Otto Michel

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Otto Michel (1973)

Otto Michel (born August 28, 1903 in Elberfeld , today in Wuppertal , † December 28, 1993 in Tübingen ) was a German Protestant theologian . He was professor for the New Testament at the University of Tübingen .

Life

Michel was born in Elberfeld as the son of a merchant in the textile industry who was himself part of the awakened Bergisch Christianity. A defining experience was his confirmation in 1918, which made him decide to study theology. After graduating from high school in 1922, Michel studied theology in Tübingen with Adolf Schlatter and in Halle (Saale) . In Halle he was encouraged by Ernst von Dobschütz to pursue a scientific career. Michel received his doctorate in 1929 on "Paul and his Bible" and received his habilitation in the same year on the basis of his doctorate and a trial lecture from the theological faculty in Halle .

Then he was inspector of the Tholuck Konviktes and student pastor in Halle. In 1930 he joined the NSDAP temporarily and finally on May 1, 1933 . In 1933 he also joined the SA , where, as he later wrote, he had "done full service in 3 different active storms". He had to leave his job as a student pastor due to conflicts over Nazi church policy. In 1934/35 he was a pastor in Lüdenscheid and joined the Confessing Church in October 1935 . He then became an assistant and chair representative in Halle. In 1936 he resigned from the SA. The faculty in Breslau wanted to appoint him in 1936, but this failed due to a political veto. Between 1939 and 1943 he took over the professorship in Tübingen for the theology professor Gerhard Kittel , who is considered to be the founder of the anti-Semitic orientation of Tübingen Jewish Studies after 1933. During this time, Kittel took on a professorship and continued teaching assignments in Vienna.

After the war ended, Michel was given his own chair. He kept quiet about his Nazi past throughout his life. In 1946, succeeding Gerhard Kittel, he became a full professor for the New Testament in Tübingen. In 1957 the Institutum Judaicum was founded there. In 1971 Michel retired. He is the doctoral supervisor of Martin Hengel , who also became his successor.

In addition to his university teaching activities, Michel's evangelistic activities, his participation in the student mission in Germany (SMD) and participation in summer seminars for theology students , in which scientific theology was taught on the basis of an awakening Christianity.

Positions

Michel represented the concern of a biblically based life orientation against any ideology. He rejected both the student movement of 1968 and contemporary theological currents which, in his view, diverge from the biblical basis. In retrospect, this attitude is justified with the difficult experiences during the time of National Socialism . Against the background of this biblical orientation, his participation in the founding of the biblical Albrecht Bengel study house in Tübingen in the late 1960s should be seen; likewise the protest that Michel, as emeritus, raised in 1988 together with the missiologist Peter Beyerhaus and the later Württemberg regional bishop Gerhard Maier against the fact that the Tübingen Evangelical-theological faculty should award the Dr. Leopold Lucas Prize to the 14th Dalai Lama . It cannot be the task of an Evangelical Theological Faculty to award a prize to a person who claims to be the incarnation of a deity.

plant

Michel's academic work includes exegetical commentaries on the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistles to the Romans, as well as a number of monographic specialist works and essays on New Testament exegesis. In addition, together with Otto Bauernfeind , he edited a commented Greek-German edition of Flavius ​​Josephus ' De bello Judaico .

His exegetical endeavors are aimed at understanding the New Testament less against a Hellenistic background than against an Old Testament Jewish one. The establishment of the Institutum Judaicum in Tübingen, as well as the contacts with Jewish scholars that Michel made after the Second World War, including Martin Buber and Pinchas Lapide, are to be seen in this context . The endeavor for Christian-Jewish dialogue and contact with Israeli scientists is undoubtedly a great achievement of Otto Michel.

Michel endeavored to pursue theology on the basis of a “Hebrew thought” that was less aimed at abstraction than Greek thought and therefore more open to the living historical encounter with God. For dealing with the Bible, this means that guidelines based on spiritual history, for example in questions of historicity or the understanding of God, may provide the framework for the interpretation of the Bible. Rather, it is important to be guided by the texts of the Bible while renouncing human-philosophical pre-understanding:

“Any attempt to get a human grip on the Bible must fail. The basic theme must be: 'Let yourselves be transformed by the renewal of your way of thinking' (Romans 12: 2). So the principle remains: It is not man who criticizes Holy Scripture, but Holy Scripture criticizes man. "

According to Michel, this is the difference between "interpretation" and "interpretation", as he emphasizes above all compared to the existential interpretation pursued by Rudolf Bultmann and his students :

"For me, interpretation is the attempt to work out past history and God's intervention in thought and life processes again (...) To interpret means to analyze the biblical text, to open up hidden traditional contexts, to uncover the expressive intentions of the testimony, to emphasize terms, to show structures, following in the footsteps of the living God in history (...) Interpretation, on the other hand, has always been the attempt to free myself from wrong thought structures, to find the right starting point in the current philosophical orientation, to develop my own conception from it and with it Conception to make the text fruitful for me. Not only the 'existential', but every 'interpretation' in this sense is a questionable undertaking for me, because it brings the present horizon of understanding into the biblical historical record and thus alienates the past. "

Despite recognition of the historical-critical method in biblical studies, Michel's exegesis is less in the tradition of liberal theology than in that of a conservative salvation-historical orientation such as that of Franz Delitzsch , whom he explicitly named as a predecessor in his later years.

