author
Julius Wellhausen
1844–1918
Best known for shaping modern debate about how the first books of the Bible were formed, this German scholar brought together biblical criticism, philology, and the study of the ancient Near East in ways that influenced generations of readers. His work ranged beyond the Old Testament into Islamic studies and later New Testament research.
1 Audiobook
Prolegomena to the History of Israel
by Julius Wellhausen
About the author
Born in Hamelin on May 17, 1844, Julius Wellhausen studied theology and Semitic languages at the University of Göttingen. He went on to teach at Göttingen and then held professorships at Greifswald, Halle, Marburg, and later Göttingen, building a reputation as a major scholar of the Bible and the ancient Near East.
He is especially remembered for his work on the Pentateuch, including Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels, which helped make the documentary hypothesis widely known. Britannica credits him with a major analysis of the structure and dating of the Pentateuch, while other university and reference sources note that his interests later extended from Old Testament studies into Islamic studies and New Testament scholarship.
Wellhausen died in Göttingen on January 7, 1918. More than a century later, he remains an important and often debated figure in biblical scholarship because his ideas helped shape how many readers think about the composition and history of biblical texts.