Smend, Rudolph°
SMEND, RUDOLPH°
SMEND, RUDOLPH ° (1851–1913), German Bible critic. Smend taught at the Halle (1875), at Basle (1881), and Goettingen (1889). His major works dealt with source criticism of the Bible. His Die Erzaehlung des Hexateuch auf ihre Quellen untersucht (1912) defined j1, j2, e, and p as the four major strands of the Hexateuch and influenced O. *Eissfeldt's Hexateuch-Synopse (1922) and the pentateuchal criticism of H. Holzinger, J. Meinhold, and W. Eichrodt among others. In Lehrbuch der alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte (1893; 18992) he advanced the theory that Isaiah became a nationalist only in light of Assyrian domination, and with W. Nowack and A. Lods, who followed J. *Wellhausen's lead, he maintained that Hosea opposed in principle the institution of the monarchy. His study of the "I" references of the Psalter, in which he maintains that they refer to the congregation and not to the individual, provoked a vigorous reaction by opponents of this view. He wrote a detailed exegesis on the Wisdom of Ben Sira; a study of the Mesha stele (1886, with A. Socin); on the influence of the sayings of *Ahikar on the Greek Aesop fables (1898); and a commentary on Ezekiel (1880).
[Zev Garber]