Julius Wellhausen was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
biblicalBiblical studies is the academic study of the Judeo-Christian Bible and related texts. For Christianity, the Bible traditionally comprises the New Testament and Old Testament, which together are sometimes called the "Scriptures." Judaism recognizes as scripture only the Hebrew Bible, also known as...
scholar and
orientalistOriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures, languages, peoples, history and archaeology; in recent years the subject has often been turned into the newer terms of Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies...
, noted particularly for his contribution to scholarly understanding of the origin of the Pentateuch/
TorahTorah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
(the first five books of the
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
).
Born at
HamelinHamelin is a town on the river Weser in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district of Hamelin-Pyrmont and has a population of 58,696 ....
in the
Kingdom of HanoverThe Kingdom of Hanover was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg , and joined with 38 other sovereign states in the German...
, the son of a Protestant pastor, he studied
theologyTheology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
at the University of Göttingen under Georg Heinrich August Ewald and became
PrivatdozentPrivatdozent or Private lecturer is a title conferred in some European university systems, especially in German-speaking countries, for someone who pursues an academic career and holds all formal qualifications to become a tenured university professor...
for
Old TestamentThe Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
history there in 1870. In 1872 he was appointed professor ordinarius of theology at the University of Greifswald. He resigned from the faculty in 1882 for reasons of conscience, stating in his letter of resignation:
He became professor extraordinarius of oriental languages in the faculty of
philologyPhilology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
at Halle, was elected professor ordinarius at Marburg in 1885, and was transferred to Göttingen in 1892 where he stayed until his death.
He is best known for his
Prolegomena zur Geschichte IsraelsProlegomena zur Geschichte Israels is a book by German biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen which formulated the documentary hypothesis...
(
Prolegomena to the History of Israel), a detailed synthesis of existing views on the origins of the first six books of the Old Testament: Wellhausen's contribution was to place the development of these books into a historical and social context. The resulting argument, called the
documentary hypothesisThe documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
, remained the dominant model among biblical scholars until later in the 20th century.
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels and documentary hypothesis
Wellhausen was famous for his
critical investigationsBiblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of Biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." It asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work...
into Old Testament history and the composition of the
HexateuchThe Hexateuch is the first six books of the Hebrew Bible . Some scholars propose that Joshua represents part of the northern Yahwist source , detached from JE document by the Deuteronomist and incorporated into the Deuteronomic history, with the books of Judges, Kings, and Samuel.Reasons...
. He is perhaps best known for his
Prolegomena zur Geschichte IsraelsProlegomena zur Geschichte Israels is a book by German biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen which formulated the documentary hypothesis...
of 1883 (first published 1878 as
Geschichte Israels), in which he advanced a definitive formulation of the
Documentary hypothesisThe documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
, arguing that the
TorahTorah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
or Pentateuch had its origins in a redaction of four originally independent texts dating from several centuries after the time of
MosesMoses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
, their
traditional authorMosaic authorship is the traditional attribution of the first five books of the Old Testament to Moses. The tradition is first definitively stated in the Babylonian Talmud, an encyclopedia of traditional Jewish learning compiled around the middle of the 1st millennium CE...
. Wellhausen's hypothesis remained the dominant model for Pentateuchal studies until the last quarter of the 20th century, when it began to be challenged by scholars who saw more and more hands at work in the Torah, ascribing them to periods even later than Wellhausen had proposed.
Other works
A select list of his works are as follows:
- De gentibus et familiis Judaeis (Göttingen, 1870)
- Der Text der Bücher Samuelis untersucht (Göttingen, 1871)
- Die Phariseer und Sadducäer (Greifswald, 1874)
- Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels
Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels is a book by German biblical scholar Julius Wellhausen which formulated the documentary hypothesis...
(Berlin, 1882; Eng. trans., 1885; 5th German edition, 1899; first published in 1878 as Geschichte Israels, English translation Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel, Forgotten Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1606202050. Also available on Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/prole11.txt)
- Muhammed in Medina (Berlin, 1882)
- Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der historischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (1876/77, 3rd ed. 1899)
- Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte (1894, 4th ed. 1901)
- Reste arabischen Heidentums (1897)
- Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz (1902), English translation The Arab Kingdom and its Fall (1927), which remains "the standard modern account of Umayyad history".
- Skizzen und Vorarbeiten (1884–1899)
- new and revised editions of Friedrich Bleek
Friedrich Bleek , German was a Biblical scholar.At 16 his father sent him to the gymnasium at Lübeck, where he became so interested in ancient languages that he abandoned his idea of a legal career and resolved to devote himself to the study of theology...
's Einleitung in das Alte Testament (4–6, 1878–1893).
In 1906 appeared
Die christliche Religion, mit Einschluss der israelitisch-jüdischen Religion, in collaboration with A Jülicher, Adolf Harnack and others. He also did less influential work as a
New TestamentThe New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
commentator. He published
Das Evangelium Marci, übersetzt und erklärt in 1903.
Das Evangelium Matthäi and
Das Evangelium Lucae in 1904 and
Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien in 1905.
External links
- Works by Julius Wellhausen at the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...