Wilhelm Caspari (theologian)

Karl Alfred Wilhelm Caspari (born November 3, 1876 in Memmingen , † February 3, 1947 in Kiel ) was a German theologian.

Life

Wilhelm Caspari was a son of the theologian Walter Caspari and his wife Ida nee Brosenius, whose father was an estate manager in Bückeburg . His grandfather was the Protestant pastor and folk writer Karl Heinrich Caspari . Caspari's father received a call to Erlangen in 1885 and was later a full professor at the university there. Caspari attended a grammar school there and studied philosophy and economics in Munich from the winter semester 1895/96. In the next semester he switched to theology and continued his studies in Leipzig, Tübingen and Erlangen. In August 1899 he passed the first theological exam in Ansbach. From 1899 to 1904 he worked as a vicar in Munich, Reichenhall and Augsburg. In 1903 he received his doctorate as Dr. phil. in Erlangen. In his dissertation he described the subject and effect of the art of music according to the Germans in the 18th century .

From 1904 Caspari worked as a repetitee for New and Old Testament exegesis at the University of Erlangen, where he qualified as a professor for the Old Testament. In 1915 he went to Breslau as an associate professor, where he became a personal professor in 1920. In 1922 he took over the chair for the Old Testament in Kiel, where he succeeded Ernst Sellin . From 1926 he also taught the new subject "Oriental History of Religion".

During the time of National Socialism , Caspari did not go into the political opposition, but did join the Confessing Church . He repeatedly complained to Walter Bülck about labor services that prevented the students from studying, and for this he received a reprimand from Rector Georg Dahm . He got into an argument with the dogmatist Hermann Mandel , whose idea of ​​a "reality religion" he contradicted in an essay. Mandel then deprecated Caspari's teaching activities and personality, whereupon he initiated an internal university disciplinary procedure and filed a public libel suit. When it was foreseeable that he would be released, he submitted an application for early retirement on November 2, 1935, which Dahm accepted.

After the war ended, Caspari tried to get his chair back at the age of 70. He conducted difficult negotiations for his rights. Before the question was resolved, he succumbed to the consequences of a traffic accident.

Act

Caspari dealt with the program of Old Testament science at the turn of the century. This wanted to combine theological-salvation-historical oriented views with new, historical-critical and religious-historical perspectives. He wrote numerous articles for relevant journals, including "Theological Studies and Criticism" or the "Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift". His predecessor Sellin published the "Commentary on the Old Testament" since 1913, in which the theologians' ideas were published. Caspari developed a part of "The Samuel Books", which appeared in 1926, in which renowned Old Testament scholars participated.

Caspari wrote many individual studies on the history of the Jewish religion. He dealt extensively with "The ancient Judaism" by Max Reger and published his work in 1921 with the title "The business ethics of the world religions". This represented the third volume of his "Collected Essays on the Sociology of Religion". In it he pointed to critical individual problems, but largely agreed with Weber's findings. He gave a particularly noteworthy lecture on the history of research during the German Orientalist Day in Hamburg in 1926 . He spoke about "Reimarus on Old Testament literary history".

family

Caspari married Emma Geiger in 1910. She was a daughter of the Indologist Wilhelm Geiger and his first wife Marie Plochmann (1858-1910). Her brother Hans Geiger was a well-known physicist.

Caspari's marriage had two daughters and a son.

literature

• Jendris Alwast: Caspari, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , pages 76-77.

Web links

• Entry in the Kiel directory of scholars

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Jendris Alwast: Caspari, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 76.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Jendris Alwast: Caspari, Wilhelm . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1982–2011. Vol. 11 - 2000. ISBN 3-529-02640-9 , page 77.