HOELSCHER, GUSTAV°

HOELSCHER, GUSTAV ° (1877–1955), German Bible scholar, born in Norden (Ostfriesland). He was professor in Halle (1915), Giessen (1920) and Marburg (1921) He was appointed to Bonn in 1929 but suspended in 1933 because of his anti-Nazi stance. He began to teach at Heidelberg in 1935, where, initially, his classes were boycotted. He remained at Bonn until 1949, and died at Heidelberg in 1955. Apart from the period of the Second Temple, to which he devoted a series of works, he dealt comprehensively with many subjects in the fields of biblical studies, even with metrics. His work Geschichte der israelitischen und jüdischen Religion (1922) is a short critical exposition of the history of the Israelite and Jewish religion. As a literary critic in the mold of J. Wellhausen, Hoelscher utilized the dating of sources in reconstructing the religious history of Israel. He dated Deuteronomy to the sixth century b.c.e. (in zaw, 40, 1922), and concluded that large parts of the Book of Ezekiel are secondary (Hesekiel, der Dichter und das Buch, 1924). He traced the J and E sources of the Pentateuch up to and including the Books of Kings (Geschichtsschreibung in Israel, 1952). In a comprehensive exposition of the prophetic figures and traditions (Die Propheten, 1914) he located, following W. Wundt, the ecstatic phenomenon within the broader context of the history and psychology of religion.

bibliography:

A. Falkenstein, in: Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften (1955–56), 24–26. add. bibliography: C. Begg, in: dbi, 1, 515–16.

[Rudolf Smend /

S. David Sperling (2^nd ed.)]