**RIESSLER, Paul.** - Catholic exegete, born 16 Sept. 1865 at Stuttgart, parish priest at Blaubeuren in 1898, professor of the Old Testament at the University of Tübingen from 1907 to 1933, died there on 10 Sept. 1935.
He distinguished himself by the stylistic qualities of his translation of the Old Testament. His preferred field of study was textual criticism, in which he developed an original theory, though not accepted by scholars, according to which the most ancient texts of the Old Testament were originally written on cuneiform tablets with some Aramaic “notes”; after the exile these tablets were translated into Aramaic by Ezra, and more recent books were added in Aramaic. After 300 B.C. these books were translated into Greek (the so-called “presentation”); during the national renewal inaugurated by the Maccabees, in the years of Hyrcanus (135–105 B.C.), they were retranslated into the sacred dialect of the Temple of Jerusalem, i.e. classical Hebrew; from this translation the Septuagint (v.) would have emerged. This daring theory explains what in R.’s versions may seem arbitrary.
His works are rich in Hebraistic erudition: *Das Buch Daniel. Textkrit. Untersuchung* (Stuttgart 1899); *Das Buch Daniel erklärt* (Vienna 1902); *Kleine Propheten...* (Rottenburg 1911); *Der Untergang des Reiches Juda* (Münster 1912); *Der Prophet Jeremias* (ibid. 1914); *Die hl. Schrift des Alten Bundes* (Mainz 1924; 3rd ed.; 4th ed. [in collaboration with R. Storr, who translated the New Testament], 1934); *Altjüdisches Schrifttum ausserhalb der Bibel* (Augsburg 1928); *Erklärung von Textschwierigkeiten des Alten Test. ed. F. Stier, Mainz 1939.*
