Background
Callenberg was born in Molschleben of peasant parents.
theologian university professor writer
Callenberg was born in Molschleben of peasant parents.
Beginning in 1715 he studied philology and theology at the University of Halle. Callenberg studied Arabic under him. Besides Arabic, Callenberg also studied Persian and Turkish.
Sometime before 1720 Salomon Negri, professor of Syriac and Arabic at Rome, stayed in Halle for six months. In this office he printed the Gospel and other Christian books in the Judæo-German dialect, and distributed them among the Jews, with the assistance of the Jewish physician Doctor Heinrich Christian Immanuel Frommann who translated the Gospel of Lukas with commentary, which was revised and reprinted by Raphael Biesenthal in the 19th century. Frommann"s records named him only as typist, but Callenberg was not proficient in Hebrew at all.
Anyhow he was a great support to Doctor Frommann.
He also sent missionaries to other European countries, and was a patron of converted Jews. The Institutum Judaicum existed until 1791.
In 1727 Callenberg was appointed extraordinary professor of theology at the University of Halle, and in 1735 professor of philology. He died, aged 66, at Halle.
Among the works Callenberg published are the following:
Prima rudivuenta linguse arabicx, Halle, 1729
Scriptores de reliçione duhammedica, 1734
Spécimen bibliolhecx arabicx, 1736
Arabic translations of the New Testament, The Imitation of Christ, Luther"s Catechism, et cetera