Education
He studied theology at the Universities of Göttingen, Berlin and Bonn, earning his doctorate in 1874 with a dissertation on Arabic poetry.
theologian university professor parson
He studied theology at the Universities of Göttingen, Berlin and Bonn, earning his doctorate in 1874 with a dissertation on Arabic poetry.
In 1889 he returned to the University of Göttingen as a professor of Biblical science and Semitic languages. Smend is largely remembered for critical examination of the Old Testament, particularly in his research involving stories of the Hexateuch. In 1907 with Alfred Rahlfs (1865–1935) he created the Septuaginta-Unternehmen (Septuagint Venture) in the Göttingen Society of Sciences.
Smend died in Ballenstedt.