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Eduard Karl August Riehm

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EDUARD KARL AUGUST RIEHM (1830-1888), German Protestant theologian, was born at Diersburg in Baden on the 20th of December 1830. He studied theology and philology at Heidelberg and later at Halle under Hermann Hupfeld, who persuaded him to include Arabic, Syriac and Egyptian. Entering the ministry in 1853, he was made vicar at Durlach soon afterwards, and became a licentiate in the theological faculty at Heidelberg. In 1854 he was appointed garrison-preacher at Mannheim; and in 1858 he was licensed to lecture at Heidelberg, where in 1861 he was made professor extraordinarius. In 1862 he obtained a similar post at Halle, and in 1866 was promoted to the rank of professor ordinarius. Throughout his life he followed Hupfeld's plan in his scientific treatment of the Old Testament - that of reconciling the results of a free criticism with a belief in divine revelations. His practical experience of pastoral work also proved of service to him when he became a professor of theology, for "if there is one quality more striking than another in the writings of Riehm, it is that of sympathy with orthodox believers" (T. K. Cheyne). In 1865 Riehm was made a member of the commission for the revision of Luther's translation of the Bible, and became one of the editors of the quarterly review, Theologische Studien and Kritiken. He died on the 5th of April 1888.

His works include: Die Gesetzgebung Mosis im Lande Moab (1854), in which the Deuteronomic law book is assigned to the second half of the reign of Manasseh; Der Lehrbegriff des Hebriterbriefs (1858-59, 2nd ed. 1867); Hermann Hupfeld, Lebens-und Charakterbild eines deutschen Professors (1867); Die Messianische Weissagung (1875, 2nd ed. 1883; Eng. trans. 1890); Religion and Wissenschaft (1881); and the well-known Handworterbuch des biblischen Altertums (2 vols., 1884; 2nd. ed. revised by F. Baethgen, 1892-94). After his death were published the Einleitung in das Alte Testament (1889, ed. by A. Brandt), in which the date of the Deuteronomic law book is placed earlier than in his book on the legislation of Moses - shortly before or at the beginning of the reign of Hezekiah; and his Alttestamentliche Theologie (1889, ed. by Pahncke). See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopcidie, and T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism.