Alfred Jeremias

Alfred Jeremias ( born February 21, 1864 in marker near Chemnitz, † January 11, 1935 in Leipzig ) was a German historian of religion and orientalist.

Life

Jeremiah was a student of Franz and Friedrich Delitzsch; In 1886 he received his doctorate in the latter, with a revision of the descent into hell of Ishtar, which he published in 1887 as part of the Scripture published The Babylonian- Assyrian ideas of life after death. In 1891 he presented the first complete German translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Since 1890 until his death was Jeremiah pastor at the Lutheran Church in Leipzig, next he habilitated in 1905 in Leipzig, where he worked as a lecturer there in 1922 was not scheduled an associate professor of religious history. 1905 awarded him the University of Leipzig, 1914, the University of Groningen, the theological honorary doctorate.

In his numerous and widely read works, he sat down for the dissemination and exploitation of ancient oriental research - particularly in the area of ​​theological exegesis of the Bible - and was next to Hugo Winckler as one of the main representatives of panbabylonischen school. The so-called Panbabylonismus claims a particular Bible underlying uniform ancient Near Eastern mythology.

His work The Old Testament in the light of the Ancient Near East from 1904 a major influence on the Joseph novels of Thomas Mann. His later work on the history of religion or new editions of older works were not well received in full of Assyriology.

Since his studies ( the winter of 1883 /84) Jeremiah was a member of the Leipzig University singers shaft to St. Pauli (today German singer shaft ).