Rudolph Kittel

1853-1929. German OT scholar. Born of a Swabian family, he studied at Tübingen where in 1881 his prize criticism of J. Wellhausen* impressed C.F.A. Dillmann of Berlin, whose OT handbook he was later to edit, and whose commentary on Isaiah he revised. In 1888 he became professor of OT at Breslau, transferring in 1898 to the chair of biblical theology at Leipzig, whence he retired in 1924. He prepared a critical edition of the Hebrew text, Biblia Hebraica (3rd ed., with Paul Kahle, 1929-37), and prepared commentaries on Kings (1900), Chronicles (1902), Psalms (1913), Judges (1922), and Samuel (1922). He wrote Geschichte der Hebräer (2 vols., 1888-92)-which later became Geschichte des Volkes Israel, Die hellenistische Mysterienreligion und das Alte Testament (1924)-and Die Völker des vorderen Orients (1931). He did not live long enough to see the Ras Shamra Tablets* which his work anticipated.