Wilhelm Gesenius ( German: Wilhelm Gesenius ; February 3, 1786 , Nordhausen - October 23, 1842 , Halle ) - German orientalist, Hebraist and Bible student. The author of BEAN called him Gesenius and, referring to his translations of the Hebrew words, wrote - “according to Gesenius” [4] .
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Biography
Wilhelm Gesenius was born in Nordhausen. In 1803, he became a student of philosophy and theology at the University of Helmstedt , where his most influential teacher was Heinrich Gencke , but he attended the last part of his university course in Göttingen, where Johann Gottfried Eichhorn and Thomas Christian Tushen were the leading educators at that time. . In 1806, shortly after graduating from university, Gesenius became a tutor and privat-docent in Göttingen; August Nender was his first student to whom he taught Hebrew. In 1810 he became an extraordinary professor of theology, and in 1811 he became an ordinary professor at the University of Halle , where, despite numerous offers of high positions in another place, he spent his whole life.
Genesius taught almost continuously for over thirty years. The breaks were in 1813-1814, which was caused by the German Liberation War (War of the Sixth Coalition), during which the university was closed; there were two more breaks caused by long scientific trips: first in 1820 to Paris , London and Oxford together with his colleague Johann Karl Thilo (1794-1853) to study rare oriental manuscripts, and in 1835 to England and the Netherlands in connection with his Phoenician studies. Gesenius became the most famous Hebrew teacher and scholar in the study and interpretation of the Old Testament in Germany: in recent years, about five hundred students attended his lectures.
In 1827, after he refused the offer to take Eichhorn’s place in Göttingen, Gesenius was appointed as a consorialist, but, in addition to the attack to which he, along with his friend and colleague Julius Weigscheider, suffered in 1830 from Gengstenberg and his party Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, due to his accusations of rationalism, his life was not rich in events.
Gesenius died in Galle and was buried near the university. By tradition, theologian students in Galle laid stones on his grave as a mark of respect every year before exams.
Gesenius was most revered for having freed Semitic philology from the shackles of theological and religious prejudice, as well as for the discovery of a strictly scientific (and comparative) method, which had been introduced into science since its time. As an exegete, he had a great influence on theological studies. He wrote a large number of works on theology and philology, and also proved that the Maltese language was not of Punic origin.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 119096552 // General regulatory control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ 1 2 BNF identifier : Open Data Platform 2011.
- ↑ 1 2 SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ 33 search results in Wikisource.
- This article (section) contains text taken (translated) from the eleventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica , which went into the public domain .