Rudolf Smend (theologian, born 1932)

For other people with the same name, see Rudolf Smend.

Rudolf Smend (born October 17, 1932 in Berlin) is a German theologian and Old Testament scholar.

Biography

Rudolf Smend is the son of the constitutional and canon lawyer Rudolf Smend and grandson of the Old Testament scholar of the same name. He studied theology from 1951 to 1958 at the universities of Tübingen, Göttingen and Basel. His most important academic advisers were the dogmatist Karl Barth, the Hebraist Walter Baumgartner, and the Old Testament scholars Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth. In 1958, he received his doctorate in Basel with a thesis on Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette's work on the OT and NT. In 1962, he habilitated in Bonn under Martin Noth with the work Jahwe war und Stämmebund. From 1963, he held a professorship at the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin. From 1965, he was a full professor in Münster and from 1971 until his retirement as professor of Old Testament Studies in Göttingen. In the eighties and nineties, his work focused on scientific organization and research policy. Like his father before him, Rudolf Smend was vice president of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen from 1994 to 1996 and from 1998 to 2000, and president from 1996 to 1998 and from 2000 to 2002. From 1986 to 1992, he was Vice President of the German Research Foundation.

Smend became known for his studies on the origins of the Old Testament. His study Das Gesetz und die Völker (The Law and the Peoples, 1971) in the Festschrift for Gerhard von Rad established an editorial-historical investigation of the Old Testament history books. Another focus of his work is the history of science. In this context, he dealt in detail with Julius Wellhausen. In 2013, he published an edition of his letters. He also published an edition of Johann Gottfried Herder's writings on the Old Testament (1993).

Smend has received numerous scientific honors and memberships for his research. For his dissertation, he received the J. R. Geigy Company Prize. In 1998, he became the first humanities laureate to be awarded the Alfried Krupp Science Prize. He is an honorary member of the Society for Old Testament Study (1979), a full member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences (1974). Corresponding member of the British Academy (1992), corresponding member of the Norwegian (1994), corresponding member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (1994), Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (1999), and corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2006). He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of St Andrews. In 2001, he was awarded the Burkitt Medal of the British Academy. The medal is considered one of the most prestigious awards in biblical studies.

He has been married since 1969.

Works

• Mose als geschichtliche Gestalt (1995)
• Altes Testament christlich gepredigt (2000)
• Die Entstehung des Alten Testaments (2001)
• Die Mitte des Alten Testaments (2002)

External links

• Works by Rudolf Smend at German National Library