Ernst Käsemann (12 July 1906 – 17 February 1998) was a German
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
theologian and professor of New Testament in
Mainz
Mainz () is the capital and largest city of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
Mainz is on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite to the place that the Main (river), Main joins the Rhine. Downstream of the confluence, the Rhine flows to the north-we ...
(1946–1951),
Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...
(1951–1959) and
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...
(1959–1971).
Study and work
Käsemann was born in
Bochum
Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...
. He obtained his PhD in
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
at the
University of Marburg
The Philipps University of Marburg (german: Philipps-Universität Marburg) was founded in 1527 by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, which makes it one of Germany's oldest universities and the oldest still operating Protestant university in the wor ...
in 1931, having written a dissertation on
Pauline ecclesiology
In Christian theology, ecclesiology is the study of the Church, the origins of Christianity, its relationship to Jesus, its role in salvation, its polity, its discipline, its eschatology, and its leadership.
In its early history, one of the ...
, with
Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (; 20 August 1884 – 30 July 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic ...
as his doctoral supervisor. Käsemann was one of Bultmann's more well-known politically left-of-centre 'pupils'.
Käsemann joined the
Confessing Church
The Confessing Church (german: link=no, Bekennende Kirche, ) was a movement within German Protestantism during Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to unify all Protestant churches into a single pro-Nazi German E ...
movement in 1933; in the same year, he was appointed pastor in
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...
, in a district populated mainly by miners. During the autumn of 1937 he spent a few weeks in
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
detention for publicly supporting communist miners.
During 1939, he completed his
habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...
, which qualified him to teach at German universities; his dissertation was on the New Testament
Epistle to the Hebrews
The Epistle to the Hebrews ( grc, Πρὸς Ἑβραίους, Pros Hebraious, to the Hebrews) is one of the books of the New Testament.
The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle. Mos ...
.
Käsemann was later drafted as a soldier. He returned to his theological work in 1946 after several years in the army and as a prisoner of war.
Käsemann was involved with what is known as the '
New Quest for the
historical Jesus
The term "historical Jesus" refers to the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus by critical historical methods, in contrast to religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. ...
', a new phase of scholarly interest in working out what could possibly be ascertained historically about Jesus. Käsemann effectively started this phase when he published his famous article "The Problem of the Historical Jesus" during 1954, originally his inaugural lecture as Professor in Göttingen in 1951.
Käsemann developed what became known as the double criterion of difference in evaluating the historical reliability of the
synoptic gospels
The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical ...
. Put simply, what is historically reliable about Jesus can be deduced from material about Jesus which is neither plausible in a first-century Jewish nor an early Christian context. In addition to this, he proposed additional criteria, such as multiple attestation (does a particular story or saying of Jesus appear in independent traditions?) and coherence with other material already found to be reliable historical traditions about Jesus. Only the recent 'third quest' for the historical Jesus, which began in the later 1980s, began to question the absolute validity of these criteria.
Käsemann also began to take Jewish apocalypticism more seriously than most of his contemporary colleagues and thought it to be of vital significance for a reading of Paul. Indeed, he famously described apocalypticism as "the mother of Christian theology". Käsemann's commentary on Paul's
Epistle to the Romans
The Epistle to the Romans is the sixth book in the New Testament, and the longest of the thirteen Pauline epistles. Biblical scholars agree that it was composed by Paul the Apostle to explain that salvation is offered through the gospel of J ...
, first published in 1973, became a standard work for that generation.
His daughter, , was abducted by security forces in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
during the military dictatorship and subsequently '
disappeared
An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organi ...
'. It is thought that she was murdered around 24 May 1977. Ernst Käsemann's subsequent theological writings acquired a more radical, often bitter edge after his daughter's murder.
[Dietrich Strothniann]
''Der Fall Ernst Käsemann – Partisan unter Protestanten''
Die Zeit, 25 November 1977 (German)
Ernst Käsemann received honorary doctorates from the universities of
Marburg
Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...
,
Durham Durham most commonly refers to:
*Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham
*County Durham, an English county
* Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States
*Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
,
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
,
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...
and
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...
.
He died on 17 February 1998 in
Tübingen
Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...
.
Books by Ernst Käsemann (in English)
*''Essays on New Testament themes''. London, SCM, 1964.
*''New Testament questions of today''. London, SCM, 1969.
*''Jesus means freedom: a polemical survey of the New Testament''. London, SCM, 1969.
*''Perspectives on Paul''. London, SCM, 1971.
*''Commentary on Romans''. London, SCM, 1980.
*''The Wandering People of God''. Minneapolis, Augsburg, 1984.
*''On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene''. Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2010.
Literature about Ernst Käsemann
*Way, D V 1991. ''The Lordship of Christ: Ernst Käsemann's Interpretation of Paul's Theology''. Oxford.
*Zahl, Paul F M 1996. ''Die Rechtfertigungslehre Ernst Käsemanns''. Calwer Verlag.
*Osborn, E F 1999. Käsemann, Ernst. In: Hayes, J H (ed) ''Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation'' Vol. 2, Nashville: Abingdon, pages 14–16.
*Harrisville, R A & Sundberg, W. Käsemann, Ernst. In: ''The Bible in Modern Culture: Theology and Historical Critical Method from Spinoza to Käsemann''. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, pages 238–261.
See also
*
Rudolf Bultmann
Rudolf Karl Bultmann (; 20 August 1884 – 30 July 1976) was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early-20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic ...
*
Günther Bornkamm
Günther Bornkamm (8 October 1905 – 18 February 1990) was a German New Testament scholar belonging to the school of Rudolf Bultmann and a Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg.
Under Adolf Hitler, he opposed the nazificatio ...
*
Michael Lattke
Michael Stephan Lattke (born 12 May 1942, died 19 February 2023, Brisbane, Queensland ustraliawas a scholar of the New Testament and early Christianity.
Lattke was born in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin in Poland). He was brought up in Soling ...
*
On the Kairos Document
References
External links
Sermon drawing on Käsemann's life and workArticle/obituary in ''Anglican Theological Review''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kasemann, Ernst
German Lutheran theologians
German biblical scholars
New Testament scholars
1906 births
1998 deaths
University of Marburg alumni
People from Bochum
20th-century German Lutheran clergy
University of Göttingen faculty
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz faculty
University of Tübingen faculty
20th-century German Protestant theologians
German male non-fiction writers
Lutheran biblical scholars