OLSHAUSEN, HERMANN. - Protestant exegete of a positive stance in theology, opponent of rationalism, idealism, and Romanticism, b. at Oldeshoe (Holstein) on 21 Aug. 1796, d. at Erlangen on 4 Sept. 1839.
A disciple of Schleiermacher and Neander in Berlin, in 1817 he won a prize for his work composed for the third centenary of the "Reformation": Melanchthons Charakter aus seinen Briefen dargestellt. In 1818 he was a tutor in theology in Berlin, in 1820 a lecturer, in 1821 an associate professor at Königsberg, and in 1827 a full professor. In that city he at first came under the influence of the pastor Ebel, who sought to Christianize the dualistic gnosis of J. H. Schönherr; but from 1826 onward he broke away from it entirely, in order to hold firmly to the line of a "biblical Christianity." In 1834 he accepted the full professorship at Erlangen, where, still sickly, he lived for another five years.
Works of greater importance: Hist. Eccl. veteris monumenta (1820-22); Die Echtheit der vier kanon. Evangelien aus der Gesch. der zwei ersten Jahrh. erwiesen (1823); Ueber tieferen Schriftsinn (1824); Christus der einzige Meister (1826); Kommentar über sämtliche Schriften des Neuen Test. zunächst für Prediger und Studierende (4 vols., 1830 ff.); Ueber die frühesten Verhältnisse der röm. Gemeinde, in Theol. Studien und Kritik, 11 (1938), pp. 916-62 (against Chr. F. Baur, he maintains that the tradition that the apostle Peter was in Rome cannot be considered a legend).