Kritiker und Exegeten

This massive volume contains the fruit of over a half century of the author’s study of the leading lights in critical investigation of the OT. These “personalities” are “far and away the most important factor” in the history of OT scholarship in Rudolf Smend’s judgment (p. xii). The author stresses three things: that this is not a formal history of OT scholarship (which would have required more attention to problems, methods, results, schools of thought, and their interrelations), that every scholar profiled offers much that can be learned, and that these scholars are united “in the service of the unique book (that is, the OT) entrusted to them and to us by the synagogue and the church, but also by the university” (p. xii). It is the university’s labors on the OT, though, that Smend primarily chronicles, not the church’s or the synagogue’s.Fifty-four scholars appear for detailed attention, not only biographically but also in terms of their major works, whom Smend often quotes and comments on extensively. He also accesses letters and archival material where possible. Much of the contents of this book appeared in two earlier volumes (Deutsche Alttestamentler in drei Jahrhunderten, 1989; From Astruc to Zimmerli, 2007). The present work updates previous treatments and expands the list of scholars. Nine profiles are completely new (p. 983): Samuel Bochart, Baruch de Spinoza, Richard Simon, Heinrich Ewald, Rudolf Smend (grandfather of the author), Martin Buber, Walter Baumgartner, Wilhelm Vischer, and Timo Veijola.Readers who despair of ever commanding enough German to read this tome should note that From Astruc to Zimmerli contains, in English, Schmid’s portraits of these 15 figures: J. Astruc, R. Lowth, J. D. Michaelis, W. M. L. de Wette, W. Gesenius, A. Kuenen, J. Wellhausen, B. Duhm, H. Gunkel, A. Alt, S. Mowinckel, G. von Rad, M. Noth, I. L. Seelingmann, and W. Zimmerli. In addition, Smend lists English publications that contain other relevant essays, including treatments from Smend’s hand of E. W. Hengstenberg and Franz Delitzsch (p. 986).The front cover contains portraits of five representatives from the book’s collection of 54: Johannes Buxtorf II (born 1599), Jean Astruc (born 1684), Julius Wellhausen (born 1844; but the photo on p. 345 is different), Albrecht Alt (born 1883), and Martin Buber (born 1878). The photos both on the cover and in almost every chapter (no picture exists for Richard Simon) of the book are a learning aid, helping the reader connect a face with the eras, ideas, and personality distinct to each scholar.Smend quotes Julius Wellhausen, who thought that in critical study of the OT the French first excelled, with the English matching stride. Holland also contributed pioneer researchers. “German biblical scholarship opened up to developments elsewhere in western Europe in the course of the 1700s, but thereafter for a long time it set the pace” (p. 36). The book does not clearly specify the country of origin of the 54 scholars treated, perhaps to avoid calling attention to its German-centricity, but by my count, there are 36 German portraits and 18 from elsewhere. Switzerland accounts for eight of these (not counting Ludwig Köhler, who counted himself Swiss but who Smend points out was born in Germany), France for three (Samuel Bochart, Richard Simon, Jean Astruc [died 1766], and no French scholar since), Holland for three (Baruch de Spinoza, Abraham Kuenen, Isaac Leo Seeligmann, died 1982), England for one (Robert Lowth, died 1787), Finland for one (Timo Veijola, died 2005), Austria for one (Martin Buber, died 1965), and Norway for one (Sigmund Mowinckel, died 1965). For some reason there is no chapter on Walther Eichrodt, who is mentioned 10 times in the index of names (15 pages containing about 1,200 names total). Kritiker und Exegeten recounts an almost exclusively Germanic discussion. But that is the main story to be told when it comes to the understanding of the OT in the contemporary West in what is widely regarded as the loftiest academic circles.One of the repeated contentions of the book is that all these scholars deserve respect. I will take that point in commenting on the absence of any English-speaking scholar since Robert Lowth. I respect Smend’s decision, on the grounds that it is unlikely that any British or North American OT scholar has been as extensively read and translated into German as many Germans have into English. More importantly, I view Smend as likely respecting his own limitations—he probably does not know or have easy access to the personalities and lore surrounding English-speaking scholars to the same degree that he can access astoundingly detailed information on Continental figures, a number of whom he has known personally. Better to have painstakingly well-grounded treatments of a chosen lineage of leading western European thinkers than to mix in treatments that would be potted by comparison to attain an arbitrary breadth for the sake of diplomatic appearance.There’s that icebreaker question: if you were marooned on a desert island and could have only two (or three, or ten) books, what would they be? I would be tempted to choose this one, not if I could only choose two, but certainly if I could only choose ten. The stories told in many chapters (only four of them cameos of fewer than ten pages (Johann Jacob Buxtorf, Johannes Buxtorf III, Karl Marti, Hugo Greßmann,) with many running to 30 pages or more (Richard Simon, Rudolf Smend, Martin Buber, Albrecht Alt, Gerhard von Rad, Hans Walter Wolff, Timo Veijola) are gripping in substance, depth, nuance, and importance. Most will bear repeated reflective readings to benefit from Smend’s richly allusive style. The whole book is tacitly linked by the fundamental question that crops up repeatedly throughout: how is the OT corpus that the church regards as Holy Scripture to be read in today’s world?