CASPARI, KARL PAUL. — Theologian and Orientalist, born in Dessau (Germany) on 8 February 1814, died in Christiania, now Oslo, on 11 April 1892. Born Jewish, he converted to Lutheranism in 1858. He studied in Leipzig, Berlin, and Königsberg. A pupil of Hengstenberg, he had conservative leanings. In 1848 he joined the University of Christiania as a lecturer; from 1857 he was professor of theology, a position he never wished to leave.
He wrote a Grammatica arabica in usum scholarum in two volumes, translated into several languages, and many works on the Old Testament, including Der Prophet Obadja (Leipzig 1843); Beiträge zur Einleitung in das Buch Jesaja (Berlin 1848); Über den syrisch-ephrasmit. Krieg (Christiania 1849); studies on Micah (ibid. 1852) and Daniel (Leipzig 1869). From 1858 to 1891 he held leading roles in the revision of the Bible in Norwegian. On the history of the symbols of the early Church he published the monumental work: Quellen zur Geschichte des Taufssymbols und der Glaubensregel (3 vols., Christiania 1866–1875), as well as other works of biblical, patristic, and ecclesiastical-historical character (Kirchenhistorische Anekdota, ibid. 1885) in Norwegian, chiefly in the journal Theologisk Tidskrift for den evangelisk-lutherske Kirke i Norge, which he founded with G. Johnson in 1857.