ASSMANN, Jan 1938-

PERSONAL: Born July 7, 1938, in Langelsheim, Germany; son of Hans (an architect) and Charlotte (Boening) Assmann; married Aleida Bornkamm (a professor of literature), August 10, 1968; children: Vincent, David, Marlene, Valerie, Corinna. Education: Attended Universities of Munich, Goettingen, Paris, and Heidelberg; earned Ph.D., 1965. Religion: Protestant.

ADDRESSES: Home—Im Neulich 5, 69121 Heidelberg, Germany. Office—Institute of Egyptology, University of Heidelberg, Marstallhof 4, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany, faculty member, 1971—, professor of Egyptology, 1976—.

MEMBER: Akademie der Wissenschaften.

AWARDS, HONORS: Max Planck Forschungs Preis, 1996; Deutscher Historiker Preis (German History Prize), 1998; honorary Dr. Theol.

WRITINGS:

Zeit und Ewigkeit im alten Aegypten: ein Beitrag zurGeschichte der Ewigkeit, (vorgelegt am 9. Nov. 1974 von Roland Hampe auf Anregung von Eberhard Otto), C. Winter, 1975.

(Compiler and author of preface) Aegyptische Hymnen und Gebete, Artemis-Verlag, 1975, 2nd edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999.

Re und Amun: die Krise des polytheistischen Weltbilds im Aegypten der 18.-20. Dynastie, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983.

Sonnenhymnen in thebanischen Graebern, P. von Zabern, 1983.

Aegypten: Theologie und Froemmigkeit einer fruehenHochkultur, Kohlhammer, 1984.

(Contributor) Das Grab des Nefersecheru (TT296), P. von Zabern, 1985.

(Contributor) Vom Nil zum Neckar: Kunstschaetze Aegyptens aus pharaonischer und koptischer Zeit an der Universitaet Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag, 1986.

(Contributor) Theologen und Theologien in Verschiedenen Kulturkreisen, Patmos, 1986.

Ma'at: Gerechtigkeit und Unsterblichkeit im alten Aegypten, C.H. Beck, 1990.

Das Grab des Amenemope, TT 41, P. von Zabern, 1991.

(Contributor and coeditor) Revolution und Mythos, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992.

Politische Theologie zwischen Aegypten und Israel, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung, 1992.

Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, Beck, 1992.

Akhanyati's Theology of Light and Time, Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1992.

Monotheismus und Kosmotheismus: Aegyptische Formen eines "Denkens des Einen" und ihre Europaeische Rezeptionsgeschichte, Winter, 1993.

Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re,Amun and the Crisis of Polytheism, Kegan Paul International, 1995.

Aegypten. Eine Sinngeschichte, Hanser, 1996.

Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in WesternMonotheism, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1997.

Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais: Schillers Ballade und ihre Griechischen und Aegyptischen Hintergruende, B.G. Teubner (Stuttgart), 1999.

Herrschaft und Heil: Politische Theologie in Altaegypten, Israel und Europa, Hanser (Munchen), 2000.

Weisheit und Mysterium: das Bild der Griechen vonAegypten, Beck (Munchen), 2000.

Der Tod als Thema der Kulturtheorie: Todesbilder undTotenriten im alten Aegypten, Suhrkamp (Frankfurt), 2000.

(Contributor) Mose: Agypten und das Alte Testament, Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk (Stuttgart), 2000.

Images et Rites de la Mort dans l'Egypte Ancienne: l'Apport des Liturgies Funeraires: Quatre Seminaires a l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Section des Sciences Religieuses, 17-31 May 1999: Avec un Appendice sur la Theorie de la "Parole Divine" (mdw n_tr), chez Jamblique et dans les Sources Egyptiennes, Cybele (Paris), 2000.

Tod und Jenseits im Alten Agypten, Beck (Munchen), 2001.

The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, translated by David Lorton, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 2001.

The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, translated by Andrew Jenkins, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2002.

EDITOR

(Coeditor) Fragen an die Altaegyptische Literatur:Studien zum Gedenken an Eberhard Otto, Reichert, 1977.

(Coeditor) Schrift und Gedaechtnis: Beitraege zur Archaeologie der literarischen Kommunikation, W. Fink, 1983.

(Coeditor) Kanon und Zensur, W. Fink, 1987.

(Coeditor) Problems and Priorities in Egyptian Archaeology, KPI, 1987.

(Coeditor) Kultur und Gedaechtnis, Suhrkamp, 1988.

(Coeditor) Kultur und Konflikt, Suhrkamp, 1990.

