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Rolf Rendtorff

 

 
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Rolf Rendtorff
 
 
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Rolf Rendtorff (born 10 March 1925) is Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg. He has written frequently on the Jewish scriptures. He is notable chiefly for his conribution to the debate over the origins of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament
Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
.

Biography
Rendtorff was born at Preetz
Preetz

Preetz is a town in the Pl?n , in Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany....
, Holstein
Holstein

Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider River. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany.Holstein once existed as the County of Holstein , the later Duchy of Holstein , and was the northernmost territory of the Holy Roman Empire....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
. He studied theology 1945-50 at the universities of Kiel
University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today....
, Göttingen and Heidelberg.






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Rolf Rendtorff (born 10 March 1925) is Emeritus Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg. He has written frequently on the Jewish scriptures. He is notable chiefly for his conribution to the debate over the origins of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament
Old Testament

In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christianity Bible Biblical canon. These works correspond to the Hebrew Bible , with some variations and additions....
.

Biography


Rendtorff was born at Preetz
Preetz

Preetz is a town in the Pl?n , in Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany....
, Holstein
Holstein

Holstein is the region between the rivers Elbe and Eider River. It is part of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany.Holstein once existed as the County of Holstein , the later Duchy of Holstein , and was the northernmost territory of the Holy Roman Empire....
, Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
. He studied theology 1945-50 at the universities of Kiel
University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today....
, Göttingen and Heidelberg. He undertook his doctoral studies under Gerhard von Rad
Gerhard von Rad

Gerhard von Rad was a Germany Lutheran pastor, University professor and an Old Testament scholar.With the experience of two World Wars, the German-speaking world began to turn "anti-Old Testament"....
, 1950-53.

Major achievements

Rendtorff has published many works on Old Testament subjects, but is notable chiefly for his 1977 book, "Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch" (The Problem of the Transmission of the Pentateuch). The book was a study of the question of Pentateuchal origins (the question of how the first five books of the bible - Genesis
Genesis

Genesis or Breishit is the first book of the Bible used by Judaism and Christianity, and the first of five books of the Pentateuch or Torah....
, Exodus
Exodus

Exodus is the second book of the Jewish Torah and of the Christian Old Testament. It tells how Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God Sinai....
, Leviticus
Leviticus

Leviticus is third book of the Torah , the name given in Judaism to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible .Leviticus contains laws and priestly rituals, but in a wider sense is about the working out of Covenant set out in Genesis and Exodus - what is seen in the Torah as the consequences of entering into a special relationship with God...
, Numbers
Numbers

selfref|For advice on number formatting when editing Wikipedia articles, see...
 and Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible and of the Old Testament. In form it is a set of three sermons delivered by Moses reviewing the previous forty years of wandering in the wilderness; its central element is a detailed law-code by which the Children of Israel are to live in the Promised Land....
 - came to be written), and appeared at the same time time as two other important books, John Van Seters
John Van Seters

John Van Seters is a notable scholar on the Ancient Near East.HisAbraham in History and Tradition was one of the seminal publications in its field, arguing that no convincing evidence existed to support the historical existence of Abraham and the other Biblical Patriarchs or the historical reliability of the book of Genesis....
' Abraham in History and Tradition
Abraham in History and Tradition

Abraham in History and Tradition is a book by biblical scholar John Van Seters.The book was a landmark in Near Eastern Studies and Biblical archaeology, since it challenged the dominant view, popularised by William Foxwell Albright, that the patriarchal narratives of Book of Genesis can be identified on archaeological grounds with the...
 (1975), and Hans Heinrich Schmid's "Der sogenannte Jahwist" (The So-called Yahwist, (1976). The three studies, appearing almost together, inaugurated a heated discussion in scholarly circles on the validity of the then-dominant consensus on Pentateuchal origins, the Documentary Hypothesis
Documentary hypothesis

The documentary hypothesis is the proposal that the first five books of the Old Testament represent a combination of documents from originally independent sources....
.

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