BERTHOLET, ALFRED°

BERTHOLET, ALFRED° (1868–1951), Swiss Bible scholar and theologian, who taught biblical exegesis at the University of Basle.

Bertholet wrote extensively on the canonical and extra-canonical books of the Bible. His works include commentaries on Leviticus (1901), Deuteronomy (1899), Ezekiel (1897), Ruth (with E.F. Kautzsch, 1923), and Ezra and Nehemiah (1902). His Appendix on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in the Geschichte der althebraeischen Literatur (ed., K. Budde, 1906, 1909²) is considered one of the best in the field. In his works Der Beitrag des Alten Testaments zur allgemeinen Religionsgeschichte (1923) and Das Dynamistische im Alten Testament (1926) Bertholet maintained that the religion of ancient Israel, characterized by a strong personal conception of the Deity, was unique in a world dominated by dynamistic theories which viewed the universe as essentially constituted by natural and supernatural forces. His other works in biblical studies include: Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden (1896), Die juedische Religion von der Zeit Esras bis zum Zeitalter Christi (1911), Kulturgeschichte Israels (1919), and a second commentary on the Book of Ezekiel (1936). His works in the field of comparative religion include Buddhismus und Christentum (1902, 1909²), Dynamismus und Personalismus… (1930), Goetterspaltung und Goettervereinigung (1933), Das Geschlecht der Gottheit (1934), Der Sinn des kultischen Opfers (1942), Die Macht der Schrift in Glauben und Aberglauben (1949), and the posthumous Grundformen der Erscheinungswelt der Gottesverehrung (1953).

bibliography:

Festschrift A. Bertholet (1950), 564–78, includes a complete bibliography; Baumgartner, in: Schweizerische Theologische Umschau, 21 (1951), 121ff.

[Zev Garber]