(Editor) Das Fest und das Heilige: religioese Kontrapunkte zur Alltagswelt, Guetersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1991.

(Editor) Die Erfindung des inneren Menschen: Studien zur religioesen Anthropologie, Guethersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1993.

(Coeditor) Die politische Theologie des Paulus (Vortraege, gehalten an der Forschungsstaette der evangelischen Studiengemeinschaft in Heidelberg, 23-27 February 1987), Wilhelm Fink, 1993.

(Coeditor) Ocular desire = Sehnsucht des Auges, Akademie Verlag, 1994.

(Coeditor) Text und Kommentar, W. Fink, 1995.

(Coeditor) Thebanische Beamtennekropolen: neue Perspektiven archaeologischer Forschung (Internationales Symposion Heidelberg 9-13 June 1993), Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1995.

(Coeditor) Schuld, Gewissen, und Person: Studien zurGeschichte des inneren Menschen, Guetersloher Verlagshaus, 1997.

(Coeditor) Self, Soul, and Body in Religious Experience, Brill, 1998.

(Coeditor) Transformations of the Inner Self in Ancient Religions, Brill (Boston, MA), 1999.

(Coeditor) Einsamkeit, Fink (Munchen), 2000.

(Coeditor) Representation in Religion: Studies inHonor of Moshe Barasch, Brill (Boston, MA), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Jan Assmann, a professor of Egyptology and scholar of history and literature at Heidelberg University in Germany, has, over the past three decades, published several in-depth studies of the people and culture of ancient Egypt, with a special emphasis on theology and philosophy. To date, two of Assmann's works have been translated into English. They are The Search for God in Ancient Egypt (2001), and The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs (2002).

In Moses the Egyptian, Assmann traces the history of monotheism, the belief in one god, back to the Egyptian King Akhenaten, Pharaoh Amenophis IV (1360-1340 B.C.), who briefly revolutionized Egyptian religious thought when he abolished the belief in the idols of the Egyptian form of polytheism and in its place established a worship of Aton, the god of light. It is with Akhenaten that Assmann places the origin of the monotheism professed by Moses. Moses' followers later condemned the Egyptians who continued to practice polytheism, referring to them as idolaters. This, Assmann contends, began the cycle of one religion claiming to hold the truth and denouncing all others as false. It is through this historical story of Moses that Assmann defines the study of what he calls historical memory—the ways in which fact and fiction are mixed together and then incorporated into religious belief.

"This is certainly a fascinating work," wrote David Lorton for the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, although he added that readers unfamiliar with this time period and the "intellectual currents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will find it somewhat difficult going." Robert Louis Wilken of First Things suggested that the challenges of the text come from Assmann's preference for studying the past more for how "it is remembered" than for what it actually was. As an example of this, Wilken pointed out that when scholars of the Enlightenment era studied Egyptian religion they made that religion look "very much like Spinozism, Deism, pantheism, or 'natural religion,' the kinds of religious sensibilities they favored."

In 2001, Assmann's The Search for God in Ancient Egypt was translated and published in English. For this study, Assmann researches ancient Egyptian texts to create an educated interpretation of Egyptian thought in all its complexities. His topics include the Egyptian concept of the Cosmos, their myths, their beliefs in the New Gods, and their various rituals and cultic beliefs.

Broadening his scope, Assmann next wrote The Mind of Egypt, which incorporates more than just the religion of this ancient culture. According to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, this work is a "book about history—and how it's made and interpreted—as much as it is about Egypt." Taking notes from literature, archeology, and iconography, Assmann creates an image of Egyptian thought through approximately three thousand years of evolution.

Assmann takes his readers through careful steps in this process, wrote Edward K. Werner for Library Journal, "reflecting changes in attitude and world view resulting from internal and external social and historical factors." He does not do this by simply filling out his pages with the facts but rather by looking into the many cultural factors that "characterized antiquity's most technologically advanced and psychologically complex civilization," wrote Margaret Flanagan for Booklist. A critic for Kirkus Reviews called Assmann's book "an insightful look at the framework of beliefs that supported one of the world's oldest and most stable civilizations."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2002, Volume 98, number 12, Margaret Flanagan, review of The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, p. 987.

First Things: A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, August 1999, Robert Louis Wilken, review of Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism, p. 76.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies, July 2000, Volume 59, number 3, David Lorton, review of Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism, p. 202.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2002, Volume 70, number 3, review of The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, p. 151.

Library Journal, March 15, 2002, Volume 127, number 5, Edward K. Werner, review of The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, p. 92.

Publishers Weekly, February 18, 2002, Volume 249, number 7, review of The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs, pp. 83-84.