Günther Zuntz
German-born classical philologist (1902–1992)
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Günther Zuntz (28 January 1902 – 3 April 1992), German-English classical philologist, professor of Hellenistic Greek and Bible scholar.
Life and career
He obtained a D.Phil. from the University of Marburg in 1928 and was later a professor at the University of Manchester.
Zuntz was born in Berlin in 1902. In 1933 he emigrated to England, because of racial persecutions.[1]
Scholarship
In 1971, Zuntz published his Persephone, which contained an edition of the Gold Tablets with commentary.[2] The initial set of tablets was discovered in the late 19th century by Domenico Comparetti, who believed they belonged to an "Orphic and Bacchic" mystery cult.[3] Zuntz, whose work was published in a period of relative scepticism in Orphic studies, argued against Comparetti's interpretation, instead viewing the texts as Pythagorean.[4] His edition contained several new tablets which had been discovered since Comparetti's time: three from near Eleutherna in Crete, and one from Pharsalos in Thessaly.[5] Zuntz also introduced a division of the tablets into two groups, which he labelled A and B. The A tablets all derive from Thurii, Italy, and contain requests to gods of the underworld for release from repeated reincarnation, while the B group contains all of the remaining tablets.[4]
Zuntz examined the Greek text of the Pauline epistles.[6]
Publications
- Zuntz G. (1953). The Text of the Epistles. London: Wipf & Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55635-372-7.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help) - Zuntz, G. Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971. Internet Archive.