Berend Gemser
Dutch Old Testament scholar and Semiticist
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Berend Gemser (17 May 1890 – 15 November 1962) was a Dutch theologian, Old Testament scholar, Semiticist, Hebraist and minister. He served as professor of both Old Testament Studies and Semitic Languages at the University of Pretoria from 1926 until 1955 and subsequently as professor of Old Testament at the University of Groningen. He is regarded as a founder of the scientific study of the Old Testament and the languages and cultures of the ancient Near East in South Africa.[1][2]
Berend Gemser | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 May 1890 Broek op Langedijk, Netherlands |
| Died | 15 November 1962 (aged 72) Groningen, Netherlands |
| Education | University of Groningen |
| Occupations | Theologian, Old Testament scholar, Semiticist, minister and academic |
| Employer(s) | University of Pretoria University of Groningen |
| Known for | Foundational work in South African Old Testament studies, Semitic languages and Biblical Hebrew |
| Spouse | Klaziene Elizabeth Jellema |
| Parent(s) | Petrus Gemser Geertje Oosterman |
Gemser became internationally known for his work on biblical wisdom literature, particularly the Book of Proverbs, as well as his studies of Hebrew law, religious terminology and the relationship between the Old Testament and the cultures of ancient Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt and Sumer. His Afrikaans grammar of Biblical Hebrew and his publications on biblical translation contributed to the development of biblical scholarship in Afrikaans.[3]
Although he had become closely integrated into Afrikaans academic and church life, Gemser increasingly criticised racial and nationalist interpretations of Christianity. He opposed attempts to subordinate university scholarship to nationalist or confessional ideology, warned against National Socialism, and in 1961 rejected the biblical and theological legitimation of apartheid.[4]
Early life and education
Gemser was born on 17 May 1890 in Broek op Langedijk, North Holland. He was the son of Petrus Gemser, a minister, and Geertje Oosterman.[5] His father died while Gemser was young, leaving the family in difficult financial circumstances. Gemser nevertheless continued his education and attended the gymnasium in Alkmaar.[6]
He studied theology and Semitic languages at the University of Groningen. His teachers included the Old Testament scholar L. H. K. Bleeker and the Assyriologist Frans de Liagre Böhl. Gemser completed his theological examinations in 1917 and was admitted to the ministry of the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk.[6]
On 18 November 1917 he was inducted as minister of the congregation at Lutjegast, near Groningen. While serving the congregation, he continued studying Semitic languages and also taught Hebrew at two Groningen gymnasia.[6]
Gemser completed his doctorate cum laude at the University of Groningen on 16 October 1924 under De Liagre Böhl. His dissertation, De beteekenis der persoonsnamen voor onze kennis van het leven en denken der oude Babyloniërs en Assyriërs (The significance of personal names for our knowledge of the life and thought of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians), examined what personal names revealed about ancient Mesopotamian religion and society.[1]
The dissertation was the first Assyriological doctoral thesis defended at a Dutch university. It was well received for its extensive philological evidence and remained an important source even after the discovery of additional collections of ancient Near Eastern personal names.[6]
Gemser married Klaziene Elizabeth Jellema. Both families had longstanding associations with theological study at the University of Groningen.[7][6]
University of Pretoria
Appointment
In 1926 Gemser was invited to join the Transvaal University College, later the University of Pretoria. His appointment was supported by Dutch theologians, including H. Th. Obbink, and by the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika (NHK), which conducted part of its ministerial training at the institution.[6][2]
Gemser began work in Pretoria on 1 June 1926. He simultaneously occupied chairs in Old Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology and Semitic Languages in the Faculty of Arts.[1] The two appointments gave him responsibility for an unusually broad curriculum encompassing Old Testament exegesis, Biblical Hebrew and the languages, histories and cultures of the ancient Near East. During his early years at Pretoria he sometimes delivered as many as 22 lectures each week.[1]
He established the university's departments of Semitic Languages and Ancient Cultural History and initially headed those departments as well as Old Testament Studies. His work helped transform Hebrew and the study of the ancient Near East from supporting subjects for theological students into independent academic disciplines.[4]
