DILLMANN

dillmann, christian friedrich august (1823-1894), german orientalist and biblical scholar, the son of a wurttemberg schoolmaster, was born at illingen on the 25th of april 1823. he was educated at tubingen, where he became a pupil and friend of heinrich ewald, and studied under f. c. baur, though he did not join the new tubingen school. for a short time he worked as pastor at gersheim, near his native place, but he soon came to feel that his studies demanded his whole time. he devoted himself to the study of ethiopic mss. in the libraries of paris, london and oxford, and this work caused a revival of ethiopic study in the 19th century. in 1847 and 1848 he prepared catalogues of the ethiopic mss. in the british museum and the bodleian library at oxford. he then set to work upon an edition of the ethiopic bible. returning to tubingen in 1848, in 1853 he was appointed professor extraordinarius. subsequently he became professor of philosophy at kiel (1854), and of theology at giessen (1864) and berlin (1869). he died on the 4th of july 1894. in 1851 he had published the _book of enoch_ in ethiopian (german, 1853), and at kiel he completed the first part of the ethiopic bible, _octateuchus aethiopicus_ (1853-1855). in 1857 appeared his _grammatik der athiopischen sprache_ (2nd ed. by c. bezold, 1899); in 1859 the _book of jubilees_; in 1861 and 1871 another part of the ethiopic bible, _libri regum_; in 1865 his great _lexicon linguae aethiopicae_; in 1866 his _chrestomathia aethiopica_. always a theologian at heart, however, he returned to theology in 1864. his giessen lectures were published under the titles, _ursprung der alttestamentlichen religion_ (1865) and _die propheten des alten bundes nach ihrer politischen wirksamkeit_ (1868). in 1869 appeared his _commentar zum hiob_ (4th ed. 1891) which stamped him as one of the foremost old testament exegetes. his renown as a theologian, however, was mainly founded by the series of commentaries, based on those of august wilhelm knobels' _genesis_ (leipzig, 1875; 6th ed. 1892; eng. trans, by w. b. stevenson, edinburgh, 1897); _exodus und leviticus_, 1880, revised edition by v. ryssel, 1897; _numeri, deuteronomium und josua_, with a dissertation on the origin of the hexateuch, 1886; _jesaja_, 1890 (revised edition by rudolf kittel in 1898). in 1877 he published the _ascension of isaiah_ in ethiopian and latin. he was also a contributor to d. schenkel's _bibellexikon_, brockhaus's _conversationslexikon_, and herzog's _realencyklopadie_. his lectures on old testament theology, _vorlesungen uber theologie des allen testamentes_, were published by kittel in 1895. see the articles in herzog-hauck, _realencyklopadie_, and the _allgemeine deutsche biographie_; f. lichtenberger, _history of german theology in the nineteenth century_ (1889); wolf baudissin, _a. dillmann_ (leipzig, 1895).