Prof dr hans dieter betz biography

American academic

This article is about the biblical scholar. For the physicist, see Hans-Dieter Betz.

Hans Dieter Betz (born May 21, ) is an American scholar of the New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Chicago. He has made influential contributions to research on Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the Sermon on the Mount and the Greco-Roman context of Early Christianity.

Biography

Hans Dieter Betz was born and raised in Germany. He received his theological education at Bethel and Mainz in Germany, and at Cambridge in England. Having studied with Herbert Braun, he graduated as Doctor of Theology and "Habilitation" at Mainz (, ); Dr. h.c. Erlangen. His list of scholarly publications includes New Testament literature, esp. on Paul's letters, as well as on Hellenistic history of religions, writing in English and German. He served also as editor of the lexica "Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart" (4th ed. ) and "Religion Past and Present" (). He was a Reformed Tradition pastor until he went to the United States in From to , he taught at the School of Theology (now Claremont School of Theology) and the Claremont Graduate School (now Claremont Graduate University) in California. From on he taught as the Shailer Mathews Professor of New Testament at the University of Chicago Divinity School and in the Department of New Testament and Early Christian Literature in the Humanities Division. He is an ordained member of the Presbytery of Chicago, United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Betz is also a past president of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research (), the Society of Biblical Literature (), and the international Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas ().

The Sermon on the Mount

In his essay "The Sermon on the Mount: Its Literary Genre and Function," Betz discusses the problem of scholars in attempting to determine where the Sermon on the Mount fits in terms

Dr. Theol. Habil. (University of Mainz)

The general research interests of Hans Dieter Betz concern early Christian literature and its literary, religious, and cultural environment, the Greco-Roman world. Specific New Testament projects include the letters of the apostle Paul, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Gospel of Matthew. In addition to many articles and reviews, he has published three commentaries in the Hermeneia series: Galatians; 2 Corinthians 8 and 9; and The Sermon on the Mount. He has also published several monographs, including Lucian of Samosata and the New Testament; Discipleship and Imitation of Christ; The Apostle Paul and the Socratic Tradition; Essays on the Sermon on the Mount; and two edited volumes on Plutarch and early Christian literature. Five volumes of his collected essays (in English and in German) have appeared () under the titles Hellenismus und Urchristentum; Synoptische Studien; Paulinische Studien; Antike und Christentum; Paulinische Theologie und Religionsgeschichte. The volume of translated magical papyri (The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells), which he edited, has been published in a second, paperback edition (). A critical edition and commentary of PGM IV appeared under the title The 'Mithras Liturgy' ().  He recently published Studies in Paul's Letter to the Philippians (). 

Professor Betz is also involved in international research and publication projects, especially as editor-in-chief of the nine-volume lexicon Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart (fourth edition, ). The English-language translation – Religion Past and Present – was completed with the publication of vol. 14 (). 

nowcast success story: From university research project to quality leader in commercial lightning detection

The success story of nowcast began at the end of the s within the framework of a research project led by Prof. Hans-Dieter Betz at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich.

At this point in time, Prof. Betz had gained some initial experience with the few existing lightning detection systems. He was certain that, by optimizing the measurement principle and improving certain components, considerable enhancement of the quality – in particular in location accuracy and sensitivity – could be achieved. Hence, the development of system components and software concepts for high-precision lightning data collection became the primary research challenge.

How the high-precision lightning detection network LINET (Lightning DetectionNetwork) made and engineered in Germany evolved.

After years of intensive research, it was shown that LINET, the lightning detection network developed by the research group, actually did boast a number of significant improvements in comparison with the existing lightning detection systems. Till today, these patented improvements form the basis for the unsurpassed precision of the lightning detection network.