—whether “today” refers to Richard Simon’s era or our own. Brilliant minds occupy opposite ends of the spectrum in reply, with scholars perched at every point in between. A high point of the book, hermeneutically, is the answer to the question worked out by the Finnish scholar Timo Veijola (pp. 970–71) in ten theses under the heading “Text, Wissenschaft und Glaube.” One suspects that Veijola articulates a solution that Smend himself might largely affirm.OT scholars of all stripes will find this book profitable and in places riveting. NT scholars, too, will find it valuable, since OT studies has often set the pace for later developments in NT studies (e.g., Gunkel’s pioneering of form criticism), and since larger hermeneutical currents from generation to generation rarely affect only OT or NT scholarship alone but most often both together.This review will conclude with ten tidbits gleaned from the book that may encourage its consultation by readers of this review. Scholars mentioned run from older to more recent. (1) Richard Simon “did his work lying on a thick carpet amidst several pillows, books and writing materials on the floor next to him. He ate only in the evening, and only just enough to sustain life” (p. 67). Smend’s description of Simon’s oddities extends over many lines. He concludes with characteristic humor: “Künftigen Biographen mit psychologischen Spürsinn bietet dieser fraglos sehr interessante Mann noch ein reiches, aber mit Takt zu bestellendes Betätigungsfeld.” (2) Karl Barth asks (Einführung in die evangelische Theologie, 136) regarding the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit: “What was to be said to that eighteenth century man who dryly maintained that he, for his part, never received such a testimony?” The man to whom he refers is Johann David Michaelis (p. 152). (3) The redoubtable conservative Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg “attended no school but was taught by his knowledgeable and godly father, a Reformed pastor” (p. 242). Who knew Hengstenberg was homeschooled? (4) Julius Wellhausen called Heinrich Ewald the “teacher without equal,” and Wellhausen's tribute to Ewald, which combines “human nearness, supreme objectivity, and natural artistry in presentation, is the most beautiful tribute that any Old Testament scholar has ever received” (p. 258 with n. 2). (5) Franz Delitzsch’s real father was probably Jewish (pp. 278–80), and his last words, uttered in 1890 when his high view of Scripture was losing out to Wellhausian and religionsgeschichtliche trends, were: “I had my time, but it is over” (p. 299).(6) Emil Kautsch, a deeply conservative OT scholar, reversed his fundamental convictions upon conferring with Wellhausen and reading his first volume of Geschichte Israels; his effusive review in Theologische Literaturzeitung paved the way for Wellhausen’s rapid rise to prominence (p. 339). (7) When asked what foreign language book in his field needed translation into English, the American scholar Robert Carroll (1941–2000) answered: Otto Procksch’s Theologie des Alten Testaments, even though their theological orientations differed greatly (p. 543). (8) Students awaiting the Swiss scholar Walter Baumgartner in the classroom could hear him coming by the echo of his studded boots which he wore year-round; his entire mien was more of a mountain farmer (he grew up working summers in the Alps) than of a professor (p. 708). (9) Johannes Hempel, not the only scholar in this anthology to be dinged for support of the Third Reich, was praised by students not only for his academic brilliance but his human qualities, which in Smend’s telling had their dark side: “his quick understanding, his iron industriousness, his lordly demeanor, his energetic engagement, his strong and contentious feel for righteousness, not least his own. . . . He always had the first and last word. There are in the university guild not many who write ‘I’ as often as Hempel” (pp. 748, 756–57). (10) Because after World War II Hempel would not give up editorship of Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, scholars like Alt, von Rad, and Noth refused to publish in it, and this gave use to the alternate organ Vetus Testamentum (p. 766).To put it in sports terms: few books shed more light on the game within the game. Since this is a game with such high stakes, Smend’s portraits and their cumulative revelation deserve to hold classic status as long as OT scrutiny in the contemporary vein retains the importance it has long enjoyed

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