Hartmut Stegemann

Who is Hartmut Stegemann?

Hartmut Stegemann was a German theologian with interest in the New Testament and specialized in Dead Sea Scrolls research. He was responsible for developing standard methods for reconstructing scrolls.

Stegemann began working of the scrolls in 1957 at the Qumran Research Center in Heidelberg. In 1963 he was awarded a Ph.D. Semitic studies and Religious Studies from the University of Heidelberg. This was also the year that he finished his reconstruction of the Thanksgiving Hymns scroll. Stegemann obtained his doctorate in Theology from Bonn in 1971. From 1971 to 1979 he held the post of professor at Philipps-Universität in Marburg, after which he took over from Hans Conzelmann at the Georg-August University in Göttingen, where he taught until the end of the summer 2005, when he retired. On his 65th birthday he was presented with a festschrift: Antikes Judentum und Fruhes Christentum.

When Stegemann died he was working on a new publication of the Thanksgiving Hymns, based on his 1963 reconstruction with a new commentary and notes. Eileen Schuller finished the work which became Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Vol. 40.