OSIANDER, ANDREAS°

OSIANDER, ANDREAS° (1498?–1552), German theologian, religious reformer, and hebraist . Born in Gunzenhausen (Franconia), Osiander was ordained a priest in 1520, but shortly thereafter converted to Protestantism, becoming one of the most influential reformers of the time. He was a Hebrew tutor at Nuremberg and continued his studies with a Jew, Woelfflein of Schnaittach, who was given the extraordinary privilege of visiting Nuremberg for that purpose. In the wake of the pezinok blood libel of 1529, Osiander published an anonymous refutation of the ritual murder charge, which led to a literary dispute with Johannes Eck. Although Osiander was himself a Lutheran theologian, in a private letter to elijah levita he vehemently denounced Martin Luther's anti-Jewish Vom Schem Hamphoras (1544). In 1548 Osiander left Nuremberg and was made professor of Hebrew at the then newly founded University of Koenigsberg, where he died a few years later. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. Stern, Andreas Osianders Schrift ueber die Blutbeschuldigung (1893); Baron, Social2, 13 (1969), 228, 232f., 431f. ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Osiander d.Ä., Gesamtausgabe, 10 vols. (1975–1995); G. Seebaß, Das reformatorische Werk des Andreas Osiander (1967); M. Stupperich, Osiander in Preußen, 1549–1552 (1973); G. Ph. Wolf, in: Zeitschrift fuer Bayerische Kirchengeschichte, 53 (1984), 49–77; B. Haegler, Die Christen und die "Judenfrage" am Beispiel der Schriften Osianders… (1992); H. Schreckenberg, Die christlichen Ad-versus-Judaeos-Texte … (1994), 612–5 (with bibliography). (Yehoshua Amir (Neumark) / Aya Elyada (2nd ed.)