RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
(Economus Oetinger
tion of short papers) ; Programma de pane angelorum ad Psalm, xxxviii. 25 (1731); De Scopo Evangelii Johannis (Leipsic, 1732); Conjecturarum de difficilioribus Sacrce Scriptural locis centuria (1733); Disputatio de raptu non Pauli apostoli, sed alterius cujusdam in paradisum ad II Cor. xii. 1, 9
(1737); and above all, his Freie Untersuchung iiber einige Buchcr des Alten Testaments (ed. G. I. L. Vogel, 1771), which created a great sensation. Bibliography: Grosses Universallexikon, xxv. 539—543, Leipsic, 1740; J. D. Michaelia, Orientalische und exegetische Bxbliothek, ii. 44, iii. 1-58, vi. 24-154, 35 parts, Frankfort, 1771-91; E. F. K. Rosenmuller, Handbuch filr die Literaiur der biblischen Kritik und Exegese, i. 109-111, Gottingen, 1797; ADB, xxiv. 147; Vigouroux, Dictionnaire, fasc. xxviii., cols. 1747-48.
OEHLER, u'-ler, GUSTAV FRIEDRICH VON:
German Lutheran theologian; b. at Ebingen (43 m. s.s.e. of Stuttgart), Wurttemberg, June 10, 1812; d. at Tubingen Feb. 19, 1872, He early showed a remarkable aptitude for languages, and pursued his studies at Tubingen under Schmid and Steudel, and later at Berlin under the orientalists Bopp, Petermann, and Schott. In 1834 he became a teacher in the missionary institute at Basel, and in 1837 went to Tubingen as repetent. During this period he edited, by request of the family, Steudel's theological lectures on the Old Testament (Berlin, 1840). In 1840 he was made professor at the seminary and pastor at Schonthal in Wurttemberg. Here he published in 1845 Prolegomena zur Theologie des Alten Testaments, and the same year received calls to Marburg and Breslau, and accepted the latter. At Breslau, Oehler took sides against the union of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, then being agitated, and declared himself in favor of confessional Lutheranism. In 1846 he refused a call to Rostock, but in 1852 returned to Tubingen to fill the position of ephorus (director of the seminary), lately made vacant by Wilhelm Hoffmann's transition to Berlin, and as professor of Old-Testament theology at the university.
At Tubingen, as at Breslau, Oehler developed a wonderful industry and a most conscientious performance of the duties of his professorship. He lectured on the theology of the Old Testament, on Isaiah, Job, the Psalms, Messianic prophecy, the Minor Prophets, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and Christian symbolics. Oehler's lectures were largely attended, like those of his colleagues, Baur and Beck. They were successful in laying bare the rich contents of the Old Testament, and were intended to counteract the antipathy to the Old Testament, which was due largely to Schleiermacher. He laid his foundations in exact philological investigations. His conception of the Old Testament was that of a progressive and growing revelation toward the standard of the New Testament. The Old Testament was to him a record of revelation, in which the plan of God was realized in part, the New Testament forming the consummation. He adopted some of the results of modern criticism, and acknowledged the existence of several different hands in the composition of the Pentateuch, and two authors for Isaiah.
Oehler was not a prolific author. He was never sufficiently satisfied with his work to publish much. Most important were his articles, forty in number,
written for the first edition of the Herzog Realencyklopadie. His Gesammelte Seminarreden (Tubingen, 1872), and his Theologie des Alten Testaments (2 vols., 1873-74; Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1874-75, New York, 1883) were edited by his son. The latter work was long considered the best in its department, but is now superseded by later works, such as those of Schultz and Dillmann. His Lehrbuch der Symbolik (1876) was prepared for print by Johann Delitzsch.
Bibliography: Worte der Erinnerung an Gustav Friedrich von Oehler, Tubingen, 1872; Joseph Knapp, Gustav Friedrich Oehler, ein Lebensbild, Tubingen, 1876.
OESTERLEY, WILLIAM OSCAR EMIL : Church of England; b. at Calcutta July 13, 1866. He received his education at Brighton College and at Jesus College, Cambridge (B.A., 1889; M.A., 1893; B.D., 1902; D.D., 1908); became curate at Houghton-le-Spring, Durham, 1891, and at St. Botolph, Colchester, 1895; secretary of Parochial Missions to the Jews at Home and Abroad, 1897; secretary and sub-warden of the Society of Sacred Study, London, 1908; warden of the International Society of the Apocrypha, 1908; and examiner in the Hebrew and Greek Testaments for the University of London, 1909. He is the author of St. Francis ofAssisi: Lessons from a noble Life, in six Addresses (London, 1901); Walks in Jewry (1901); Studies in the Greek and Latin Versions of Amos (1902); Old Latin Texts of the Minor Prophets (Oxford, 1904) ; Codex Taurinensis (Y) (1906); The Religion and Worship of the Synagogue (London, 1907); The Evolution of the Messianic Idea (1908); Our Bible Text (1909); The Doctrine of the Last Things; Jewish and Christian (1909); The Jewish Doctrine of Mediation (1910); The Psalms in the Jewish Church (1910); and contributed Philemon and James to the Expositor's Greek Testament (1910), and Ecclesiasticus to the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1910); and has been editor of Church and Synagogue since 1897.
OETINGER, u'ting-er, FRIEDRICH CHRIS-
TOPH: Theologian and theosophist of Wurttemberg; b. in Goppingen May 6, 1702; d. in Murrhardt Feb. 10, 1782. His is the most characteristic figure in the ecclesiastical history of Wurttemberg during the eighteenth century. After five years' study in the University of Tubingen (1722-27) and a year of travel (1729-30), he was private teacher in Tubingen (1731-38), with an interval devoted to another journey (1733-37), during which time he came into close contact with the Moravians and Zinzendorf, later, however, breaking with them. He was pastor in three places: Hirsau, near Calw, 1738-43, Schnaitheim, 1743^6, and Walddorf, 1746-52; dean in Weinsberg, 1752-59, and Herrenberg, 1759-66; while at the close of his active career he was prelate in Murrhardt (1766-82). In his choice of a profession, his aim to be in the immediate service of God decided him in favor of theology and against jurisprudence. At the university, the theology and theosophy of Jacob Bohme (q.v.) gained with him the ascendency over the rationalistic philosophy of Christian Wolff (q. v.); at the same time he was also a student of the Biblical scholar Johann Albrecht Bengel (q. v.) . The study of
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