Christian Friedrich August Dillmann (25 April 18237 July 1894) was a German orientalist and biblical scholar.

Life

The son of a

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schoolmaster, he was born at Illingen. He was educated at the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

, where he became a pupil and friend of

Heinrich Ewald Georg Heinrich August Ewald (16 November 1803 – 4 May 1875) was a German orientalist, Protestant theologian, and Biblical exegete. He studied at the University of Göttingen. In 1827 he became extraordinary professor there, in 1831 ordinary pr ...

, and studied under Ferdinand Christian Baur, though he did not join the new Tübingen school. For a short time, he worked as pastor at

Sersheim Sersheim is a municipality in the district of Ludwigsburg (district), Ludwigsburg in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. References

Ludwigsburg (district) {{Ludwigsburg-geo-stub ...

, near his native place, but he soon came to feel that his studies demanded his whole time.ADB:Dillmann, August
In:

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(ADB). Band 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, S. 699–702. He devoted himself to the study of Ethiopic manuscripts in the libraries of

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and

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, and this work caused a revival of Ethiopic study in the 19th century. In 1847 and 1848, he prepared catalogues of the Ethiopic manuscripts in the

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(now the

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) and the

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at Oxford. He then set to work upon an edition of the Ethiopic Bible. Returning to Tübingen in 1848, in 1853, he was appointed professor extraordinarius. Subsequently, he became professor of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

at the

University of Kiel Kiel University, officially the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, (, abbreviated CAU, known informally as Christiana Albertina) is a public research university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the ''Academia Holsator ...

(1854), and of theology in

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(1864) and

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(1869), where he succeeded Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg.

Works

In 1851, he had published the "

Book of Enoch The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; Hebrew language, Hebrew: סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ, ''Sēfer Ḥănōḵ''; , ) is an Second Temple Judaism, ancient Jewish Apocalyptic literature, apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the Patriar ...

" in Ethiopian (German, 1853; English
1893
, and at Kiel, he completed the first part of the Ethiopic bible, ''Octateuchus Aethiopicus'' (1853–55). In 1857 appeared his ''Grammatik der äthiopischen Sprache'' (2nd edition by Carl Bezold, 1899); in 1859 the "

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of Ethiopian Jewish ...

"; in 1861 and 1871 another part of the Ethiopic bible, ''Libri Regum''; in 1865 his great ''Lexicon linguæ aethiopicæ''; in 1866 his ''Chrestomathia aethiopica''. In 1853, Dillmann published an article comparing Ethiopian king lists. Always a theologian at heart, he returned to theology in 1864. His Giessen lectures were published under the titles, ''Ursprung der alttestamentlichen Religion'' (1865) and ''Die Propheten des alten Bundes nach ihrer politischen Wirksamkeit'' (1868). In 1869 appeared his commentary on ''Hiob'',
4th edition 1891
which stamped him as one of the foremost

Old Testament The Old Testament (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 and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

exegetes. His renown as a theologian was mainly founded on the series of commentaries, based on those of August Wilhelm Knobel'
''Die Genesis''
(Leipzig, 1875); ''Die Bücher Exodus und Leviticus'', 1880; ''Die Bücher Numeri, Deuteronomium und Josua'', with a dissertation on the origin of the Hexateuch, 1886
''Der Prophet Jesaja''
1890. In 1877 he published the " Ascension of Isaiah" in Ethiopian and Latin. He was also a contributor to Daniel Schenkel's ''Bibellexikon'', Brockhaus's '' Conversationslexikon'', and Johann Jakob Herzog's '' Realencyklopädie''. His book on Old Testament theology, ''Handbuch der alttestamentlichen Theologie'', was published by Rudolf Kittel in 1895.Handbuch der alttestamentlichen Theologie
OCLC WorldCat.

References

* * * George L. Robinson
"August Dillmann (Obituary)"
in: ''The Biblical World'' 4/4 (1894), pp. 244–258.

External links

* ttps://archive.org/details/chrestomathiaaet00dilluoft Online version of the Chrestomathia Aethiopica (1886)at the

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. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dillmann, August 1823 births 1894 deaths Ethiopianists German orientalists German biblical scholars Old Testament scholars University of Tübingen alumni German male non-fiction writers People from Enzkreis Academic staff of the University of Giessen Academic staff of the University of Tübingen Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin Academic staff of the University of Kiel Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities