Andreas Gottlieb Hoffmann (April 13, 1796 – March 16, 1864) was a German
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
and
Orientalist born in
Welbsleben. He was a leading authority on
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
and
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
languages.
As a teenager he participated in the
War of the Sixth Coalition
In the War of the Sixth Coalition (March 1813 – May 1814), sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Sweden, and a number of German States defeated F ...
as a member of the Second Prussian Foot Jäger Detachment. In 1820 he earned his doctorate at the
University of Halle
Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university i ...
, where he studied
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
as well as Syriac and Hebrew languages. At Halle he was a pupil of
Wilhelm Gesenius
Heinrich Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (3 February 178623 October 1842) was a German orientalist, lexicographer, Christian Hebraist, Lutheran theologian, Biblical scholar and critic.
Biography
Gesenius was born at Nordhausen. In 1803 he became a s ...
(1786–1842). In 1823 he became an associate professor, and two years later a full professor at the
University of Jena
The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (german: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The un ...
. At Jena he taught classes in church history,
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
exegesis
Exegesis ( ; from the Ancient Greek, Greek , from , "to lead out") is a critical explanation or interpretation (logic), interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Bible, Biblical works. In modern usage, ...
and history of the Jewish people.
ADB:Hoffmann, Andreas Gottlieb
@ Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language.
It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Aca ...
Hoffmann was the author of an acclaimed work on Syriac grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
(''Grammatica syriaca'') (1827), and was responsible for a German version of the Book of Enoch based on Richard Laurence
Richard Laurence (13 May 1760 – 28 December 1838) was an English Hebraist and Anglican churchman. He was made Regius Professor of Hebrew and canon of Christ Church, Oxford, in 1814, and Archbishop of Cashel, Ireland, in 1822.
Laurence, youn ...
's "Book of Enoch the Prophet" called ''Das Buch Henoch in vollständiger Uebersetzung''. He made important contributions to the second section of the Ersch-Gruber ''Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste''.
Notable students
*Johann Gustav Stickel
Johann Gustav Stickel (7 July 1805 – 21 January 1896) was a German theologian, orientalist and numismatist at Jena University.
Biography
Stickel was born in Eisenach in 1805. He went to school in Buttelstedt and in Weimar. In his youth he ...
(1805–1896).
References
*
English translation
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffmann, Andreas Gottlieb
1796 births
1864 deaths
People from Mansfeld-Südharz
19th-century German Protestant theologians
German orientalists
University of Jena faculty
19th-century German male writers
German male non-fiction writers