the model of John Lightfoot's use of Talmudic insights for commentary on the New Testament...

.

In his Bibliotheca Rabbinica (Leipzig, 1880–85) he made a German translation of the whole of the Midrash Rabbah and the Midrash to the Five Megillot, and he also translated haggadic portions of the Jerusalem Talmud

Jerusalem Talmud

The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...

 (1880) and of the Babylonian Talmud (1886–89), as well as the Pesiḳta

Pesikta

Pesikta refers to two collections of rabbinic literature:* Pesikta de-Rav Kahana* Pesikta Rabbati...

(1885) and the Midrash to the Psalms (1891).

Smaller works of his are:

• Die Rätselweisheit bei den Hebräern (1883)
• Die Freude im Alten Testament (1896); "Naturbildersprache des Alten Testaments" (1897)
• Die Schönheit der Bibel (Leipzig, 1905)

Together with Jakob Winter he compiled the Geschichte der Jüdischen Litteratur (3 vols., Leipzig, 1892–95).

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