Albrecht Alt was a leading German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Protestant

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

 theologian

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

.

Eldest son of a Lutheran minister, he completed high school in Ansbach

Ansbach

Ansbach, originally Onolzbach, is a town in Bavaria, Germany. It is the capital of the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Ansbach is situated southwest of Nuremberg and north of Munich, on the Fränkische Rezat, a tributary of the Main river. As of 2004, its population was 40,723.Ansbach...

 and studied theology at the Friedrich-Alexander-University

Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg

The Universität Erlangen Nürnberg is a university in the cities of Erlangen and Nuremberg in Bavaria, Germany. It is the second largest state university in Bavaria, having five Schools, 308 chairs, and 12,000 employees. There are 28,735 students enrolled at the university, of which about 2/3 are...

 in Erlangen

Erlangen

Erlangen is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the river Regnitz and its large tributary, the Untere Schwabach.Erlangen has more than 100,000 inhabitants....

 and the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. From 1907 to 1908 he was a candidate for the office of Lecturer at Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 Predigerseminar (Lutheran preachers seminary). In 1908 he was a scholarship holder of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology of the Holy Land in Jerualem and undertook his first Palestine journey. In the same year he became a supervisor of the theological College in Greifswald

Greifswald

Greifswald , officially, the University and Hanseatic City of Greifswald is a town in northeastern Germany. It is situated in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, at an equal distance of about from Germany's two largest cities, Berlin and Hamburg. The town borders the Baltic Sea, and is crossed...

. In 1909 he wrote Israel and Egypt as part of his Doctorate at the University of Greifswald.

In 1912 he became an extraordinary professor in Greifswald, an in 1914 was named by Bernhard Duhm as a Professor at the University of Basel

University of Basel

The University of Basel is located in Basel, Switzerland, and is considered to be one of leading universities in the country...

. During the First World War he served as a Leader in the Cartography Department of the German Eastern Army. After the war he was again appointed a professor in Basel, and in 1920 Provost at the Evangelical Redeemer Church in Jerusalem. In 1921 he was appointed to the University of Halle

University of Halle-Wittenberg

The Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg , also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg within Saxony-Anhalt, Germany...

, although he was given one year off for completion of his activities in Jerusalem, in 1923 to the University of Leipzig.

Major works

• Der Gott der Väter: Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte der israelitischen Religion, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1929, (Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament; 48 = Folge 3, H. 12). Translation of the title: 'The God of the fathers. A contribution to the prehistory of Israelite religion'.
• Der Stadtstaat Samaria, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954, (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse; vol. 101,5). Translation of the title: 'The city state of Samaria'.
• Die Herkunft der Hyksos in neuer Sicht, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954, (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse; vol. 101,6). Translation of the title: 'A New View on the origin of the Hyksos'.
• Essays on Old Testament history and religion [Kleine Schriften zur Geschichte des Volkes Israel. Auswahl in einem Band (besides the first edition of 1959 in 2 vols.), Berlin: Evangelische Verlags-Anstalt, 1962; English], R.A. Wilson (trl.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1966, 274 pp.
• "Origins of Israelite law" [Die Ursprünge des israelitischen Rechts, Leipzig: Hirzel, 1934, (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-Historische Klasse; vol. 86,1); English], in: Albrecht Alt, Essays on Old Testament history and religion, R.A. Wilson (trl.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1966, pp. 101–171.
• Völker und Staaten Syriens im frühen Altertum, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1936, (Der alte Orient: gemeinverständliche Darstellungen; vol. 34,4). Translation of the title: 'Peoples and states of Syria in early antiquity'.
• Where Jesus worked: Towns and villages of Galilee studied with the help of local history [Stätten des Wirkens Jesu in Galiläa territorialgeschichtlich betrachtet (1949); English], Kenneth Grayston (trl.), London: Epworth Press, c1961.