In 1938 the Dutch scholar Adrianus van Selms joined the university as lecturer in Semitic languages. The appointment reduced Gemser's extensive teaching load. After Van Selms returned from wartime service in 1946, Gemser concentrated primarily on Old Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology while Van Selms assumed responsibility for Semitic languages in the Faculty of Arts.[6]
Teaching and students
Gemser placed biblical exegesis at the centre of theological education. Students were expected to engage directly with Hebrew texts and to study them through historical, literary and comparative linguistic methods. He drew extensively on Dutch and German Old Testament scholarship, but resisted strict attachment to any single critical school.[1]
His students included E. S. Mulder, who succeeded him at Pretoria, P. F. D. Weiss, S. J. du Toit, A. H. van Zijl, Casper Labuschagne and New Testament scholar Albert Geyser. Gemser supervised Geyser's doctoral work on the genealogies of Jesus.[6]
Gemser maintained close academic connections with universities in the Netherlands. During his South African career he was considered for several Dutch professorships and declined four opportunities to return permanently. He remained in Pretoria because of his commitment to the academic institutions and students he had helped develop.[2]
Institutional contributions
Gemser was one of the founding scholars associated with HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, established in 1943. He became its first editorial chair and used his European scholarly network to secure contributions from Dutch theologians and biblical scholars.[1][4]
He is also credited with devising the University of Pretoria's Latin motto, Ad destinatum persequor, derived from Philippians 3:14 and commonly translated as “With zeal and perseverance I strive towards the goal”.[4]
Gemser worked on church liturgy and worship as chairman of a commission responsible for revising ecclesiastical forms. He also contributed to the development of Afrikaans psalms, hymns, biblical commentaries and religious educational material.
Scholarship
Old Testament interpretation
Gemser combined historical-critical scholarship with a theological understanding of Scripture. He accepted that biblical writings reflected the languages, cultures, historical limitations and literary conventions of their human authors. At the same time, he regarded the texts as witnesses to divine revelation and rejected both biblical fundamentalism and a liberal approach that reduced Scripture to a purely human cultural document.[1]
He described responsible biblical interpretation as requiring historical and literary analysis, knowledge of the ancient Near East, sensitivity to the distinctive message of each biblical text, and an awareness of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. He resisted the imposition of later doctrinal systems upon the wording of the biblical text.
Gemser's approach was associated with the Dutch “ethical” theological tradition. In this tradition, religious truth was not treated primarily as a set of abstract propositions but as something encountered through the historical witness and lived faith expressed in Scripture.[2]
Wisdom literature
Gemser was best known internationally for his scholarship on Old Testament wisdom literature. His work included commentaries on Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, as well as comparative studies of Israelite, Egyptian, Babylonian and Sumerian wisdom traditions.[6]
His commentary Sprüche Salomos, first published in 1937 in the German series Handbuch zum Alten Testament, became one of his most influential works. A substantially revised second edition appeared posthumously in 1963. Gemser incorporated newly available Egyptian and Sumerian parallels while emphasising the distinctive theological and ethical characteristics of Israelite wisdom.[6]
He characterised biblical wisdom as practical knowledge of life and the art of living. In his interpretation, Israelite wisdom was distinguished by its monotheism, its integration of moral conduct with righteousness and its relative lack of systematic philosophical abstraction.[1]
In July 1961 Gemser addressed the Third World Congress of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on “The Spiritual Structure of Biblical and Aphoristic Wisdom”.[6]
Biblical law and Hebrew institutions
Gemser made lasting contributions to the study of biblical law. His 1953 essay “The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law” examined the explanatory clauses attached to biblical commands. He argued that these clauses revealed the religious, ethical and social reasoning underlying Israelite law rather than merely stating legal penalties.
His 1955 study “The rîb- or Controversy-Pattern in Hebrew Mentality” examined the language and structure of disputes, accusations and legal controversies in the Hebrew Bible. The article became influential in later studies of prophetic lawsuits, biblical legal rhetoric and covenant disputes.
