SCHÜRER, EMIL JOHANN. - Protestant historian, critic and theologian, of the Abricht Ritschl (v.) tendency, b. at Augsburg on 2 May 1844, d. at Göttingen on 30 Apr. 1910.
He studied theology in 1864-66 at Erlangen, Berlin and Heidelberg, but took his degree in philosophy at Leipzig in 1868, where he obtained the venia legendi in 1869 and was appointed extraordinary professor in 1873; transferred as ordinary professor of the New Testament to the Faculty of theology of the then newly established University of Giessen, in 1890 he moved to Kiel and in 1895 to Göttingen, where he remained until his death. His Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte (Leipzig 1874) went through several editions, continually reworked and enlarged, on the basis of a complete study of all the texts; it became a classic treatise under the title Die Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (Leipzig: I: 2nd ed. 1890, 3rd and 4th 1901, 5th 1925; II: 2nd ed. 1886, 4th 1907-1909; Register, 1902). The work, still useful, ought today to be integrated with many specialized studies, in the light of new texts and documents. It treats not only the external history of the Jewish people from the Maccabees onward, but also its culture, its piety and its messianic ideas. Another merit of S. is that in 1876 he was the founder of the Theologische Literaturzeitung (v.), which critically reviews the theological literature of the world and strives to be objective on the basis of criticism, and that he directed it from vol. 1 (1876) to 36 (1910), with the exception of 1881-87, when, in order to be free to prepare the 2nd ed. of his great work, he entrusted it to A. Harnack (v.), his faithful friend and collaborator.
Bibliography
Pietro Noher