REINKE, LAURENTIUS. - Catholic exegete, born on 6 February 1797 in Langförden (Germany), died in Münster in Westphalia on 4 June 1879. Ordained priest in 1822, he devoted himself with fervor to the study of Semitic languages, being a student of G. W. Freytag in Bonn, author of the Lexicon Arabico-Latinum. From 1827 he was a privatdocent in Oriental languages and a tutor in Old Testament exegesis, becoming professor of the University of Bonn, extraordinary in 1831, ordinary in 1837; he held the chair until his death.
Fervent and zealous for the honor of Catholic scholarship, he spent his life between study and prayer. Pained by the state of exegesis “devastated” by rationalism and the lack of Catholic works scientifically equal to the rationalistic ones, after his fiftieth year he devoted himself to the publication of works of scientific exegesis, contributing from his own savings to the printing costs. His method was rather philological and textual criticism, and his works still retain their value today for many correct and finely philological observations, amid others that are outdated, and for the accurate analysis of the works of so many of his adversaries. His preferred subject was the messianism of the Old Testament, which he defended ably. He published: Exegesis critica in Is. 52,13-53,12 (Münster 1836); Exegesis critica in Is. 2,2-4 (ibid. 1838); Beiträge zur Erklärung des Alten Testamentes (47 monographs on the most difficult and debated biblical passages: vols. I-VII, ibid. 1851-66; vol. VIII, Giessen 1872). He also published commentaries on Malachi (1836), Messianic Psalms (2 vols., 1856-57), Messianic Prophecies in the Books of the Prophets (4 vols., 1859-62), Haggai (1868), Zephaniah (1868), Habakkuk (1870), Micah (1871).