The New International Encyclopædia/Oehler, Gustav Friedrich

OEHLER, ẽ'lẽr, (1812-72). A German theologian. He was born at Ebingen, Württemberg. In 1834 he became teacher in the Missionary Institution of Basel, which he left in 1837 to study Oriental languages at Berlin. The same year he went to Tübingen as repetent. In 1840 he became professor in the seminary at Schönthal and remained until 1845, when he accepted a call to Breslau. He opposed the union of the Lutheran and Reformed churches, and while declaring in favor of confessional Lutheranism, he held aloof from the old Lutheran party. In 1852 he returned to Tübingen as director of the seminary and professor of Old Testament theology in the university. Here he produced his principal work, Theologie des Alten Testaments (2 vols., 1873-74; English trans., Edinburgh, 1874-75; New York, 1883). Oehler was one of the foremost Old Testament scholars of his time of the conservative school. He contributed many articles to Herzog's Encyclopädie, and wrote a Lehrbuch der Symbolik (1876, edited by Johann Delitzsch). Consult Josef Knapp, Ein Lebensbild von Oehler (Tübingen, 1876).