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Arndt Meinhold (1941–2025)

The Department of Old Testament Studies and the Faculty of Theology in  Halle mourn the loss of Prof. Dr. Arndt Meinhold (24 November 1941 - 30  March 2025). He taught Old Testament from 1977 to 1993 as a lecturer in  Naumburg (Katechetisches Oberseminar and Kirchliche Hochschule) and from  1993 to 2006 as Professor of Old Testament at the Martin Luther  University Halle-Wittenberg. He focused his research on the Diaspora  novella, anthropology, wisdom literature and prophecy, wrote  commentaries on the Book of Proverbs, Esther and Malachi and was  co-editor of the renowned commentary series "Biblischer Kommentar". With  his high standard of getting to the bottom of things, he earned the  respect of his peers as well as the respect and admiration of his  students. His scholarly approach to the Jewish Bible was characterized  by a deep spirituality, and he saw himself as having a special  responsibility towards Israel. His extensive personal library, which  reflects these priorities, has now found a permanent readership at the  Reformed University of Debrecen. “Let the memory of the righteous be a  blessing.” (Proverbs 10:7)

Professor Meinhold is survived by his wife, three children and eight grandchildren.

The funeral will be held Monday, April 14, at 12 noon, at the "Neuer Friedhof" in Naumburg (Saale).

Postal address for letters of condolence: Dorothea Meinhold, Am Georgentor 11, 06618 Naumburg, GERMANY

in memoriam Karl-Martin Beyse

Es ist unsere traurige Pflicht, mitteilen zu müssen, dass der langjährige Hebräisch-Dozent unserer Fakultät, Akademischer Rat Dr. Karl-Martin Beyse, geb. am 7. Dezember 1934 in Magdeburg, am 29.Dezember 2020 in Halle verstorben ist. Im Nachrichtenarchiv der Theologischen Fakultät steht der von Ernst-Joachim Waschke verfasste Nachruf.

Summer course in Hebrew

Information on the Hebrew Summer Course can be found here.

General description

Old Testament Studies covers the following areas:

  • Ancient history of the people of Israel
  • Introduction to the Old Testament from a literary-historical perspective
  • Interpretation (exegesis) of biblical scriptures
  • Theology of the Old Testament within the context of its religious history and hermeneutics

Core courses

Language courses

  • Biblical Hebrew
  • Cursory reading of the Old Testament
  • New Hebrew
  • Information on the Hebrew Summer Course can be found here.

Lecture courses and seminars

  • History of Israel
  • Introduction to the Old Testament
  • Theology, Anthropology and Cosmology of the Old Testament
  • Exegesis of biblical books and thematically linked textual complexes

Proseminar (Introductory seminar)

Scientific methods of textual interpretation

Recitation classes (tutorials)

Biblical Studies, Hebrew language tutorial, tutorials for the subject area

Special course offerings

  • Biblical Aramaic
  • Ugaritic
  • Training in epigraphy
  • Palestinology and biblical archaeology
  • Samaritanology

People

Professors

Prof Dr Frank Ueberschaer
Chair for Old Testament

Prof Dr Stefan Schorch Chair for Biblical Studies
personal website    (independently maintained)

Email:

Emeriti

Prof Dr Arndt Meinhold (Emeritus)

Research interests: narrative theology in the Old Testament; wisdom of the Old Testament; cosmology; minor prophets (commentaries on the writings of Malachi)
Email: meinhold@theologie.uni-halle.de

Prof Dr Ernst-Joachim Waschke Research interests: messianism; anthropology; theology of the Old Testament
Email: waschke@theologie.uni-halle.de

Research Associates and other instructional staff

Research Assistants

  • see the Homepages of Prof. Stefan Schorch und Prof. Frank Ueberschaer

Doctoral candidates

  • Amrei Koch: "Autoritätskonstruktion im Recht der Hebräischen Bibel" [Construction of Authority in Law of the Hebrew Bible] (Schorch)
  • Martin Tscheu: "Ezechielbuch und spätpriesterliche Texte der Tora: Kultgesetzliche Interdependenz in den Textüberlieferungen" [The Book of Ezekiel and late priestly texts of the Torah: Interdependence of law and cult in the textual traditions] (Schorch)

Projects

The Samaritan Project

The aim of this project is to compile and publish a critical editio magna of the Hebrew Samaritan Pentateuch (Samaritan Torah). The project is being carried out in close cooperation with two working groups at the Faculties of Theology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (Project Director: Prof Dr Stefan Schorch) and at the Reformed University of Károli Gáspár, Budapest (Project Director: Prof D. József Zsengellér) respectively. The project is being funded by the German Research Foundation    (Halle) and the Hungarian Academy of the Sciences    (Budapest).


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Special collections

  • Otto-Eißfeldt-Collection: Library comprising about 10,000 volumes relevant to the study of the Old Testament as well as of religion, history and archaeology of ancient Near East; special prints collection, bequest of letters.
  • Extensive map collection of Palestine and the ancient Near East
  • Collection of models representing different styles of historical buildings in Palestine (on permanent loan to the Canstein Bible Centre (Canstein-Bibelzentrum)
  • Collection of historical photographs from Palestine, curated by Hans Schmidt

Administrative Assistant

Kathrin Engelmann

Email:

Tel: +49 (0) 345 / 55 230 13

Fax: +49 (0) 345 / 55 272 14

Office hours: Mon, Tue, Thu 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m., Wed 9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Office hours, telephone numbers and email addresses of the professors and associates are listed on the websites of the individual persons (use the navigation bar on the left side of the page).

Address and location

Mailing address for (campus) offices
Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
Faculty of Theology
Institute for Biblical Studies
06099 Halle (Saale)

Location
Francke Foundations
Franckeplatz 1, House 25, 2nd Floor
06110 Halle (Saale)

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