Strothmann, Werner (1907–1996)

Protestant theologian; scholar of Syriac and Near-Eastern studies.

Protestant theologian; scholar of Syriac and Near-Eastern studies. Born on 23 Feb. 1907 in Dortmund, Strothmann studied theology and Near-Eastern languages at the universities of Giessen, Tübingen, Halle, and Göttingen. In 1931 he graduated in theology from Göttingen and received the Ph.D. degree from Tübingen with studies on the Arabic tradition of the writings attributed to the monk Makarios. After having worked at the Septuagint project in Göttingen between 1931 and 1934, he served as a Lutheran pastor near Braunschweig between 1934 and 1962. From 1958 onwards, he held a teaching position in Syriac Church History at the Theological Faculty of Göttingen University. At the same university, he received his Habilitation in 1964 with a study on Yoḥannan Iḥidaya . In 1965, he was appointed professor in Syriac Church History. He tirelessly worked in this field until his death, on 19 June 1996, in Göttingen.

During his years at Göttingen, Strothmann’s focus was on Syriac studies, which he was able to promote vigorously in Germany and to which he attracted a great number of students. He founded the Göttinger Arbeitskreis für syrische Kirchengeschichte, which already in 1968 published the so-called ‘Lagarde-Schrift’, a volume that commemorated the Syriac work of P. A. de Lagarde . In 1971, he organized the first Syriac Conference at Reinhausen, near Göttingen, which was attended by ca. 40 Syriac scholars as well as by the Syr. Orth. Patr. Ignatius Yaʿqub III . Not only did this meeting strengthen the collaboration between Western scholars and the churches of the Syr. tradition, it also gave the impetus for the international Syriac Conferences that subsequently were held every four years, starting in Rome in 1972 (‘Symposium Syriacum’).

Strothmann initiated a large-scale project on the ‘Religious and cultural history of the Near and Middle East’, which was funded by the German Research Council and which, among other things, involved the creation of the series ‘Göttinger Orientforschungen’, with a sub-series ‘Syriaca’ (which includes more than 30 volumes, the majority of which were authored by Strothmann himself). Since Strothmann was primarily a philologist, with a particular interest in Syriac mss. and texts, many of the volumes contain text editions, written with a Syriac typewriter that was developed in the Netherlands. Within the framework of the Göttingen project, he was also instrumental in creating the multi-volume concordance of the Syr. OT, to which he himself contributed a great deal of work. This project made use of newly emerging computer technology (see Computing, Syriac).