Hans Conzelmann

German theologian and New Testament scholar (1915 1989)

Hans Conzelmann (27 October 1915 – 20 June 1989) was a Protestant, German theologian and New Testament scholar.

Conzelmann studied at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg (where he was influenced by Hans von Soden and Rudolf Bultmann) and, after World War II (in which he was severely wounded), he became the assistant to Helmut Thielicke at the University of Tübingen. He served at the same time as a pastor and, from 1948, as a religion teacher in a secondary school. In 1951 he submitted his dissertation and, in 1952, his Habilitation (Dr. habil.) at Heidelberg University. He then took a position teaching New Testament at Heidelberg and was called, in 1954, to the University of Zurich, where he was made full professor in 1956. In 1960 he was called to be Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, where he remained until his retirement in 1978.

One of Conzelmann's major works was Die Mitte der Zeit (Tübingen 1954), literally 'The Middle of Time', which was translated into English under the title, The Theology of St. Luke. This work, which approached Lukan theology by way of Redaction Criticism, paved the way for much scholarly discussion in the second half of the twentieth century. Conzelmann, along with other post Bultmannian scholars, challenged the view that Jesus was an apocalyptic figure, but rather focused on the message of Christ as the kingdom of God breaking into the present. This was a challenge to the portrait of Jesus as expecting an imminent eschaton. Conzelmann contends that Jesus' teaching about eschatology is unconnected to his words about God and ethics.