Ewald, Heinrich Georg August

EWALD, HEINRICH GEORG AUGUST. - Protestant Orientalist and exegete, b. at Göttingen on 16 Nov. 1803, d. there on 4 May 1875. At first (1822-24) he was a secondary-school teacher at Wolfenbüttel, where in the famous library the Oriental manuscripts became familiar to him. Having returned 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 scholarly, religious and political struggles.

Twice, in 1837 and 1867, he was deprived of his Göttingen chair, especially in consequence of his unbridled aversion to Prussia. From 1867 to 1874 he was a deputy to the Reichstag for the city of Hanover; as a politician he had already earlier seized every opportunity, in almost all the prefaces or appendices of his scholarly works, to inveigh against everything and everyone, especially against Rome and the Jesuits (v., e.g., 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 Tübingen chair, also coming in his new post to serious clashes with his colleagues D. Fr. Strauss and F. Chr. Baur. In 1862-69 he was an ardent promoter of the reform of his Hanoverian Church and co-founder of the Protestantenverein.

Authoritarian to excess, he did not tolerate the opinions of others; "he too often took his imaginings for reality" (F. Vigouroux). Mordant in his language, he lost much of his scholarly prestige and made enemies for himself everywhere (A. Knobel, Exegetisches Vademecum für Herrn Professor E. in Tübingen, Giessen 1844).

E.'s scholarly literary output was immense and at the time enjoyed great resonance through its various new editions. E. embraced above all: 1) Oriental linguistics, so as to earn the title of founder of the historical-comparative method of Semitic linguistics. With this philological preparation and with such a historical method he turned to the Bible; 2) history, archaeology, translation and interpretation, biblical theology; 3) he also devoted particular attention to the epochs of the Old Testament. He was moreover 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 Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen (from 1824), to Theologische Studien und Kritiken, etc.

Among his works are to be noted: 1) De metris carminum Arabicarum (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).

Adalberto Metzinger