HOBERS, Gottfried. - German Catholic exegete, a leading figure at the time of Modernism, b. at Heringhausen (Westphalia) on 19 Nov. 1857, d. at Freiburg in Br. on 19 Jan. 1924. Ordained priest in 1881, he became professor at Paderborn in 1887 and at Freiburg in Br. from 1893 to 1919.
All of H.’s works are based on a solid philological training; he insists on theological principles and in him a strong personal tone is evident. He was always highly sensitive to the directives of ecclesiastical authority.
H. devoted himself to the question of the Pentateuch in the time of Friedrich Delitzsch (q.v.) and treated it in the sense of tradition against criticism. “The Pentateuch,” he explains, “results from the religious development of the people to whom the Revelation was entrusted, beginning from the time of Moses down to after the Babylonian exile. The basis of this development is the laws of Moses, which form, by their bulk and importance, by far the greater part of the ancient law code.” He excludes “learned” narratives from the Pentateuch, judging them incompatible with biblical inerrancy. For theological reasons, he likewise considers impossible any influence from the Code of Hammurabi. The change in the names of God is explained by the fact that in the time of the prophet Isaiah the name of Jahweh was inserted more or less in those passages where God is spoken of as the author of supernatural Revelation. Certain events narrated in the first chapters of Genesis are to be understood as symbolic visions.
Works: Ibn Ginnii de flexione (1885); De s. Hieronymi ratione interpretandi (1886); Die Psalmen der Vulgata (1892, 2nd ed. 1906); Die Genesis (1899, 2nd ed. 1908); Die Fortschritte der biblischen Wissenschaft (1902); Die älteste lateinische Übersetzung des Buches Baruch (1902); Bibel und Babel (1904); Katechismus der biblischen Hermeneutik (1904, 2nd ed. 1922); Moses und der Pentateuch (1905); De Moyse Pentateuchi auctore (1906); Über die Pentateuchfrage (1907); Bibel oder Babel? (1907); Liber Geneseos (1908); Katechismus der messianischen Weissagungen (1915); Die Einheitsschule (1917); prepared the 5th ed. of F. Kaulen’s Einleitung in die Hl. Schrift (1911 ff.).