Helmut Koester
Helmut Heinrich Koester was an American scholar who specialized in the New Testament and early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. His research was primarily in the areas of New Testament interpretation, history of early Christianity, and archaeology of the early Christian period.
Life
Koester was born in Hamburg, Germany. He served in the Wehrmacht Navy from 1943–1945 and was released from a POW camp in 1945 and studied under Rudolf Bultmann at the University of Marburg. He submitted his dissertation in 1954 and then became an assistant to Günther Bornkamm at the University of Heidelberg from 1954-1956. Koester began teaching at Harvard Divinity School in 1958 and became John H. Morison Research Professor of Divinity and Winn Research Professor of Ecclesiastical History in 2000. Koester was co-editor and chair of the New Testament editorial board of the commentary series "Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible" published by Fortress Press. He served as the president of the Society of Biblical Literature, was member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Koester was an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church. In 1953, he married Gisela Harrassowitz, with whom he had four children, named Reinhild, Almut, Ulrich, and Heiko. He had three grandchildren including Christopher, Lukas, and Alexander. He died on January 1, 2016, at the age of 89.