The New International Encyclopædia/Olshausen, Hermann

OLSHAUSEN,, (1796-1839). A German theologian. He was born at Oldesloe, in Holstein, entered the University of Kiel in 1814, and two years later went to the University of Berlin, where the teaching of Schleiermacher and Neander gave direction to his life studies and writings. In 1817 he was awarded the prize at the festival of the Reformation for an essay, Melanchthons Charakteristik aus seinen Briefen dargestellt (1818). This essay brought him to the notice of the Prussian Minister of Public Worship, and he was made privat-docent at Berlin in 1820, passing the next year to Königsberg as professor extraordinary, and in 1827 was elected full professor. He removed from Königsberg to Erlangen in 1834. His most notable work is his Kommentar über sämmtliche Schriften des Neuen Testaments (4 vols., 1830; completed and revised by Ebrard and Wiesinger; Eng. trans., 1847-49). An earlier work adducing from the writings of the first two centuries historical proofs of the genuineness of the Gospels is Die Echtheit der vier kanonischen Evangelien, aus der Geschichte der zwei ersten Jahrhunderte erwiesen (1823). His method of exegesis is presented in Ein Wort über tieferen Schriftsinn (1824), and Die biblische Schriftauslegung. In these latter works he rejects the doctrine of verbal inspiration.