Hermann Gunkel - Biography

Biography

Gunkel was born in Springe, Kingdom of Hanover, where his father was a Lutheran pastor. He studied theology in Göttingen and Giessen, and in 1895 became a professor of Old Testament in Berlin. In the same year his book Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Creation and Chaos) was published. In 1901 the first edition of his Genesis commentary appeared. In 1926 he published another standard work, his commentary on the book of Psalms (Die Psalmen).

He was not well-liked at Göttingen, and was asked to go elsewhere to pursue his research. Yet even after his transfer to Giessen, Gunkel's career was marked by a sense of isolation, disliked by his colleagues. This tension may be part of the reason why, in addition to the domination of Wellhausen source-criticism in German scholarship at the time, Gunkel requested to be transferred to the Ancient Near East department, and made many connections with colleagues there instead of in Theology.

For health reasons Gunkel retired and became Professor Emeritus in 1927. His Einleitung in die Psalmen (Introduction to the Psalms) was his last major project, brought to completion with the help of Joachim Begrich, who was both his former student and his son-in-law. In his personal life, it is widely thought that Gunkel had ecstatic visions and some kind of spiritual awakening. His scholarship, in any case, is well-known for its evocative tone.

Hermann Gunkel died on 11 March 1932 in Halle.