Meik Gerhards

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meik Gerhards (* 1970 in Waldbröl ) is a German Protestant theologian .

Life

Gerhards studied Protestant theology at the University of Bonn and the Georg-August University of Göttingen and the University of Marburg . There he also studied oriental languages ​​(including Akkadian, Hittite, Arabic) and carried out a doctoral degree . From 1999 to 2004 he was a research assistant at the Department of Protestant Theology in Marburg and at the Institute for Protestant Theology at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen . After receiving his doctorate in 2005 in the subject of the Old Testament at the Philipps University of Marburg, he was a research assistant and lecturer at the theological faculty of the University of Rostock from 2007 to 2014 , where his habilitation in the subject of the Old Testament also took place in 2010 . Since 2014 he has been a research assistant at the Institute for Protestant Theology at the University of Cologne .

research

Since his dissertation on the exposure history of Moses (Ex 2.1-10), Gerhards has been practicing Old Testament exegesis with a focus on the history of religion and tradition. In doing so, he has examined in particular the relationships between biblical texts and texts of the cuneiform cultures of Mesopotamia ( Gilgamesh epic ; Ludlul bēl nēmeqi ) and Asia Minor ( Hittite texts ). In a monograph he also turns to the relationship between biblical texts and Homer and thus includes the ancient Greek area in the wider environment of the Old Testament. In addition, Gerhards has presented works on the history of religion that deal with the question of a possible influence of Near Eastern Indo - Aryans in Palestine. According to this, the so-called "Hittites", who are mentioned in the Old Testament among the previous inhabitants of the country (Gen 15.20 and so on), could refer to Hurrian- Indo-Aryan circles that were related to the upper class of the Mittani Empire . Work on the name “Arauna” and the dedication to the temple in 1 Kings 8 show possible consequences for the history of religion.

In his habilitation thesis on the Song of Songs , Gerhards advocates a uniform reading as a woman's monologue and the fact that the Song of Songs was created from the outset as a religious- allegorical poem. The religious-allegorical understanding, which was predominantly represented in the Jewish and Christian tradition of interpretation up to modern times, would then correspond to the core of the original intention of the book.

Gerhards' interest in making Old Testament texts theologically fruitful is associated with exegesis, which is oriented towards the history of religion and tradition. On the one hand, the attempt is made to develop the texts with the help of philosophical questions and concepts. In the monograph “Conditio humana”, texts from the Gilgamesh epic and the biblical prehistory (Gen 2–3; 11: 1–9) are made accessible with the aid of a hermeneutical concept that incorporates insights from philosophical anthropology ; In the monograph “God and Suffering”, the Babylonian poetry Ludlul bēl nēmeqi and the Book of Job are discussed with philosophical positions on the question of suffering . Gerhards sees another way of theological development in the attempt to catch up with traditional (“premodern”) Christian exegesis and to understand Old Testament texts as texts of one Holy Scripture without giving up the methods and insights of modern, historical-critical exegesis. To this end, in the essay “On topicality of the premodern”, he suggests recourse to the ancient church and medieval doctrine of the multiple sense of scripture and deals with the interpretation of the Song of Songs by the ancient Lutheran dogmatist and interpreter Abraham Calov . In the monograph “Protevangelium” he suggests rediscovering the Christian typological exegesis of the Old Testament and applies this exemplarily to the scene of the clothing of the first people with fur skirts in Gen 3:21. A monograph on the book of Ruth (“Der Ursprung Davids”) also belongs in this context , which, in contrast to feminist and socio-historical interpretations, works out that the Book of Ruth uses a typological level of meaning to introduce messianic hope into the Old Testament image of history, to which the Christian reception is more comprehensible Way to fall back.

In addition, Gerhard has contributed to the Scientific Biblical Lexicon (wibilex) , which deals with the history of Old Testament exegesis ( Franz Delitzsch ; Julius Wellhausen ) and the effect of the Old Testament in modern intellectual history, for example with Hugo Grotius , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Sigmund Freud , employ.

Fonts (selection)

1. Monographs

  • The exposure story of Moses . Literary and historical studies on a key text of the non-priestly Tetrateuch . Neukirchen-Vluyn 2006, ISBN 3-7887-2137-5 .
  • Studies on the Jonah Book . Neukirchen-Vluyn 2006, ISBN 3-7887-2181-2 .
  • Holy Scripture and Faith in Creation. Reflections on the Foundation and a Model Case of Biblical Theology . Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-643-10767-1 .
  • The Song of Songs. Studies on its literary form and theological significance . Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-374-02794-1 .
  • Conditio humana. Studies on the Epic of Gilgamesh and on texts from biblical prehistory using the example of Genes 2-3 and 11: 1-9 . Neukirchen-Vluyn 2013, ISBN 978-3-7887-2707-9 .
  • Homer and the Bible. Studies on the interpretation of the Iliad and selected Old Testament texts . Neukirchen-Vluyn 2015, ISBN 3-7887-2962-7 .
  • Protegospel. On the question of the canonical validity of the Old Testament and its christological interpretation . Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-460-03374-0 .
  • God and suffering. Answers from the Babylonian poetry Ludlul bēl nēmeqi and the biblical Book of Job . Frankfurt am Main 2017, ISBN 3-631-73270-8 .
  • The origin of David. Studies on the book of Ruth in the Old Testament and in the Hebrew Bible , Stuttgart 2019, ISBN 978-3-460-03464-8 .

2. Essays

a) On the history of religion and biblical-ancient oriental relationships

  • Arauna. On a possible trace of Indo-Aryan influence in the pre-Avidian Jerusalem , Ugarit-Forschungen 40 (2009), 345–404.
  • The biblical Hittites , Welt des Orients 39 (2009), 145-179.
  • The self- justification of Prexaspes ( Herodotus III 62,3–4) as a testimony to the Persian belief in the resurrection , Biblical Notes 143 (2009), 119–133.
  • The sun shows Yahweh in the sky ... - Textual and religious-historical considerations on the temple dedication from I Reg 8,12f. ( M ) / III Reg 8,53a ( LXX ) , Ugarit-Forschungen 42 (2010), 191-260.
  • Hittite and Biblical Historiography , in: Manfred Hutter (ed.), Topics and Traditions of Hittite Culture in Biblical Tradition, Biblical Notes 156 (2013), 107–129.
  • Again: Heiliger Fels und Tempel , Ugarit-Forschungen 45 (2014), 161–200.
  • I want to tell the justice of the Ishtar. - Autobiography as a confession in the large text of Hattusilis III. , in: Michael Meyer-Blanck (ed.), History and God. XV. European Congress for Theology (September 14-18, 2014 in Berlin), Leipzig 2016, 354-380, ISBN 978-3-374-04167-1 .

b) For exegesis

c) On the hermeneutics of the Old Testament

  • On the topicality of the premodern. Exegetical considerations on the commentary on the Song of Songs by Abraham Calov , in: Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger (ed.), The Song of Songs in the Conflict of Interpretations, Österreichische Bibelstudien 47, Frankfurt (M.) 2017, 119-184, ISBN 3-631-68123-2 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Gerhards, Meik
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Protestant theologian
DATE OF BIRTH 1970
PLACE OF BIRTH Waldbröl