F.J. Delitzsch

1813-1890. Lutheran OT scholar. Born and educated at Leipzig where he taught for some years, he later held chairs at Rostock (1846-50), Erlangen (1850-67), and Leipzig (1867-90). From a pietistic background and of Jewish descent, he sought to combat both the extremes of anti-Semitism and of Zionism, and to aid in the conversion of the Jews to Christianity. To this end he edited a periodical, Saat aut Hoffnung, from 1863; founded a Jewish missionary college; translated the NT into Hebrew (1877); and established at Leipzig an Institutum Judaicum (1886). He published a number of OT commentaries of a conservative character. He examined carefully the critical theories of Wellhausen* and cautiously and without abandoning his concern for evangelical truth came to uphold the different literary strands in the Pentateuch and the dual authorship of Isaiah. During his lifetime his moderately critical views were probably more widely accepted in the English-speaking world than those of Wellhausen himself. He wrote extensively on rabbinical subjects, published with S. Baer an edition of the Hebrew text of most books of the OT, and wrote a few essays on dogmatic theology. But these do not impress, and it is as an exegete that he is chiefly remembered.