Karl Heinrich Rengstorf

Karl Heinrich Rengstorf (born October 1, 1903 in Jembke ; † March 24, 1992 in Münster ) was a German Evangelical Lutheran theologian , professor of the New Testament at the Universities of Kiel and Münster and director of studies at Loccum Monastery .

Life and Academic Work

Karl Heinrich Rengstorf was born as the eldest child of pastor Wilhelm Rengstorf and his wife Anna-Maria. Mohr was born in Jembke , Gifhorn district. After graduating from high school, he studied Protestant theology , oriental languages ​​and archeology at the universities of Tübingen, Greifswald and Göttingen from 1922 to 1926 . In March 1926 he passed the first theological examination in Hanover, which was followed in May by the vicariate at the Evangelical Lutheran Central Association for Mission under Israel in Leipzig. From November 1926 he worked as an assistant at the Institute for Palestine Studies in Greifswald, where he began work on his licentiate thesis, a critical text edition of the Jebamot mixed natractic. Before he took the examination for the licentiate in theology in December 1927, he passed the second theological examination in September 1927. On January 1, 1928, he moved to the University of Tübingen as an assistant to write his habilitation thesis, an annotated edition of the Toseftatraktat Jebamot, and in March 1930 to receive the venia legendi . The Tübingen time as a private lecturer, which was only interrupted for a few months in the pastoral service in Wittingen , ended on April 1, 1936 with the appointment to the Kiel chair for the New Testament. His work there was short-lived, however, as his teaching license was revoked on December 2, 1936. Rengstorf accepted the office of director of studies at the Loccum monastery, which he officially held until after the end of the Second World War, but was actually interrupted by being drafted into the Wehrmacht for the entire duration of the war. After denazification, Rengstorf was able to take up the chair for the New Testament at the University of Münster on September 1, 1948, which he held until his retirement in 1971.

After the war, Karl Heinrich Rengstorf campaigned to re-establish the Evangelical Lutheran Central Association for Missions under Israel, which was already achieved in October 1945. The central association, of which Rengstorf was chairman from 1956 to 1971, then also took over the sponsorship of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum , which was re-established in Münster in 1952 and whose director Rengstorf was until his retirement.

In 1948 Rengstorf also took over the chairmanship of the newly founded German Evangelical Committee for Service to Israel , which he held until 1982. Due to Rengstorf's formative character, this body also operates as the Rengstorf Committee in the literature . The committee acted as a discussion platform for the revived Jewish missionary associations. In practice, however, no mission was carried out, but rather the Christian-Jewish relationship was thought about. The pioneering work of the committee was that it had had Jewish speakers since 1948 - e. B. Leo Baeck - and thus enabled Christian theologians to meet Jewish scholars for the first time. The committee's preoccupation with Judaism was, however, under the premise that Jews need Jesus Christ for their salvation. When the concept of mission receded more and more in the Judeo-Christian dialogue since the 1960s , Rengstorf and the committee he chaired were increasingly marginalized.

Within the University of Münster, Rengstorf acted as Vice Dean in 1949/50 and as Dean of the Evangelical Theological Faculty in 1950/51 and twice, in 1951/52 and 1953/54, as Vice Rector and 1952/53 as Rector.

Rengstorf's most important publications include a commentary on Luke's Gospel in the commentary series Das Neue Testament Deutsch , the monographs Apostolat und Predigtamt (first in 1934) and Die Auferstehung Jesu (first in 1952) , which have been reprinted several times and have also been translated into other languages, as well as 28 partly very extensive articles for the New Testament Theological Dictionary .

Karl Heinrich Rengstorf was in Münster, together with his faculty colleagues Ernst Kinder ( Systematic Theology ) and Peter Hauptmann ( Church history of Eastern Europe and theological history of the Lutheran denominational churches), a member of the old Lutheran congregation and was also one of its co-founders in 1948.

Karl Heinrich Rengstorf's estate is in the University Archives of Münster University .

Memberships and honors

Rengstorf had been a member of the working group of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (which later became the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences ) and belonged to other academies and societies. The Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (1948), the University of Lund (1962), the University of Aberdeen (1962) and the University of Illinois at Springfield awarded him an honorary doctorate . He also received the University Medal of the University of Münster, the City Hall Commemorative Coin of the City of Münster (both 1973), the Great Cross of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1974) and the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (1989).

literature

• Wolfgang Dietrich, Peter Freimark, Heinz Schreckenberg (Hrsg.): Festgabe for Karl Heinrich Rengstorf on the 70th birthday . (= Theokratia. Yearbook of the Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum 2, 1970–1972). Brill, Leiden 1973, (p. 419–442: Bibliography Karl Heinrich Rengstorf 1927–1973, compiled by Wolfgang Dietrich)
• Siegfried Hermle: Evangelical Church and Judaism - Stations after 1945 (= AKIZ.B 16). Göttingen 1990. ISBN 3-525-55716-7
• Wilfrid Haubeck u. a. (Ed.): Word in Time. New Testament Studies. Ceremony for Karl Heinrich Rengstorf on his 75th birthday . Brill, Leiden 1980, ISBN 90-04-06179-7 .
• AH Baumann: Karl Heinrich Rengstorf: 75 years. In: Peace over Israel 61, 1978, p. 9798.
• Michael Bachmann : Rengstorf, (Otto Wilhelm) Karl Heinrich (Gustav). In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon , Vol. 25, 2005, pp. 1126–1158.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Heinrich Rengstorf in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ So Gerhard Gronauer: The State of Israel in West German Protestantism. Perceptions in church and journalism from 1948 to 1972 (= AKIZ.B 57). Göttingen 2013, p. 18.
2. ^ So Gerhard Gronauer: The State of Israel in West German Protestantism. Perceptions in church and journalism from 1948 to 1972 (= AKIZ.B 57). Göttingen 2013, p. 155.
3. ^ Folker Siegert: Between indifference and mission to the Jews: Lutheranism and Judaism in their classic disproportion . In: Folker Siegert (Ed.): Church and Synagogue. A Lutheran Vortum . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2012, p. 47 .
4. ^ History of the Evangelical Lutheran St. Thomas Congregation of the SELK in Münster. (PDF; 149.32 kB) Retrieved September 28, 2019 . 
5. ^ Awarded the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. (PDF; 878.79 kB) In: Ministerialblatt (MBl. NRW.) 1989 edition No. 63 pages 1279–1294 (online version in the portalrecht.nrw.de). October 30, 1989. Retrieved September 28, 2019 . 
6. ↑ Winners of the Order of Merit since 1986 (PDF; 90.29 kB) State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on September 28, 2019 . 

predecessor	Office	successor
Siegfried Strugger	Rector of the University of Münster 1952–1953	Harry Westermann