Manfred Oeming

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Manfred Oeming 2009

Manfred Oeming (born October 11, 1955 in Kröpelin , Rostock district ) is a Protestant theologian and professor of Old Testament theology at Heidelberg University .

Live and act

Oeming's family fled the GDR via West Berlin to Saarland on New Year's Eve 1958/59 . It was not until he was 18 that he became interested in Christianity; as a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation , he decided to study Protestant theology , philosophy and education .

After taking his first theological exam, he did his doctorate with studies on the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament in recent biblical-theological drafts in Bonn in 1984 with the Dutch student Antonius H. Gunneweg . He then took over the position of study inspector at the Evangelical Theological Monastery at the University of Bonn . His habilitation took place in 1989 in the same subject with an exegetical thesis on the genealogies in the Old Testament book of the Chronicle . From 1988 to 1991 he was pastor at the Kreuzkirche in Bonn and a private lecturer at the university there. From 1991 to 1992 he was a university assistant in Mainz , from 1992 to 1993 he was a Heisenberg fellow of the DFG. In 1993 he accepted an appointment at the University of Osnabrück . He has been a professor in Heidelberg since 1996 .

From 2002 to 2006 he was Vice-Rector and Head of the University for Jewish Studies in Heidelberg. From 2002 to 2007 he was a member of the Baden regional synod of the Evangelical Church , and from 2006 to 2008 dean of the Heidelberg Theological Faculty. In 2006 he received the Baden Academy Prize.

His four main research interests lie in the exegesis of the books of the third part of the canon ( Job and the Book of Psalms , Book of Ezra , Nehemia , Chronicle, Book of Tobit ), in the fields of biblical and philosophical hermeneutics (examination of the thought and works of Sören Kierkegaard , Martin Heidegger , Karl Jaspers , Sigmund Freud and Paul Ricœur ), the Judeo-Christian conversation and the archeology of Judea .

Together with Oded Lipschits , he directs archaeological excavations in the Israeli Ramat Rachel ( Hebrew רמת רחל), the southernmost part of Jerusalem with a view of Bethlehem .

He works as a liaison professor of the German National Academic Foundation and is a member of the Senate and Board of Trustees of the University for Jewish Studies in Heidelberg. He is co-founder of the Heidelberger Inspirationen am Abend , which has been taking place at the Peterskirche since 1998. He has been a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2019 .

Theological teaching

Oeming advocates a differentiated and multidimensional approach to the Bible . The Old Testament in particular is extremely diverse, it contains stories from God (revelation stories), narratives, ethical, legal and cultic instructions, testimonies of faith, prayers and prophecies. It is kept in different styles, individual books were written and edited by several authors and therefore also contain repetitions and contradictions. The late writings of the Old Testament already open the focus from Israel to the peoples.

Like his contemporaries, Jesus also interpreted the Scriptures according to certain rules, he also used the Pescher method of interpretation. The New Testament does not completely replace the old one because it has an intrinsic value. Old Testament writings complement the New Testament especially on topics such as politics , spirituality , wisdom , skepticism and eroticism . In this way Israel and Judaism can be taken seriously and valued as brothers.

Oeming has developed its own hermeneutic model that aims to open up the richness of facets and the wealth of meaning in biblical texts. He differentiates between four sides or directions that contribute to a holistic understanding of the text: author / sender, text world (linguistic and literary questions), reader / recipient ( relecture ) and matter (truth question and reality content). Each of these four sides has its justification and its weight, no direction can claim the sovereignty of interpretation on its own. With regard to the question of truth, Oeming also takes the view that the biblical stories have a historical core and content, but also aim at an existential truth and symbolic interpretation, as outlined and represented earlier by Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann .

Publications (selection)

Manfred Oeming at the 2009 excavation
  • The real Israel. The genealogical vestibule 1 Chr 1–9 . BWANT 128, Stuttgart 1990.
  • with Henning Schröer , Walter Schmithals : In Memoriam Antonius HJ Gunneweg. Speeches held on June 26, 1991 at the commemoration of the Evangelical Theological Faculty of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . Alma mater. Contributions to the history of the University of Bonn 76, Bonn 1992.
  • Hermeneutics, Old Testament and Depth Psychology . 1995.
  • Biblical Hermeneutics , Primus: Darmstadt 1998, ISBN 3-89678-316-5 .
  • The Book of Psalms 1 , Stuttgart 2000.
  • The Old Testament as part of the Christian canon? Studies on contemporary theologies of the whole Bible , TVZ, Zurich 3rd edition 2001, ISBN 978-3-907576-45-8
  • Comprehensive Biblical Theology of the Present. The relationship between AT and NT in the hermeneutic discussion since Gerhard von Rad , Zurich, 3rd edition. 2001. (dissertation)
  • with Konrad Schmid : Job's way . BThSt 45, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2001.
  • with Oded Lipschits : Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period . Winona Lake 2006.
  • M. Oeming, Konrad Schmid (Hrsg.): The one God and the gods . AThANT 82, Zurich 2003.
  • (Ed.): Claus Westermann . Life, work, effect . LIT, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-6599-1 .
  • Translation with Christiane Oeming: Brevard S. Childs : The Theology of One Bible . 2 volumes, Herder: Freiburg 2003.
  • Understanding and believing. Exegetical building blocks for a theology of the Old Testament (Bonner Biblical Contributions 142), Philo Verlag: Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-86572-325-X
  • Theology in Israel and neighboring cultures: Contributions to the symposium “The Old Testament and Modern Culture” on the occasion of the 100th birthday of Gerhard von Rad (1901–1971), Heidelberg, 18. – 21. October 2001 . By Manfred Oeming, Gerhard von Rad , Andreas Schüle, Konrad Schmid. LIT, Berlin, Hamburg, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-5456-6 .

Audio (lectures)

Web links

Commons : Manfred Oeming  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Oeming ( Memento from September 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the University of Heidelberg
  2. ↑ uni-protocol.de Four-part television film about the latest results in Israel archeology and the history of the Bible with Oeming. April 11, 2006
  3. ^ European Academy of Sciences and Arts. In: members.euro-acad.eu. Retrieved September 23, 2019 .
  4. ↑ The Origin of the Old Testament . Lecture Oeming June 19, 2014 at Worthaus in Heidelberg
  5. ↑ The Importance of the Old Testament to the New Testament and Christians . Lecture Oeming November 15, 2014 at Worthaus in Heidelberg
  6. ↑ In Search of Meaning - Approaches to the Bible . Lecture Oeming June 19, 2014 at Worthaus in Heidelberg
personal data
SURNAME Oeming, Manfred
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian and Old Testament scholar in Heidelberg
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Kröpelin