Otto Betz

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Otto Wilhelm Betz (senior) (born June 8, 1917 in Herrentierbach , today part of the municipality of Blaufelden , Schwäbisch Hall district ; † May 27, 2005 in Tübingen ) was a German Protestant theologian and New Testament scholar .

Life

Otto Wilhelm Betz, STM (Sacrae Theologiae Magister), came from a family of pastors with many children. After serving in the war and being a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union, he studied Protestant theology in Tübingen from the winter semester 1948/49 . After completing his studies, a scholarship year in the USA and a vicariate, Betz became a repetent at the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen , and in 1956 he became a research assistant at the newly founded Institutum Judaicum at the University of Tübingen. In 1959 he received his doctorate from Karl Elliger (1901–1977) with an Old Testament dissertation on revelation and written research in the Qumran sect .

Betz was married to Isolde Betz (née Schnabel), a graduate theologian, and had four biological children and a foster son: Pastor Cornelia Holder (née Betz), the doctor of theology Dorothea Betz, the musician (harpsichordist), cabaret artist and author Martin Betz , the communication technology entrepreneur Matthias Betz and, as a foster son, Chang Park.

The texts by Qumran , newly discovered in 1947 , continued to determine his life's work. In 1961 he completed his habilitation on the large Coptic text find from Nag Hammadi with the study The Paraclete. Advocate in late heretical Judaism, in the Gospel of John and in the newly found Gnostic scriptures . Since 1962, Betz held a full professorship at the Chicago Theological Seminary in the USA. In 1968 he became associate professor and in 1973 full professor for the New Testament in Tübingen. After his retirement in 1983 he took on a visiting professorship at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He also made lecture tours, for example to Israel and especially to South Korea .

plant

Betz has presented numerous publications, many of which are now standard scientific literature. Jesus and his preaching were at the center of his scientific work. The book Jesus, Qumran and the Vatican , which he wrote together with his student Rainer Riesner and which has seen several editions and translations since 1993 , became particularly well known .

In two extensive volumes Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and Jesus, the Lord of the Church , he summarized his “essays on biblical theology”. In it he turned against, among other things, the widespread view that Paul was not interested in the man Jesus or in his earthly life (so still Rudolf Bultmann ), but only in the believed Christ . The sentence in 2 Cor. 5:16 "... even if we have known Christ after the flesh, we no longer know [him] [in this way]" is mistakenly seen as evidence of this. "The 'kata sarka' ('after the flesh') belongs to the predicate ('to know'), not to the object ('Christ')."

“ Biblical theology ” - that was also a program to which the scholar knew himself to be lifelong: he was concerned with the inner connection and the truth of the biblical message with Christology as the center, Judaism and the richness of its traditions as the source of the better Understanding does not exclude, but includes. Therefore, one of his main areas of work was the importance of Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah . So he published together with his wife, Isolde Betz geb. Schnabel, a monograph on the kabbalistic school chart of Princess Antonia of Württemberg (1613–1679) in the Trinity Church of Bad Teinach .

Fonts

  • Revelation and Scriptural Research in the Qumran Sect. WUNT 6, Tübingen 1960.
  • The paraclete . Advocate in heretical Judaism, in the Gospel of John and in newly found Gnostic texts. Works on the history of late Judaism and early Christianity 2, Leiden, Cologne 1963.
  • together with Werner Grimm: The nature and reality of the miracles of Jesus . Healings, rescues, signs, illuminations. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Bern / Las Vegas 1977, ISBN 3-261-02397-X .
  • How do we understand the New Testament? Wuppertal 1981, ISBN 3-7615-2263-0 .
  • Leprosy in the Bible. In: leprosy, leprosy, Hansen's disease. A Changing Problem of Humanity, Part II: Essays. Ed. By Jörn Henning Wolf, Würzburg 1987 (= catalogs of the German Medical History Museum , supplement 1), pp. 45–62.
  • Jesus, Qumran and the Vatican. Clarifications. Gießen, Basel, Freiburg, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-7655-9800-3 ; ISBN 3-451-23058-5 .
  • Jesus, the Messiah of Israel. Essays on Biblical Theology. WUNT 42; Tübingen 1987, ISBN 3-16-145163-5 .
  • Jesus, the Lord of the Church. Essays on Biblical Theology II. WUNT 52; Tübingen 1990, ISBN 3-16-145505-3 .
  • What do we know about Jesus? The Messiah in the light of Qumran. Wuppertal 1999 3 , ISBN 3-417-24151-0 .
  • together with Beate Ego u. Werner Grimm (Ed.): Calwer Bibellexikon. 2 volumes, Stuttgart 2003 2 , ISBN 3-7668-3838-5 .
  • together with Isolde Betz (author) u. Adolf Killinger (editor): A jewel of faith. The kabbalistic school chart of Princess Antonia in Bad Teinach. Foreword by Karl-Heinz Splettstößer, Bad Teinach-Zavelstein o. J.
  • Light from the uncreated light. The kabbalistic school chart of Princess Antonia . 3rd edition, edited by Isolde Betz. Werner Grimm, Tübingen, October 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-041501-2 .

Appreciation

Remarks

  1. ↑ Otto Betz: Essays on Biblical Theology. Vol. 2, WUNT 52, Tübingen 1990

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Betz, Otto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Betz, Otto Wilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theologian and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Herrentierbach (municipality of Blaufelden)
DATE OF DEATH May 27, 2005
Place of death Tübingen