Friedrich Delitzsch (; 3 September 1850 – 19 December 1922) was a German

Assyriologist Assyriology (from Greek , ''Assyriā''; and , ''-logia'') is the archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic study of Assyria and the rest of ancient Mesopotamia (a region that encompassed what is now modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, sout ...

. He was the son of

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched ...

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Franz Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch (23 February 1813, in Leipzig – 4 March 1890, in Leipzig) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history o ...

(1813–1890). Born in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inha ...

, he studied in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, gaining his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including ...

in 1874 as a lecturer of

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigrant ...

and Assyriology in Leipzig. In 1885 he became a

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

at Leipzig, afterwards serving as a professor at the Universities of Breslau (1893) and

(1899). He was co-founder of the '' Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft'' (German Oriental Society) and director of the '' Vorderasiatische Abteilung'' (Near Eastern Department) of the Royal Museums.

Bible-Babel Controversy

Friedrich Delitzsch specialized in the study of ancient Middle Eastern languages, and published numerous works on

Assyrian Assyrian may refer to: * Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia. * Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire. ** Early Assyrian Period ** Old Assyrian Period ** Middle Assyrian Empire ** Neo-Assyrian Empire * Assyri ...

language, history and culture. He is remembered today for his scholarly critique of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

. In a 1902 controversial lecture titled "Babel and Bible", Delitzsch maintained that many Old Testament writings were borrowed from ancient Babylonian tales, including the

Genesis creation narrative The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity. The narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the first two chapters of the Book of Genesis. In the first, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word ...

and the

Genesis flood narrative The Genesis flood narrative (chapters 6–9 of the Book of Genesis) is the Hebrew version of the universal flood myth. It tells of God's decision to return the universe to its pre- creation state of watery chaos and remake it through the micr ...

. During the following years there were several translations and modified versions of the "Babel and Bible". In the early 1920s, Delitzsch published the two-part ''Die große Täuschung'' (The Great Deception), which was a critical treatise on the book of

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

, prophets of the Old Testament, the invasion of

Canaan Canaan (; Phoenician: 𐤊𐤍𐤏𐤍 – ; he, כְּנַעַן – , in pausa – ; grc-bib, Χανααν – ;The current scholarly edition of the Greek Old Testament spells the word without any accents, cf. Septuaginta : id est Vetus T ...

, etc. Delitzsch also stridently questioned the historical accuracy of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Julius Wellhausen Julius Wellhausen (17 May 1844 – 7 January 1918) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. In the course of his career, he moved from Old Testament research through Islamic studies to New Testament scholarship. Wellhausen contributed to t ...

Influence and legacy

Although Delitzsch's proposal to replace the Old Testament with German myths did not extend to this revision, his student

Paul Haupt Hermann Hugo Paul Haupt (25 November 1858 in Görlitz – 15 December 1926 in Baltimore, Maryland) was a Semitic scholar, one of the pioneers of Assyriology in the United States. He studied at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. In 1880 he b ...

was one of the major advocates of the thesis of the Aryan Jesus. In 1904, he was elected as a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

Works

* * *

References

Book Rags; Friedrich and Franz Delitzsch

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Delitzsch, Friedrich 1850 births 1922 deaths 19th-century German Protestant theologians 20th-century German Protestant theologians German Assyriologists German Lutheran theologians German scholars Humboldt University of Berlin faculty Leipzig University alumni Leipzig University faculty People from Erlangen People from the Kingdom of Bavaria University of Breslau faculty 19th-century German male writers Paleolinguists Linguists of Indo-Semitic languages German male non-fiction writers Members of the American Philosophical Society

Bible-Babel Controversy

Influence and legacy

Works

References

Further reading

External links