Käsemann, Ernst

(b. 1906)

   Theologian.

   Käsemann was born in Bochum- Dalhausen, Germany, and he was a student of bultmann at Marburg. During the Nazi period, he was a leading member of the Confessing Church and was imprisoned for a short time in 1937. After the Second World War, he taught at Mainz, Göttingen and Tübingen. One of the most eminent New Testament specialists of his day, he was the author of Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen, which arguably started a new ‘quest’ for the historical Jesus. His commentary on St paul’s Epistle to the Romans was both scholarly in its methods and radical in its conclusions. Käsemann’s work has been influential on generations of students both in Germany and in the Englishspeaking world.

   Ernst Käsemann, Jesus Means Freedom: A Polemical Survey of the New Testament (1969);

   N.T. Wright, A New Tübingen School? Ernst Käsemann and his Commentary on Romans (1982).