Paul Ruben

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Paul Ruben (born March 15, 1866 in Hamburg ; † May 9, 1943 ibid) was a German classical philologist and biblical scholar .

Live and act

Paul Ruben was born in Hamburg as the eldest son of the broker David Ruben (1830–1904) and his wife Mathilde, née Bromberg (1832–1892). Members of his wealthy family had lived in Hamburg and Wandsbek since the 17th century . They worked as merchants, traded in money or worked as doctors. Because of their voluntary and charitable activities, they were considered to be highly regarded beyond the Jewish community.

Paul Ruben went to the Talmud Tora School from 1872 , which has supported his family since it was founded. From 1880 he attended the Johanneum School of Academics , which he graduated from high school in 1885. From the summer semester of the same year he studied classical philology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau . For the following winter semester he moved to the University of Bonn , where Franz Bücheler and Hermann Usener were among his most important teachers. The latter also supervised Rubens' dissertation on Clemens of Alexandria . Ruben then did his military service in Karlsruhe in 1892/93 . He then went back to his hometown, where he worked as a financially independent private scholar.

Ruben spent most of the years from 1894 to 1907 in London and Oxford . During this time he worked with Usener on an edition of a Clemens script that remained unfinished. Ruben, who had had health problems since he was a student, wrote several critical essays on the Bible before the turn of the millennium. He particularly examined the books of the prophets.

Recensio and Restitutio are considered to be Rubens' most important scientific work . A guess as to the earliest history of the Old Testament texts. , which appeared in London in 1937.

Paul Ruben had been close friends with Aby Warburg since he was a teenager . He advised him on questions of Jewish faith, for example before his marriage to Mary Hertz . After losing a large part of his fortune due to inflation, Ruben worked in Warburg's library from 1931. In Warburg's first volume of the cultural studies biography on the afterlife of antiquity from 1934, two contributions by Rubens can be found. After Warburg's death, the library moved to London in late 1933. Ruben continued to represent the institution in Hamburg. As a member of the Honorary Presidency of the Franz Rosenzweig Memorial Foundation, he was the last chairman when it closed in 1938. He was also a member of the Steinthal Lodge and the B'nai B'rith order .

During the Nazi era , Ruben lived in seclusion from 1933 on in his hometown. During this time he exchanged letters with Gertrud Bing and Fritz Saxl, who lived in London . Rubens planned to emigrate from the German Reich to Denmark in 1938/39, but he did not succeed because of the outbreak of World War II . In December 1939, Ruben was forced to leave his apartment. At first he lived in a hotel and a pension and was housed in a Jewish house for old and sick people. Since he was no longer allowed to visit the Hamburg State and University Library, his friend Carl August Rathjens provided him with books stored there. The National Socialists threatened him in 1942 with deportation to the Theresienstadt concentration camp , but refrained from doing so due to his poor health.

The grave of Paul Ruben, who died in May 1943, is in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery .

Fonts (selection)

  • Clementis Alexandrini Excerpta ex Theodoto. Teubner, Leipzig 1892 (dissertation).
  • (Ed.): The advertisement. Your art and science , with numerous illustrations and art sheets, ed. by Paul Ruben with the collaboration of well-known experts, lawyers and artists, Berlin: H. Paetel
    • Vol. 1, with a preface by Victor Mataja, 4th edition, 1914; contents
    • Vol. 2, with a preface by Josef Kohler, 2nd edition, 1915; contents
  • The historical documents from Germany's Iron Year 1914/1915 in lifelike replicas of the originals should be a memorial for us contemporaries and children's children for all times! , published on behalf of the Welfare Committee for the German Army, [Berlin]: Welfare Committee for the German Army, 1915 ff.
    • Episode 1: Russian invasion of East Prussia
    • Episode 2: French proclamations in Alsace
    • Episode 3: English advertising posters
    • Episode 4: Appeals by the Belgian government before and during the war
    • Episode 5: French calls
    • Episode 6: Russian calls
  • Recensio and Restitutio. An Assumption of the Earliest History of the Old Testament Texts , 629 typewritten autograph pages, London: A. Probsthain, 1936

literature

  • Björn Biester: The inner profession to science: Paul Ruben (1866-1943). Studies on the German-Jewish history of science; with an appendix: Edition and commentary on the correspondence with Aby M. Warburg, Hermann Usener, Ludwig Binswanger, Fritz Saxl, Gertrud Bing, Alfred Vagts, Hans Meier, Fritz M. Warburg and Carl A. Rathjens . Reimer, Berlin / Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-496-02703-7 .
  • Björn Biester: Ruben, Paul . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 2 . Christians, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , pp. 352-353 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In 1913, the commercial artist created Leon Amar one for this issued by Ruben work Reklamemarke , the books, which exceeded two of a nib the bust of Mercury shows. See under American Plagiarism the figure Advertising Stamps, their Origin and History , in: Plakat und Plagiat. Supplements to the essay by Hans Meÿer , supplement in The Poster. Journal of the Verein der Posterfreunde eV , Volume 6, Issue 4, p. 23 ( digitized version ).
personal data
SURNAME Ruben, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical philologist and biblical scholar
DATE OF BIRTH March 15, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH May 9, 1943
Place of death Hamburg