Gemser also wrote on elders in ancient Israel, Hebrew conceptions of humanity, royal ideology, the Psalms, prophecy, the Decalogue and the relationship between biblical law and ancient Near Eastern legal traditions.
Hebrew language and translation
Gemser's Hebreeuse Spraakkuns: Vormleer, sinsleer en oefeninge, published in 1953, was one of the principal Afrikaans-language grammars of Biblical Hebrew. It brought together morphology, syntax and exercises designed for South African theological and language students. Revised editions continued to be used after his departure from Pretoria.
He argued that Bible translation should be based on philological and textual evidence rather than doctrinal assumptions. In articles published during the 1940s, he discussed textual corrections to the Afrikaans Bible and set out principles for translating biblical writings from their source languages.[4]
Gemser was a co-editor of Die Bybel met Verklarende Aantekeninge, published in 1958. He prepared or supervised annotations for Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, Daniel 7–12, Hosea and Habakkuk.[1]
Modern Hebrew literature
Gemser also introduced modern Hebrew literature to Afrikaans readers. During the late 1920s and early 1930s he translated stories and literary pieces by writers including Hayim Nahman Bialik and David Frischmann for the Afrikaans journal Die Nuwe Brandwag.[8]
His translations were collected in Nieu-Hebreeuse Kortverhale in 1933. He also published an introductory essay on modern Hebrew literature. These publications contributed to literary exchange between Hebrew and Afrikaans at a time when both languages were undergoing institutional and literary development.
Academic freedom and political theology
Gemser supported the development of Afrikaans as a university and scholarly language, and he participated actively in Afrikaans cultural and academic life. He nevertheless warned against treating national identity as an absolute religious value.
In the 1930s and 1940s he opposed efforts to define scholarship at Afrikaans universities according to a prescribed “Christian-national” philosophy. His interventions contributed to a University of Pretoria resolution defending academic freedom and the international character of scientific enquiry.[4]
Gemser also resisted politically motivated proposals to remove Hebrew from university curricula. Such proposals were influenced partly by pro-Nazi and antisemitic sentiment. In his 1940 essay “Nasionalisme en universalisme in die prediking van die Ou Testament”, he warned that nationalism could become an ideology centred on race, blood and land and argued that biblical faith ultimately directed humanity beyond national self-assertion.[4]
In his article on the prophet Amos, published in the first volume of HTS, Gemser criticised a form of civil religion in which national self-interest transformed worship into a political instrument. He maintained that divine election or blessing could not be used to justify ethnic self-exaltation.[4]
Gemser's position on South African racial policy became most explicit after his return to the Netherlands. In 1961 he published “‘Mabdiel’ of ‘mekabbeets’ (‘scheidingmaker’ of ‘bijeenbrenger’)”, examining claims that the Old Testament portrayed God principally as a separator of nations. Gemser argued that biblical divisions among peoples were not based on colour or assumptions of racial superiority. Israel's separation had a religious purpose and was accompanied by a movement through which people from other nations could be included.[1]
Drawing on Isaiah 56, he concluded that God was not eternally the one who separated but the one who gathered. In the prophetic vision, he argued, ethnic separation did not constitute the final purpose of God.[1]
In a separate 1961 discussion of the church and apartheid, Gemser questioned whether the NHK, by intending to remain exclusively a church for white people, was placing itself outside the earthly fellowship of the universal Christian church. His arguments represented a rejection of attempts to use the Old Testament as a theological foundation for apartheid.[4]
Gemser's criticism should nevertheless be understood in the context of his long association with the NHK and Afrikaans institutions. He had participated sympathetically in South African church and academic life for nearly three decades. His later writings reflected an increasing concern that Afrikaner nationalism and compulsory racial separation had displaced the universal claims of Christianity.
