Rudolf Smend (November 5, 1851 – December 27, 1913)--"the Elder"-- was a German

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

born in Lengerich,

Westphalia Westphalia (; ; ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants. The territory of the region is almost identical with the h ...

. He was an older brother to theologian Julius Smend (1857–1930), and the father of Carl Friedrich Rudolf Smend (1882–1975), an authority on constitutional and

ecclesiastical law Canon law (from , , a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical jurisdiction, ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its membe ...

, and the grandfather of noted Old Testament historian Rudolf Smend who spent his life at the University of Goettingen as one of two chairs of Old Testament (1971-1998). He studied theology at the Universities of

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

and

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

, earning his doctorate in 1874 with a dissertation on

Arabic poetry Arabic poetry ( ''ash-shi‘r al-‘arabīyy'') is one of the earliest forms of Arabic literature. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry contains the bulk of the oldest poetic material in Arabic, but Old Arabic inscriptions reveal the art of poetry existe ...

. In 1880 he became an associate professor 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

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 ...

, where shortly afterwards he attained the title of full professor. In 1889 he returned to the University of

as a professor of Biblical science and

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya language, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew language, Hebrew, Maltese language, Maltese, Modern South Arabian language ...

. At Göttingen he was reunited with his former teacher

Julius Wellhausen Julius Wellhausen (17 May 1844 – 7 January 1918) was a German biblical scholar and orientalist. In the course of his career, his research interest moved from Old Testament research through Islamic studies to New Testament scholarship. Wellhau ...

(1844–1918), who was a major influence in his professional career. Smend is largely remembered for critical examination of the Old Testament, particularly in his research involving stories of the

Hexateuch The Hexateuch ("six scrolls") is the first six books of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah ('' Pentateuch'') and the book of Joshua. Overview The term ''Hexateuch'' came into scholarly use from the 1870s onwards mainly as the result of work carried out ...

. In 1907 with

Alfred Rahlfs Alfred Rahlfs (; ; 29 May 1865 – 8 April 1935) was a German Biblical scholar. He was a member of the history of religions school. He is known for his edition of the Septuagint published in 1935. Biography He was born in Linden near Hanover, a ...

(1865–1935) he created the ''Septuaginta-Unternehmen'' (

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 ...

Venture) in the Göttingen Society of Sciences. Smend died in

Ballenstedt Ballenstedt is a town in the Harz district, in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Geography It is situated at the northern rim of the Harz mountain range, about 10 km (6 mi) southeast of Quedlinburg. The municipal area comprises the vi ...

Selected publications

* ''Der Prophet Ezechiel'' (The Prophet

Ezekiel Ezekiel, also spelled Ezechiel (; ; ), was an Israelite priest. The Book of Ezekiel, relating his visions and acts, is named after him. The Abrahamic religions acknowledge Ezekiel as a prophet. According to the narrative, Ezekiel prophesied ...

), 1880 * ''Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte'' (Textbook of Old Testament religious history), 1899 * ''Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach'' (The wisdom of Jesus Sirach) with Hebrew glossary, 1906 * ''Die Erzählung des Hexateuch auf ihre Quellen untersucht'' (Sources of the

investigated), 1912

References

*Friedrich Wilhelm Graf, "Smend, Hermann Rudolf". In: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, , S. 509 ( digitized ). *Klaus-Gunther Wesseling: "Smend, Rudolf". In: ''Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon'' (BBKL). Volume 10, Bautz, Herzberg 1995, , Sp 652–655.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smend, Julius 1851 births 1913 deaths People from Lengerich, Westphalia People from the Province of Westphalia 19th-century German Protestant theologians 20th-century German Protestant theologians 19th-century German male writers Academic staff of the University of Göttingen German male non-fiction writers