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Karl Theodor Keim

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KARL. THEODOR KEIM (1825-1878), German Protestant theologian, was born at Stuttgart on the 17th of December 1825. His father, Johann Christian Keim, was headmaster of a gymnasium. Here Karl Theodor received his early education, and then proceeded to the Stuttgart Obergymnasium. In 1843 he went to the university of Tubingen, where he studied philosophy under J. F. Reiff, a follower of Hegel, and Oriental languages under Heinrich Ewald and Heinrich Meier. F. C. Baur, the leader of the new Tubingen school, was lecturing on the New Testament and on the history of the church and of dogma, and by him in particular Keim was greatly impressed. The special bent of Keim's mind is seen in his prize essay, Verhi ltniss der Christen in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten bis Konstantin zum romischen Reiche (1847). His first published work was Die Reformation der Reichstadt Ulm (1851). In 1850 he visited the university of Bonn, where he attended some of the lectures of Friedrich Bieck, Richard Rothe, C. M. Arndt and Isaak Dorner. He taught at Tubingen from June 1851 until 1856, when, having become a pastor, he was made deacon at Esslingen, Wurttemberg. In 1859 he was appointed archdeacon; but a few months later he was called to the university of Zurich as professor of theology (1859-1873), where he produced his important works. Before this he had written on church history (e.g. Schwdbische Reformationsgeschichte bis zum Augsburger Reichstag, 1855). His inaugural address at Zurich on the human development of Jesus, Die menschliche Entwicklung Jesu Christi (1861), and his Die geschichtliche Wiirde Jesu (1864) were preparatory to his chief work, Die Geschichte Jesu von Nazara in ihrer Verkettung mit dem Gesamtleben seines Volkes (3 vols., 1867-1872; Eng. trans., Jesus of Nazareth, and the National Life of Israel, 6 vols.), 1873-1882. In 1873 Keim was appointed professor of theology at Giessen. This post.; he resigned, through ill-health, shortly before his death on the 17th of November 1878. He belonged to the "mediation" school of theology.

Chief works, besides the'above: Reformationsblcitter der. Reichsstadt Esslingen (1860); Ambrosius Blarer, der Schwabische Reformator (1860); Der Ubertritt Konstantins d. Gr. zum Christenthum (1862); his sermons, Freundesworte zur Gemeinde (2 vols., 1861-1862); and Celsus' wahres Wort (1873). In 1881 H. Ziegler published one of Keim's earliest works, Rom and das Christenthum, with a biographical sketch. See also Ziegler's article in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopeidie.