ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR DIE ALTTESTAMENTLICHE WISSENSCHAFT. - It is the most authoritative specialized German journal for Old Testament studies, founded by B. Stade (1848-1906), professor at Giessen, and published by the house of Ricker (later Töpelmann) in Giessen and, from 1934, by the house of Töpelmann in Berlin.
The journal has two periods, one up to 1923, with B. Stade and K. Marti as editors, the other from 1924 onward under the direction of H. Gressmann and J. Hempel. During the war and the immediate postwar period, volumes 59 (1942-43); 60 (1944); 61 (1945-48); 62 (1949-50) appeared; from vol. 63 (1951) publication resumed its annual rhythm. It is accompanied by a series of "Beihefte"; it does not carry reviews. In the first period B. Stade determined the journal's character: one of the most important followers of Wellhausen (v.), and moreover heir to the "rational-mystical" school (v. STRAUSS), he believed in a linear evolution of the religion of the Old Testament (cf. Z.f.d.a.W., 4 [1884], p. 296 ff.) from a "rude natural religion" to the heights of "ethical monotheism." He was moreover an "orientalist" in the sense that "this term" was given in the pre-cuneiform and pre-archaeological age. Under his successor K. Marti (1885-1925) the journal lost much of its prestige, although the editor managed to save it amid the difficulties of the First World War and of inflation (1922-23) and even continued the current bibliography, already edited by Stade until 1903, by A. v. Gall from 1903 to 1906 and by Marti himself from 1907 to 1919, a bibliography that in some manner precedes the Elenchus bibliogr. biblicus, published in Biblica from 1920 onward.
H. Gressmann, author of a manual of ancient Oriental texts illustrating the Bible, sought to introduce the new directions into the journal, succeeding in regaining esteem for the periodical and the cooperation of the British "Society for Old Testament Study." His successor even had a little Catholic cooperation (Allgeier, Stummer, J. Ziegler) and introduced careful summaries of journals and collections. Moreover the journal shows a very lively interest in excavations and new discoveries.