Oswald Loretz

Oswald Loretz (born January 14, 1928 in Hörbranz ; † April 12, 2014 in Münster ) was a German theologian and ancient orientalist .

Life

Born and raised in Hörbranz ( Austria ), Oswald Loretz studied philosophy and Catholic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome from 1948 to 1957 . In 1954 Loretz was ordained a priest in Rome. In 1957 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on the kingdom of God in the Book of Isaiah. The parallel studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University completed Loretz in the same year with a licentiate in biblical studies. He used a stay abroad in America from 1959 to 1961 for further, in particular Akkadian, studies at the Oriental Institute in Chicago . In 1962, he came as research. Assistant to the Westphalian Munster, where he early 1964 Theological Catholic at the Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in the subject Old Testament with a thesis on Ecclesiastes habilitated. During the Second Vatican Council he published biblical hermeneutic titles on the truth of the Bible (1964), on the case of Galileo (1966) and on creation and myth in the first chapters of Genesis (1968).

In November 1967 Loretz became an adjunct professor at the faculty, and in 1970 he became a scientific adviser and professor. In 1969, together with Manfried Dietrich and Kurt Bergerhoff, he founded the series Old Orient and Old Testament (AOAT) as an internationally renowned publication organ at the interface between Old Orient and Old Testament studies. From the early 1970s onwards, Loretz's research was increasingly focused on the ancient Near East ( antiquity ), in particular on exploring the northern Syrian port and trading town of Ugarit . With Manfried Dietrich he founded the "Ugarit-Forschungen" (UF), which appeared as a yearbook from 1969. Loretz wrote a Ugarit bibliography and developed a new citation system for the cuneiform texts from Ugarit (cuneiform alphabetical texts from Ugarit: "KTU"). In addition, Loretz wrote comparative studies on the poetry of Ugarit and the biblical psalms .

After his marriage in 1975, Loretz remained a member of the Catholic Theological Faculty, but did not have the opportunity to look after young academics. With the ancient oriental philologist Manfried Dietrich he set up a "Research Center Ugarit" within the framework of ancient oriental studies.

He retired in the spring of 1993. After a long, serious illness, Loretz died on April 12, 2014 in Münster and was buried ten days later in Hörbranz . He was married to Theresia Loretz, b. Zillober.

Services

In addition to his studies in the Old Testament and his Ugarit research, Oswald Loretz made significant contributions to research into the literary, linguistic and cultural history of the ancient Syro-Palestinian and eastern Mediterranean-Levantine regions from the 2nd millennium BC. Until the turn of the ages.

On July 2nd, 2012 he founded Ugarit-Verlag - Buch- und Medienhandel GmbH together with Manfried Dietrich and Thomas Kämmerer.

Fonts

• In the name of Jesus there is salvation . Tyrolia, Innsbruck 1959.
• Galileo and the Inquisition's Error. Science, Truth of the Bible, Church. Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1966.
• Creation and Myth. Man and the world according to the opening chapters of Genesis (= Stuttgart Bible Studies; 32). Catholic Biblical Works, Stuttgart 1968.
• Studies in ancient Hebrew poetry . Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1971.
• Ugarit and the Bible. Canaanite Gods and Religion in the Old Testament. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 978-3-534-08778-5 .
• God's uniqueness. An ancient oriental model of argumentation on the »Shema Yisrael« . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1999, ISBN 978-3-534-13276-8 .
• Gods, ancestors, kings as just judges. The "legal case" of man before God according to ancient oriental and biblical texts (= Ancient Orient and Old Testament 290). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2003.
• Hippologia Ugaritica. The horse in culture, economy, warfare and hippiatry Ugarits. Horse, donkey and camel in biblical texts (= Old Orient and Old Testament 386). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2011.
• The wedge-alphabetical texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and other places. Third, expanded edition. The Cuneiform Alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places. Third, Enlarged Edition. KTU 3 (= Old Orient and Old Testament 360/1). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2013 (with Manfried Dietrich and Joaquín Sanmartín).
• Origin of Judaism. A paradigm shift. The development of ancient oriental potentials in biblical-Jewish historiography and myth historiography (= Old Orient and Old Testament 422). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-86835-157-6 .

literature

• Paolo Xella (Ed.): Cananea selecta. Festschrift for Oswald Loretz on the occasion of his 60th birthday (= SEL 5), Verona 1988.
• Manfried Dietrich, Ingo Kottsieper (ed.): " And Mose wrote this song down". Studies on the Old Testament and the Old Orient. Festschrift for Oswald Loretz on the completion of his 70th year with contributions from friends, students and colleagues (Old Orient and Old Testament 250). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 1998, ISBN 3-927120-60-X .
• Manfried Dietrich (Ed.): Orbis Ugariticus: Selected contributions to commemorative and commemorative writings. On the occasion of the 80th birthday of Oswald Loretz (Old Orient and Old Testament 343). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2008, ISBN 978-3-934-62899-1 .
• Manfried Dietrich: Oswald Loretz (Jan. 14, 1928 - April 12, 2014). 50 years of Ugarit research in side lights , in: Ugarit research 45 (2014), ix – xxx.
• Ludger Hiepel, Marie-Theres Wacker (Ed.): Between Zion and Zaphon. Studies in memory of the theologian Oswald Loretz (January 14, 1928– April 12, 2014) (= Old Orient and Old Testament 438). Ugarit-Verlag, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-86835-206-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Oswald Loretz. Obituary on the homepage of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (accessed on April 25, 2014).