Catalog of works (selection)

A detailed bibliography by Thomas Pola and Rainer Riesner can be found in: Ich bin ein Hebräer (see under 4.), 417–444.

1. Scientific works:

a) Comments:

  • The Letter to the Hebrews , Critical-Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (KEK 13), Göttingen 14th ed. 1984.
  • The letter to the Romans , KEK 4, Göttingen 14th edition 1978.

b) Monographs:

  • Paul and his Bible , Contributions to the Promotion of Christian Theology 2.18, Gütersloh 1929.
  • Prophet and Martyr , BFChT 37.2, Gütersloh 1932.
  • The New Testament testimony of the community , Giessen 3rd edition 1986.

c) Attachment tape:

  • Service to the word . Collected essays, ed. by Klaus Haacker, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1986.

2. Devotions:

  • Look at Jesus . Fifteen Bible Studies. With a foreword by Rainer Riesner , Gießen 5th edition 1996.

literature

  • Otto Michel: Adaptation or Resistance. An autobiography . Wuppertal and Zurich 1989.
  • Christoph Schmitt:  MICHEL, Otto. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 14, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-073-5 , Sp. 1253-1261.
  • Reiner Braun: “Adaptation or Resistance?” For the discussion about Otto Michel and National Socialism . In: Theological contributions 43, 2012, pp. 290–304 Online here [1] .
  • Helgo Lindner: On Otto Michel's theology. Keywords to remember . In: Ders., Biblical. Collected essays . Gießen / Basel 2006, pp. 177–186.
  • Helgo Lindner (Ed.): I am a Hebrew. In memory of Otto Michel (1903-1993) . Giessen 2003.
  • Klaus Haacker : Otto Michel (1903-1993) . In: Cilliers Breytenbach, Rudolf Hoppe (Ed.): New Testament Science after 1945. Main representative of German-language exegesis in the presentation of its students . Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2008, pp. 341–352.
  • Henrik Eberle : The Martin Luther University in the time of National Socialism. Mdv, Halle 2002, ISBN 3-89812-150-X , p. 279.
  • Otto Michel and Charles Horowitz: an exchange of letters after the Shoah , in: Judaica. 68 (2012) No. 3, pp. 278-294.
  • “A lasting working group between me and Jerusalem.” The correspondence between Otto Michel and Gershom Scholem , in: G. Necker, E. Morlok, M. Morgenstern (eds.): Gershom Scholem in Germany. Kinship and speechlessness. Tübingen 2014, pp. 167-200.
  • Matthias Morgenstern : From Adolf Schlatter to the Tübingen Institutum Judaicum. Was there a Schlatter school in Tübingen in the 20th century? Attempt at a reconstruction. In: Matthias Morgenstern, Reinhold Rieger (ed.): The Tübinger Institutum Judaicum. Contributions to its history and prehistory since Adolf Schlatter. (Contubernium. Tübingen Contributions to the History of University and Science 83), Stuttgart 2015, pp. 11–147.

Web links

References

  1. ↑ Otto Michel - Friend of the Jews? Gisela Dachs in: ZEIT-Online January 22, 2012
  2. ↑ Horst Junginger: "Research on Jews" in Tübingen. From Jewish to anti-Jewish religious studies. In the focus on »Jewish Studies« - Between Science and Ideology . In: Yearbook of the Simon Dubnow Institute. Vol. 5. V&R, Göttingen 2006, ISBN 3-525-36932-8 . P. 395ff.
  3. ↑ Otto Michel - Friend of the Jews? Gisela Dachs in: ZEIT-Online January 22, 2012
  4. ↑ Martin Hengel: The Zealots. Foreword to the first edition (Tübingen, 1961).
  5. ^ Matthias Morgenstern: Martin Buber in Tübingen. Notes on friendship and correspondence between Otto Michel and Martin Buber . In: JUDAICA . tape 71 (2015) , no. 4 . Zurich December 2015, p. 366-382 .
  6. ↑ My being theologian in conflict with the zeitgeist ; in: adaptation or resistance ; 159
  7. ↑ My being theologian ... , 163f. On Michel's position on Bultmann, cf. also JM Wischnath: At the turning point - Otto Michel and his "critical word" on the Tübingen faculty memorial "For and against the demythologization of Bultmann" ; in: H. Lindner (Ed.): Ich bin ein Hebräer, pp. 48–78
  8. ↑ See O. Michel, My Confession of Franz Delitzsch , in: E. Lubahn / O. Rodenberg (ed.), Recognized by God . Knowledge of God in Hebrew and Greek Thought, Theological Study Contributions 3, Stuttgart 1990, pp. 155–163.
personal data
SURNAME Michel, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Michel, D. Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Elberfeld
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1993
Place of death Tübingen