EWALD, HEINRICH GEORG AUGUST. — Protestant Orientalist and exegete, born in Göttingen on 16 November 1803, died there on 4 May 1875. At first (1822–24) he was a secondary-school teacher in Wolfenbüttel, where the Oriental manuscripts in the celebrated library became familiar to him. Returning to Göttingen as a tutor in the theological faculty (1824) and as professor of Oriental languages and exegesis (1827–37 and 1848–67), his life was absorbed by scientific, religious, and political controversies.
Twice, in 1837 and 1867, he was deprived of his chair at Göttingen, especially as a result of his unrestrained hostility toward Prussia. From 1867 to 1874 he was a deputy in the Reichstag for the city of Hannover; as a politician, even earlier, he seized every opportunity, in almost all the prefaces or appendices to his scholarly works, to rail against everything and everyone, especially against Rome and the Jesuits (v. , for example, in Johannesische Schriften, Göttingen 1861–62, pp. 410–39, the appendix Über Jesuiten im jetzigen Deutschland). In the years 1838–48 the exile occupied the chair at Tübingen, where in his new post as well he entered into serious conflicts with his colleagues, D. Fr. Strauss and F. Chr. Baur. In 1862–69 he was an active promoter of the reform of his Hannoverian Church and a co-founder of the Protestantenverein.
Excessively authoritarian, he did not tolerate the opinions of others; “he too often took his imaginings for reality” (F. Vigouroux). Biting in his language, he lost much of his scientific prestige and made adversaries for himself everywhere (A. Knobel, Exegetisches Vademecum für Herrn Professor E. in Tübingen, Giessen 1844).
E.’s scholarly literary production was immense and, through the various new editions of his works, enjoyed great renown at the time. E. devoted himself first of all to: 1) Oriental linguistics, thus deserving the title of founder of the historical-comparative method of Semitic linguistics. With this philological preparation and such a historical method, he turned to the Bible; 2) its history, archaeology, translation and interpretation, and biblical theology; 3) he also devoted particular attention to the apocrypha of the Old Testament. He was furthermore co-founder of the Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes (1837–50), founder of the Jahrbücher der biblischen Wissenschaft (1840–63), and an indefatigable contributor to the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen (from 1824), Theologische Studien und Kritiken, etc.
Among his works the following should be noted: 1) De metris carminum Avabicarum (Braunschweig 1825); Kritische Grammatik der hebräischen Sprache (Leipzig 1827; 5th ed. there 1844, under the title Ausführliches Lehrbuch der hebräischen Sprache; 8th ed. there 1870); Grammatica critica linguae Arabicae (there 1831–53); Abhandlungen zur orientalischen Literatur (Göttingen 1832); Hebräische Sprachlehre für Anfänger (Leipzig 1842; 4th ed. there 1874); Über die arabisch geschriebenen Werke jüdischer Sprachgelehrten (Stuttgart 1844); Sprachwissenschaftliche Abhandlungen (I–III, Göttingen 1861–62, 1871). 2) Die Komposition der Genesis kritisch untersucht (Braunschweig 1823); Commentarius in Apocalypsin Ioannis exegeticus et criticus (Leipzig 1828); Die Dichter des Alten Bundes (4 vols., Göttingen 1835–39); Die Propheten des Alten Bundes (Stuttgart 1840–41; 2nd ed., 3 vols., Göttingen 1867–68); Geschichte des Volkes Israel bis ins nachspostolische Zeitalter (3 vols., there 1843–52; 3rd ed., 7 vols., there 1864–68); Die Bücher des Neuen Bundes übersetzt und erklärt (there 1850–1870); Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, oder Theologie des Alten und Neuen Bundes (4 vols., Leipzig 1871–76). 3) Abhandlung über das äthiopischen Buches Ienahh Entstehung, Sinn und Zusammensetzung (Göttingen 1854); Über Entstehung, Inhalt und Wert der Sibyllinischen Bücher (there 1858); Das vierte Ezebuch nach seinem Zeitalter, seinen arabischen Übersetzungen und neuen Wiederherstellung (there 1863).