Robert Hanhart (born July 6, 1925) is a Swiss Protestant theologian known for his scholarship of the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, the Greek version of the Jewish scriptures. He is a professor emeritus of the

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 ...

at the Faculty of Theology, University of Göttingen and served as the director of the (Göttingen Septuagint Company), an institute of the

Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Göttingen Academy of Sciences (name since 2023 : )Note that the German ''Wissenschaft'' has a wider meaning than the English "Science", and includes Social sciences and Humanities. is the oldest continuously existing institution among the eig ...

dedicated to creating

critical edition Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may range i ...

s of works of the Septuagint.

Biography

Robert Hanhart was born in St. Gallen, Switzerland on July 6, 1925. He studied

classical philology Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages, ...

and

classical history Classical antiquity, also known as the classical era, classical period, classical age, or simply antiquity, is the period of cultural European history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD comprising the interwoven civilizations ...

at the

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis''; German: ''Universität Basel'') is a public research university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest univ ...

. He earned his doctorate in 1954. He first worked for a year at Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch, a project to create a medieval Latin dictionary. He then moved to the

in Germany, where he worked as a research assistant at the . The first book released under his editorship was a 1959

of the book

2 Maccabees 2 Maccabees, also known as the Second Book of Maccabees, Second Maccabees, and abbreviated as 2 Macc., is a deuterocanonical book which recounts the persecution of Jews under King Antiochus IV Epiphanes and the Maccabean Revolt against him. It ...

in its Greek Septuagint form which he had taken over from the work of . In 1961, he was appointed head of the department. In 1962 he received a doctorate in

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

from the Faculty of Theology, University of Göttingen. He completed a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

in 1965 with his thesis being his edition of the

Book of Esther The Book of Esther (; ; ), also known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as "the Scroll" ("the wikt:מגילה, Megillah"), is a book in the third section (, "Writings") of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the Five Megillot, Five Scrolls () in the Hebr ...

; this allowed him to be appointed an adjunct professor of the Old Testament at Göttingen in 1967. In 1977, he became a full professor. He took emeritus status and retired from his professorship in 1990, and retired as director of the Septuagint Company in 1993. However, he continued to work in the field, writing the book ''Studien zur Septuaginta und zum hellenistischen Judentum'' in 1999 and providing forwards, commentary, and editorship for other projects. Hanhart has received honorary degrees from both the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

's theology department as well as the

University of Bologna The University of Bologna (, abbreviated Unibo) is a Public university, public research university in Bologna, Italy. Teaching began around 1088, with the university becoming organised as guilds of students () by the late 12th century. It is the ...

in recognition of his work on the Septuagint.Studien zur Septuaginta, Robert Hanhart zu Ehren : aus Anlass seines 65. Geburtstages
p. 17, Foreword.

Works

Books * with Reinhard Gregor Kratz: ''Studien zur Septuaginta und zum hellenistischen Judentum''. Tübingen 1999.

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

* Editor * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol IX,2: Maccabaeorum liber II''. Göttingen 1959. 2nd edition 1976, 3rd edition 2008. (

) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol IX,3: Maccabaeorum liber III''. Göttingen 1960. 2nd edition 1980. ( 3 Maccabees) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol VIII,3: Esther''. Göttingen 1966. 2nd edition 1983. (

Esther Esther (; ), originally Hadassah (; ), is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. According to the biblical narrative, which is set in the Achaemenid Empire, the Persian king Ahasuerus falls in love with Esther and ma ...

) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol VIII,1: Esdrae liber I''. Göttingen 1974. 2nd edition 1991. (

1 Esdras 1 Esdras (), also Esdras A, Greek Esdras, Greek Ezra, or 3 Esdras, is the ancient Greek Septuagint version of the biblical Book of Ezra in use within the early church and among many modern Christians with varying degrees of canonicity. 1 Esdra ...

) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol VIII,4: Iudith''. Göttingen 1979. (

Book of Judith The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic Church, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Christian Old Testament of the Bible but Development of the Hebrew Bible canon, excluded from the ...

) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol VIII,5: Tobit''. Göttingen 1983. (

Book of Tobit The Book of Tobit (), also known as the Book of Tobias, is a deuterocanonical pre-Christian work from the 3rd or early 2nd century BC which describes how God tests the faithful, responds to prayers, and protects the pre-covenant community (i.e., ...

) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol VIII,2: Esdrae liber II''. Göttingen 1993. (

2 Esdras 2 Esdras, also called 4 Esdras, Latin Esdras, or Latin Ezra, is an apocalyptic book in some English versions of the Bible. Tradition ascribes it to Ezra, a scribe and priest of the fifth century BC, whom the book identifies with the sixth-ce ...

) * ''Vetus Testamentum Graecum auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum. Vol VII,2: Paralipomenon liber II''. Göttingen 2014. (

2 Chronicles The Book of Chronicles ( , "words of the days") is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books (1–2 Chronicles) in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tan ...

) Articles * ''Das Bild der Jeanne d’Arc in der französischen Historiographie des Spätmittelalters bis zur Aufklärung''. Basel 1955 (Dissertation) * ''Zum Text des 2. und 3. Makkabäerbuches''. Göttingen 1961 (''Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens'' 7; auch als Dissertation, Göttingen 1962) * ''Drei Studien zum Judentum''. München 1967 * ''Sacharja''. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1990 (''Biblischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament'') * ''Ein unbekannter Text zur griechischen Esra-Überlieferung''. Göttingen 1995 (''Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens'' 22) * ''Text und Textgeschichte des 2. Esrabuches''. Göttingen 2003 (''Mitteilungen des Septuaginta-Unternehmens'' 25)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hanhart, Robert Hanhart 1925 births Living people Academic staff of the University of Göttingen University of Göttingen alumni University of Basel alumni 20th-century Protestant theologians 20th-century Christian biblical scholars Classical philologists Swiss biblical scholars People from St. Gallen (city) Old Testament scholars Swiss emigrants to Germany