Paul Ernst Kahle (January 21, 1875 in Hohenstein,

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

– September 24, 1964 in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

) was a German orientalist and scholar.

Biography

Kahle studied orientalism and theology in

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 ...

and Halle. He attained his doctorate in 1898. His dissertation on the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Torah ( Samaritan Hebrew: , ''Tōrāʾ''), also called the Samaritan Pentateuch, is a text of the Torah written in the Samaritan script and used as sacred scripture by the Samaritans. It dates back to one of the ancient version ...

was supervised by . Kahle worked as a

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 ...

pastor. He studied Semitic

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and writing, written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defin ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

, between 1908 and 1918. In 1918, he was promoted to a full professorship (

Ordinary professor Academic ranks in Germany are the titles, relative importance and power of professors, researchers, and administrative personnel held in academia. Overview Appointment grades * (Pay grade: ''W3'' or ''W2'') * (''W3'') * (''W2'') * (''W2'', ...

) at Gießen University, a chair previously held by

Friedrich Schwally Friedrich Zacharias Schwally (10 August 1863 – 5 February 1919) was a German Orientalist with professorships at Strasbourg, Gießen and Königsberg. He held the degrees of PhD, Lic. Theol., Dr. Habil., and the Imperial honour of the Order of th ...

. In 1923, he switched to Bonn University, where he developed the Eastern Studies curriculum by adding a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

and a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

class. After his wife helped a Jewish neighbor whose shop was ransacked during the

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

of 1938, Kahle's family was persecuted by the Nazis. This drove him to immigrate to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

where he joined the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1939, having been dismissed from his university post in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

, owing in great part to the fact that he had a Polish rabbi (

Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (1884–1966) was an Orthodox rabbi, posek ("decisor" of Jewish law) and rosh yeshiva. He is best known as the author of the work of responsa ''Seridei Eish''. Weinberg was considered a genius in his time - with m ...

) as an assistant. At Oxford he gained two further doctorates. During this period at Oxford he suffered the personal tragedy of his son Paul's early death. Kahle returned to Germany after the war, where he pursued his research as professor emeritus. His principal academic renown is as editor of the

Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia The Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, abbreviated as BHS or rarely BH4, is an edition of the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible as preserved in the Leningrad Codex, and supplemented by masoretic and text-critical notes. It is the fourth edition in ...

, an annotated edition of the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

closely based on the

Leningrad Codex The Leningrad Codex ( la, Codex Leningradensis [Leningrad Book]; he, כתב יד לנינגרד) is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew, using the Masoretic Text and Tiberian vocalization. According to its colopho ...

. Part of his work is published in the book ''

What the Koran Really Says ''What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary'' (2002) is a book edited by Ibn Warraq and published by Prometheus Books. The book is a collection of classical essays, some translated for the first time, that provide commentary on ...

'', edited by

Ibn Warraq Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. ...

Works

*
Textkritische und lexikalische Bemerkungen zum samaritanischen Pentateuchtargum
'' iss. phil.Halle 1898. * ''Der masoretische Text des Alten Testaments nach der Überlieferung der babylonischen Juden.'' iss. theol.Halle 1902. (in German) * ''Masoreten des Ostens.'' Leipzig: Hinrichs 1913. *
Volkserzählungen aus Palästina: gesammelt bei den Bauern von Bir-Zet und in Verbindung mit Dschirius Jusif in Jerusalem
', Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1918 * ''Masoreten des Westens.'' I, Stuttgart:

Kohlhammer Verlag W. Kohlhammer Verlag GmbH, or Kohlhammer Verlag, is a German publishing house headquartered in Stuttgart. History Kohlhammer Verlag was founded in Stuttgart on 30 April 1866 by . Kohlhammer had taken over the businesses of his late father-in-law ...

1927; II, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer 1930.
''The Cairo Geniza.''
(

Schweich Lectures Schweich is a town in the Trier-Saarburg district, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the river Moselle, approx. northeast of Trier. Schweich is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") Schweich an der ...

for 1941) London: Oxford University Press 1947. * ''Der hebräische Bibeltext seit

Franz Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch (23 February 1813, in Leipzig – 4 March 1890, in Leipzig) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of ...

.'' Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag 1961. * ''Die Kairoer Genisa. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des hebräischen Bibeltextes und seiner Übersetzungen'', ed. by R. Meyer. Berlin 1962 (= ''The Cairo Geniza'', Oxford ²1959).

References

External links

Fondo Paul Kahle: The Scientific Archive of Paul Ernst Kahle (1875-1964)
* * German orientalists 1875 births 1964 deaths People from Olsztynek People from East Prussia University of Bonn alumni Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German male non-fiction writers Members of the German Academy of Sciences at Berlin Palestine ethnographers {{Germany-academic-bio-stub