Rolf Rendtorff (10 May 1925 – 1 April 2014) was Professor of Old Testament at the University of Heidelberg from 1963 to 1990. He was one of the more significant German Old Testament scholars from the latter half of the twentieth-century and published extensively on various topics related to the Hebrew Bible.
Rendtorff was especially notable for his contributions to the question of the origins of the Pentateuch, his adoption of a "canonical approach" to Old Testament theology, and his concerns over the relationship between Jews and Christians.
Rendtorff was born in Preetz, Holstein, Germany on 10 May 1925. After serving in the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during World War II, he studied theology from 1945 to 1950 at the universities of Kiel, Göttingen, and Heidelberg. He completed his doctoral studies under the supervision of Gerhard von Rad in 1950, then returned to Göttingen to finish a habilitation under Walther Zimmerli in 1953. Rendtorff’s first academic post was as professor of Old Testament at the Berlin Church University (Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin) from 1958–1963, where he later served as rector during the 1962–1963 school year. In 1963, he was appointed to a chair at the University of Heidelberg, working in the Old Testament department alongside Gerhard von Rad and Claus Westermann. He filled this post for twenty-seven years until his retirement in 1990, serving in several administrative positions over this time, including dean of the theological faculty during 1964–1965 and university rector from 1970–1972. Rendtorff died on 1 April 2014.
Rendtorff published many works on Old Testament subjects, but one of the most notable was his 1977 book, Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (translated into English in 1990 as The Problem of the Transmission of the Pentateuch). The book was a study of the question of Pentateuchal origins (the question of how the first five books of the bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy – came to be written), and appeared at the same time as two other important books, John Van Seters's Abraham in History and Tradition (1975), and Hans Heinrich Schmid's Der sogenannte Jahwist (The So-called Yahwist) (1976). The three studies, published almost at the same time, inaugurated a heated discussion in scholarly circles on the validity of the then-dominant consensus on Pentateuchal origins, the Documentary Hypothesis. Rendtorff's work in particular has been described as "certainly one of the most important contributions to Old Testament scholarship in the twentieth century."
Die Gesetze in der Priesterschrift: Eine gattungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, vol. 2/44, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1954
Gottes Geschichte: Der Anfang unseres Weges im Alten Testament, Hamburg: Furche-Verlag, 1962
Studien zur Geschichte des Opfers im Alten Israel, Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament, vol. 24, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1967
Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament, Theologische Bücherei, vol. 57, Munich: Kaiser, 1975
Das überlieferungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, vol. 147, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977
The Problem of the Process of Transmission in the Pentateuch, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series, vol. 89, translated by John J. Scullion, Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990
Das Alte Testament: Eine Einführung, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983
The Old Testament: An Introduction, translated by John Bowden, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986
Kanon und Theologie: Vorarbeiten zu einer Theologie des Alten Testaments, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991
Canon and Theology: Overtures to an Old Testament Theology, Overtures to Biblical Theology, translated by Margaret Kohl, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1993
Die Bundesformel: Eine exegetisch-theologische Untersuchung, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien, vol. 160, Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995
The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation, Old Testament Studies, translated by Margaret Kohl, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998
Theologie des Alten Testaments: Ein kanonischer Entwurf, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999–2001
The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament, Tools for Biblical Studies, vol. 7, translated by David E. Orton, Leiden: Deo, 2005