Otto Kaiser

Otto Kaiser (30 November 1924 – 14 December 2017) was a German Old Testament scholar.

Biography

Education Kaiser was born in Prenzlau, Germany, where he attended the Gymnasium in Eberswalde and went to the University of Berlin to study medicine, as well as philosophy with Nicolai Hartmann. He served in World War II on the Eastern Front and was wounded. Returning, he studied Protestant theology and Oriental Studies and Philosophy at the University of Tübingen. He received his Doctor of Divinity degree in 1961 and his habilitation less than a year later. He holds honorary doctorates from the University of Jena, the University of Tartu, and the University of Salzburg, as well as the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1st Class.

Career Called to a professorship at the University of Marburg, the oldest Protestant university in the world with one of the most distinguished Divinity Schools in Germany, he soon received the main Chair of Old Testament, which, in spite of many calls to other universities, he held until his retirement. Kaiser's work stands in the tradition of Rudolf Bultmann; he sees theology as "the study of the human reflection of the experience of the Divine in time and space." He has written a complete, three-volume theology of the Old Testament, as well as the leading one- and three-volume introductions into Old Testament Studies in German; among his many special areas are the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, the Apocrypha, and Sirach. Kaiser is also a leading scholar on ancient and modern philosophy, particularly on Kant, Hegel, and toward the end of his career, Nietzsche, Plato, and Aristotle.