The history of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti

The history of the Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti

The origins of the Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti go back to the time of the First World War. Taking up an idea by the Leipzig New Testament scholar Georg Heinrici, the New Testament scholar Ernst von Dobschütz from Halle, initially also in collaboration with the Jena church historian and New Testament scholar Hans Lietzmann, took the initiative to compile a "new Wettstein". This was originally intended as a new edition of the collection of parallels to the New Testament from Greek, Latin and rabbinical literature created in the 18th century by the Basel scholar Johann Jakob Wettstein (1693-1754). A similar project begun independently in England at around the same time under the direction of F.H. Colson and W.O. Oesterley was discontinued a few years later by mutual agreement in favor of the German project after brief, intensive consultations.
Under von Dobschütz's direction, work on the Jewish-Hellenistic part of the project was intensively pursued in Halle until his death (1934) and seemed to be close to completion. However, the corpus was never published after Dobschütz's successor in Halle, Hans Windisch, died just one year later. From today's perspective, the materials already collected at the time do not appear to have been sufficient for publication, even though a proof on John 1:1-18 was published in June 1930.

In the 1930s, the project was divided into a Judaeo-Hellenistic and a Pagan-Hellenistic part. The latter was initially pursued in Uppsala and from 1956 in Utrecht. Since 1966, under the direction of Hans Dieter Betz, there has been a further working group for the Pagan Hellenistic part, first in Claremont and later in Chicago.
After the Second World War, thanks to Kurt Aland's initiative, the Corpus Hellenisticum was included in the work of the "Commission for Late Antique Religious History of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin" (successor to Harnack's "Church Fathers Commission"). The New Testament scholar Gerhard Delling from Halle was entrusted with continuing the work on the Jewish-Hellenistic part of the project. From 1955, he was assisted by Nikolaus Walter, who later became a New Testament scholar in Jena, as a research assistant on the Corpus Hellenisticum. Although the Corpus Hellenisticum research unit was continuously present in Halle with the material collected to date and a small library, and the project was at least indirectly supported there through research work in the field of Jewish-Hellenistic literature, it was not possible to complete and publish the project under the material and political conditions in East Germany until 1989.  Since 1992 the work on the Corpus Hellenisticum has been continued in Halle under the direction of Udo Schnelle by Manfred Lang with the preparation and publication of the "Neues Wettstein".

IUnder the leadership of Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, a concept for the development of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti has been developed in Jena since 1997. From 2001 to 2006, Roland Deines was involved in the conceptual development of the project as a research assistant.
In the following period, several attempts to finance the project failed. Meanwhile, the work was continued through conferences and publications in the field of Jewish-Hellenistic literature in Jena and Leipzig. In 2023, project funds were approved for implementation via the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities so that the project could officially start in April 2024. It is scheduled to run for 15 years.

Literatur

• The most accurate account of the history of the Corpus Hellenisticum was written by Nikolaus Walter: Zur Chronik des Corpus Hellenisticum von den Anfängen bis 1955/58, in: W. Kraus / K.-W. Niebuhr (Hgg.), Frühjudentum und Neues Testament im Horizont Biblischer Theologie. Mit einem Anhang zum Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti, WUNT 162, Tübingen 2003, 325–344.

• Further documents from the work of the project before 1945 were printed in op. cit. 303-324.

• On the perspectives of the project in the past and present, see K.-W. Niebuhr, Das Corpus Hellenisticum. Notes on the history of a problem op. cit. 361-379.

• The historical research context cf. G. Seelig, Religionsgeschichtliche Methode in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart. Studien zur Geschichte und Methode des religionsgeschichtlichen Vergleichs in der neutestamentlichen Wissenschaft (Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 7), Leipzig 2001 (Corpus Hellenisticum: 122–259).

• Delling's contribution to the continuation of the project

  • K.-W. Niebuhr, Der Neutestamentler Gerhard Delling (1905–1986) als Erforscher des Frühjudentums, in: G. Delling, Studien zum Frühjudentum. Gesammelte Aufsätze 1971–1987, hg.v. C. Breytenbach / K.-W. Niebuhr, Göttingen 2000, 11–22

  • C. Breytenbach, Perspektiven der Erforschung des Diasporajudentums und des frühen Christentums. Zum Gedenken des 100. Geburtstages Gerhard Dellings, BThZ 23, 2006, 99–115

  • T. Holtz, Gerhard Delling (1905–1986), in: C. Breytenbach / R. Hoppe (Hgg.), Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft nach 1945: Hauptvertreter der deutschsprachigen Exegese in der Darstellung ihrer Schüler, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2008, 177–185.