Gesenius

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Title page of the first volume of the first edition of the dictionary (1810)

The Hebrew and Aramaic Concise Dictionary on the Old Testament (the Gesenius ) is a standard work for Biblical Hebrew. It was founded by Wilhelm Gesenius , who set new standards with this work. He classified Hebrew among the Semitic languages and in particular used the comparison with Arabic to clarify the meaning of Hebrew words. The first edition appeared in two volumes in 1810 and 1812. The later editions of the concise dictionary all go back to a short version of the work intended for school lessons, which was published in 1815 under the title Hebrew and Chaldean Concise Dictionary on the Old Testament . The Gesenius was the standard dictionary for 200 years and has retained its importance to this day.

Gesenius' principles

Wilhelm Gesenius (portrait in the frontispiece of the dictionary)

The dictionary for school use appeared in a revised second edition in 1823. Here Gesenius formulated his maxims:

“One generally poses the question: Where does our knowledge of the Hebrew meanings of words come from? a threefold source is presented to us:

  1. the usage of the OT itself ...;
  2. the traditional knowledge of the Hebrew language, which has survived among the Jews, and is recorded partly in the old translations, partly in the Jewish commentaries and dictionaries;
  3. The comparison of the related dialects, which are all younger than the OT, but in some cases richer than the Hebrew dialect in the Bible, and either living languages, or lexicalised by native grammarians, or at least several Writers are preserved, so that doubts about the meaning of the words can prevail relatively less than in Hebrew. "

Further revisions up to the 17th edition

Title page of the 16th edition of the dictionary (1915)

The concise dictionary has undergone several fundamental revisions over the course of 100 years, primarily taking into account the knowledge of the languages ​​of the ancient neighboring cultures of Israel, which had grown massively in the course of the 19th century. Gesenius himself played a decisive role in researching Phoenician and Old South Arabic . Even later, after the cuneiform script had been deciphered and the excavations in Nineveh , the previously unknown Eastern Semitic, Akkadian or Assyrian, came into view, with a literature that by far exceeded the Old Testament in size and age. Among the more distantly related Semito-Hamitic languages is the ancient Egyptian , which research was only possible through the decipherment of the hieroglyphs .

Gesenius himself got the third edition in 1828 and the fourth in 1834. After his death it was Franz Eduard Christian Dietrich who published the fifth to seventh editions (1857, 1863 and 1868). The following four editions were edited by Ferdinand Mühlau and Wilhelm Volck (1878, 1883, 1886 and 1890), but hardly improved. The twelfth, “completely revised” edition, published for the first time by Frants Buhl , marked an important turning point . Buhl first changed the title: Since Akkadian was now known as the language of the Chaldeans, Chaldean was replaced in the title by the correct Aramaic . The Aramaic vocabulary has now been dealt with separately from the Hebrew in a separate part, so that since then it has actually been two dictionaries in one volume. Further employees for the new editions that followed at regular intervals (1899, 1905, 1910, 1915) were Heinrich Zimmer and initially Albert Socin , later Wilhelm Max Müller .

The 16th edition published in 1915 was the fifth and last edited by Frants Buhl. It was then reprinted unchanged for over 100 years. These reprints - the first appeared in 1921 - were all labeled “17th Edition. Unchanged reprint ”and misunderstandably as“ unchanged reprint of the 17th edition published in 1915 ”and mostly cited as Gesenius 17 or more correctly as Gesenius – Buhl . Until the publication of the one-volume hand edition of the 18th edition in 2013, the hardcover edition of the 17th edition was still available; since then the publisher has offered the “17. Edition “is only available as an ebook and softcover edition.

The 18th edition

The cover of the 18th edition published in 2013

Semitic studies have not stopped since 1915. In the 20th century, Ugaritic was a new Semitic language that was closely related to Hebrew; in addition, the Dead Sea Scrolls had to be evaluated for the dictionary. Samaritan also gained in importance for the understanding of Biblical Hebrew through the scientific development of its vocalization tradition. The As such, was in science no longer, as even in 1915, not least, the basic text had changed, even if only marginally textus receptus the Bombergiana but in the BHS reprinted text after the Codex Petropolitanus B19a directed .

The task of developing a new edition of the classic was initially taken on in 1953 by the Jena Hebraist and Semitist Rudolf Meyer . He had been contacted by Springer-Verlag on the advice of Albrecht Alt . The job opportunities at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena at that time were not favorable for such a project, Meyer was also involved in other commitments and was only able to devote himself to this task after his retirement in 1968. He carried out extensive preparatory work and presented the basic manuscript for the first delivery of the 18th edition. This appeared in 1987, edited by Rudolf Meyer together with Herbert Donner , and comprised the letters Aleph to Gimel .

In 1983, with the support of the German Research Foundation, the Gesenius office was set up at the Theological Faculty of the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel . Herbert Donner was the head of the research center and the sole editor from the second delivery. Other employees were Udo Rüterswörden and Johannes Renz . Around 25 years passed until the completion of the 18th edition with the last delivery in 2012, a supplement volume containing the German-Hebrew and German-Aramaic dictionaries, the list of abbreviations and a list of errata et corrigenda ('Errors and things to be corrected'). The work has also been available as a one-volume study edition since 2013.

expenditure

  • Wilhelm Gesenius: Hebrew and Aramaic concise dictionary on the Old Testament . Ed .: Herbert Donner. 18th edition. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-642-25680-6 .
  • Wilhelm Gesenius: Hebrew and Aramaic concise dictionary on the Old Testament . Ed .: Frants Buhl. 16th edition, Leipzig 1915 ( digitized version )
  • Wilhelm Gesenius: Hebrew-German concise dictionary on the writings of the Old Testament: including the geographical names and the Chaldean words in Daniel and Esra . Leipzig 1810. ( digitized version )

literature

  • Stefan Schorch, Ernst-Joachim Waschke (ed.): Biblical exegesis and Hebrew lexicography. The "Hebrew-German Concise Dictionary" by Wilhelm Gesenius as a mirror and source of Old Testament and Hebrew research, 200 years after its first edition. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2013. ISBN 978-3-11-026612-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The IATG 3 list of abbreviations, which is authoritative in theology and related sciences, recommends "Gesenius" as an abbreviation for the dictionary.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Gesenius: Hebrew and Chaldean concise dictionary on the Old Testament . Leipzig 1823, p. vii – viii .
  3. ^ Front and Roman pages of the 1962 reprint .
  4. ^ Rudolf Meyer: Contributions to the history of text and language of the Old Testament . Ed .: Waltraut Bernhardt (=  supplements to the journal for Old Testament science . Volume 209 ). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1993, ISBN 3-11-013695-3 , p. 4 .