BAETHGEN, FRIEDRICH WILHELM ADOLPH°

BAETHGEN, FRIEDRICH WILHELM ADOLPH° (1849–1905), German Bible critic and Semitic scholar, son of a Lutheran pastor in Lachem. After Baethgen completed his studies at Goettingen and Kiel, he was appointed lecturer in biblical studies at Kiel in 1878, and six years later became assistant professor of theology there. During this period he did pioneering work in the fields of biblical Hebrew poetry, Syriac grammar, and Peshitta on Psalms (Die Psalmen, 18972, 19043). In 1888, the year in which his Beitraege zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte first appeared, he went to Halle as assistant professor of theology. In the following year he became professor of theology at Greifswald, where he was also an influential member of the Pomeranian consistory. From 1895 until his death he was professor of theology in Berlin.