DELITZSCH, Friedrich. - Assyriologist, b. at Erlangen on 3 Sept. 1850, d. at Berlin on 23 Dec. 1922. There, crowned by a brilliant academic career at the Universities of Leipzig and then Breslau, he held the chair of Assyriology for twenty years.
From his father Franz Julius he inherited a taste for Semitic languages, which he directed especially to the study of newly discovered cuneiform texts, becoming in this field an undisputed master, so much so that he advanced the decipherment of Sumerian and Assyrian texts by giant strides. His *Assyrisches Handwörterbuch* (Leipzig 1896) long remained a classic alongside his *Assyrische Grammatik* (Berlin 1899) and his *Sumerisches Glossar* (ibid. 1914). He also founded the *Assyriologische Bibliothek* (25 vols., Leipzig 1881–1920), a veritable mine of Assyriological texts, and *Beiträge zur Assyriologie* (10 vols., ibid. 1889–1914).
The well-earned fame of Delitzsch was dimmed when, venturing into the field of exegesis, he claimed to place the Bible below Assyriological documents, stripping it of its inspiration. The lecture titled *Babel und Bibel* (Leipzig 1902; Italian ed. Turin 1905), which he delivered in the presence of Wilhelm II on 13 Jan. 1902 and repeated shortly after at court by order of the same emperor, marked the beginning of a long controversy and countless monographs on the relationship between Babylonian-Assyrian and biblical literature. The vast resonance of Delitzsch’s lecture is evident from its reaching its 23rd thousandth copy in 1921. The inglorious peak of this pseudoscientific overreach was *Die grosse Täuschung* (2 vols., Stuttgart 1920–21) and *Kritische Betrachtungen zum Alten Testament* (ibid. 1921), in which, with extreme frivolity and incredulity, Delitzsch characterized the Old Testament as an enormous fraud.