Schneemelcher on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Wilhelm Schneemelcher (21 August 1914,
Wilhelm Schneemelcher (21 August 1914, Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
– 6 August 2003, Bad Honnef
Bad Honnef () is a spa town in Germany near Bonn in the Rhein-Sieg district, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the border of the neighbouring state Rhineland-Palatinate. To the north it lies on the slopes of the Drachenfels (“Dragon' ...
) was a German Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
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 expert on the New Testament Apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha (singular apocryphon) are a number of writings by early Christians that give accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. Some of these writings were cite ...
.
Career
He obtained throughHans Lietzmann Hans Lietzmann (2 March 1875 – 25 June 1942) was a German Protestant theologian and church historian who was a native of Düsseldorf.
He initially studied in Jena, then continued his education in University of Bonn, Bonn, where he was a student o ...
a post researching Latin and Greek manuscripts at the Church Fathers Commission, however this came under the Prussian Academy of Sciences so in 1938 Schneemelcher was removed by the Nazi authorities due to being "politically unreliable", due to sympathies with 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 ...
, and was forced to turn to making a living as a bookseller's assistant.
In 1939 he was conscripted into the Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
, and after the war he was a village pastor in Stöckheim near Northeim
Northeim (; nds, Nuurten) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, seat of the district of Northeim, with, in 2011, a population of 29,000. It lies on the German Half-Timbered House Road.
History
Northeim is first mentioned in 800 in a document ...
.
From 1954 to 1979 he was professor of patristics at the University of Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
. He was editor of the collection ''Festschrift für Günther Dehn'' in honour of the anti-Nazi pastor Günther Dehn.
Works
He completely revised and enlarged the older collection of Edgar Hennecke (1865–1951) to produce the ''Neutestamentlichen Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung'' in 1964, which was then translated into English at ''The New Testament Apocrypha'' by R. McL. Wilson in 1965. As editor he coordinated the work of dozens of scholars including Philip Vielhauer and Georg Streck. His work is today commonly referred to as the "standard edition" of the New Testament Apocrypha.Adelbert Denaux ''John and the Synoptics'' p. 147 1992 "revised fifth edition of the standard, German translation of these writings: Wilhelm SCHNEEMELCHER (ed.), Neutestamentliche Apokryphen in deutscher Übersetzung, 1. Band. Evangelien, Tübingen, 1987" In later years, Schneemelcher's co-editor wasJoachim Jeremias
Joachim Jeremias (20 September 1900 – 6 September 1979) was a German Lutheran theologian, scholar of Near Eastern Studies and university professor for New Testament studies. He was abbot of Bursfelde, 1968–1971.
He was born in Dresden and sp ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schneemelcher, Wilhelm 1914 births 2003 deaths 20th-century German Protestant theologians Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German male non-fiction writers