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Hermann, Freiherr von Soden

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Hermann von Soden

Baron Hermann von Soden (16 August 1852 – 15 January 1914) was a German Biblical scholar, minister, professor of divinity, and textual theorist.

Life

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Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 16, 1852, Soden was educated at the University of Tübingen. In 1881 he was appointed as the minister at Dresden-Striesen and in 1887 he became minister of the Jerusalem Church in Berlin. In 1889 he also became a privatdozent, a form of tutor, in the University of Berlin, and four years later was appointed as an extraordinary professor of divinity.[1] He fought for a more presbyterian and democratic constitution in the congregations of the Evangelical State Church of Prussia's older Provinces. His grave is preserved in the Protestant Friedhof II der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde (Cemetery No. II of the congregations of the Jerusalem's Church and the New Church) in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of the Hallesches Tor.

Soden introduced a new notation of manuscripts and also developed a new theory of textual history. He believed that in the 4th century there were in existence three recensions of the text of the New Testament, which he distinguished as K, H and I. After establishing the text of I, H and K, Soden reconstructed a hypothetical text, I-H-K, which he believed to have been their ancestor. He then tried to show that this text was known to all the writers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.[1]

Soden died in a railway accident in Berlin on January 15, 1914. His descendant Wolfram von Soden became a noted Assyriologist.

Works

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His most important book is Die Schriften des neuen Testaments, in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt / hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte (4 vols., Berlin: Glaue, 1902-1910); certainly the most important work on the text of the New Testament which had been published since Westcott and Hort's The New Testament in the Original Greek.[1] Other works include:

  • Der Brief des Apostels Paulus an die Philipper, Freiburg i. Br., 1880.
  • Hebräerbrief, Briefe des Petrus, Jakobus, Judas, Freiburg i. Br., 1890.
  • Und was thut die evangelische Kirche? Erwogen angesichts der Reichstagswahlen, zumal in unseren Großstädten, 3rd. ed., Berlin: Nauck, 1890 (a pamphlet written during the campaign for the Reichstag election)
  • Die Briefe an die Kolosser, Epheser, Philemon; die Pastoralbriefe, Freiburg i. Br., 1891.
  • "Untersuchungen über neutestamentliche Schriften" in Protestantisches Jahrbuch für theologische Studien und Schriftkommentar, 1895–1897.
  • Palästina und seine Geschichte, sechs volkstümliche Vorträge, Leipzig, 1899.
  • Die wichtigsten Fragen im Leben Jesu, Ferienkurs-Vorträge Berlin, 1904.
  • Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt hergestellt auf Grund ihrer Textgeschichte. 4 volumes, Berlin, 1902–1913.
  • Urchristliche Literaturgeschichte, die Schriften des Neuen Testaments, Berlin: Duncker, 1905.
  • Hat Jesus gelebt? Aus den geschichtlichen Urkunden beantwortet von Hermann von Soden, Berlin, 1910.

He contributed to the 1903 Encyclopaedia Biblica and to the "Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament", several editions, started in 1855 by Heinrich Julius Holtzmann and Hans von Soden

References

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  1. ^ a b c  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainLake, Kirsopp (1911). "Soden, Hermann, Freiherr von". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 339–340.
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