Return to Groningen
Gemser was required to retire from the University of Pretoria when he reached the age of 65 in 1955. The University of Groningen offered him the vacant chair in Old Testament Studies following the departure of Theodorus Christiaan Vriezen. Gemser had previously declined appointments at Groningen in 1927 and 1937 but accepted the later offer as an opportunity for what he described as a final, shorter period of academic work.[6][2]
He delivered his inaugural lecture, Vragen rondom de patriarchenreligie (Questions concerning the religion of the patriarchs), on 22 April 1958. The lecture considered the historical and religious setting of the biblical patriarchal traditions and drew comparisons between ancient migrations and the historical experiences of the Voortrekkers.[1]
Gemser concluded his formal teaching career on 6 October 1960 with a farewell lecture on the object of moral judgement in the Old Testament. He was succeeded at Groningen by A. S. van der Woude.[6]
After retirement Gemser continued writing, attending academic conferences and travelling. In 1961 he visited Israel and delivered his paper on biblical wisdom at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Gemser was appointed a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honour then used for distinguished Dutch scholars residing abroad.[6]
On the evening of 15 November 1962, Gemser attended a piano recital in the University of Groningen's Academy Building. He became ill during the interval and died before medical assistance could revive him. He was 72.[6][7]
Legacy
Gemser is regarded as one of the principal founders of university-level Old Testament and Semitic scholarship in South Africa. He established institutional structures, developed Afrikaans teaching materials, trained scholars who later occupied chairs at several South African universities, and integrated South African biblical scholarship into Dutch, German and wider international academic networks.[3][2]
His scholarship was notable for combining detailed linguistic and historical research with theological interpretation. His studies of wisdom literature, motive clauses in biblical law and the Hebrew controversy pattern continued to be cited in later Old Testament research.
Special issues of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies were dedicated to Gemser on his 60th birthday in 1950 and his 70th birthday in 1961. His former colleague Adrianus van Selms and successor A. S. van der Woude later edited Adhuc Loquitur: Collected Essays of Dr. B. Gemser, published by Brill in 1968.[9]
Later assessments have also emphasised his resistance to the ideological control of scholarship and his eventual rejection of biblical arguments for permanent racial separation. Together with Van Selms and Albert Geyser, he formed part of an early tradition of critical biblical scholarship at Pretoria that challenged the subordination of theology to Afrikaner nationalist politics.[4]
Selected publications
- (1924). De beteekenis der persoonsnamen voor onze kennis van het leven en denken der oude Babyloniërs en Assyriërs. Wageningen: H. Veenman & Zonen.
- (1929). De Spreuken van Salomo I. Groningen: J. B. Wolters.
- (1931). De Spreuken van Salomo II, Prediker, Hooglied. Groningen: J. B. Wolters.
- (1933). Nieu-Hebreeuse Kortverhale. Pretoria.
- (1937). Sprüche Salomos. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
- (1942). Die komende Christus: Oordenkings oor die Christusprofesieë van die Ou Testament. Pretoria: J. H. de Bussy.
- (1943). “Die Godsgetuienis van Amos.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 1: 9–21.
- (1945). “Die organiese eenheid van objektiewe Bybelondersoek.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 2: 49–63.
- (1945). “Beginsels van Bybelvertaling.” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 2: 115–128.
- (1950). De Psalmen III. Groningen: J. B. Wolters.
- (1953). Hebreeuse Spraakkuns: Vormleer, sinsleer en oefeninge. Pretoria: J. L. van Schaik.
- (1953). “The Importance of the Motive Clause in Old Testament Law.” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum. 1: 50–66.
- (1955). “The rîb- or Controversy-Pattern in Hebrew Mentality.” Supplements to Vetus Testamentum. 3: 120–137.
- (1958). Vragen rondom de patriarchenreligie. Groningen: J. B. Wolters.
- (1958). Die Bybel met Verklarende Aantekeninge. Co-editor. Cape Town: Verenigde Protestantse Uitgewers.
- (1961). “‘Mabdiel’ of ‘mekabbeets’ (‘scheidingmaker’ of ‘bijeenbrenger’).” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 16 (4).
- (1961). “Een beschouwing over de kerk en het politieke apartheidsbeleid in Zuid-Afrika.”
- (1963). Sprüche Salomos. 2nd revised edition. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
- (1968). Adhuc Loquitur: Collected Essays of Dr. B. Gemser. Edited by A. van Selms and A. S. van der Woude. Leiden: Brill.