A. Dillmann

Christian Friedrich August Dillmann (April 25, 1823 - July 7, 1894) was a German orientalist and biblical scholar. The son of a Württemberg teacher, he was born in Illingen. He was educated at the University of Tübingen, where he became a student and friend of Heinrich Ewald, and studied with Ferdinand Christian Baur, although he did not join the new Tübingen school. For some time he worked as a pastor in Sersheim, not far from his native place, but he soon felt that his studies required all his time. He devoted himself to the study of Ethiopian manuscripts in the libraries of Paris, London and Oxford, and this work caused a revival of Ethiopian research in the 19th century. In 1847 and 1848, he prepared catalogs of Ethiopian manuscripts at the British Museum (now the British Library) and the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He then began work on the publication of the Ethiopian Bible. Returning to Tübingen in 1848, in 1853 he was appointed extraordinary professor. He subsequently became a professor of philosophy at Kiel University (1854) and theology at Giessen (1864) and Berlin (1869), where he replaced Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg.