This is an unusual Festchrift in that it marks neither a birthday nor a retirement, but the fiftieth anniversary of the award of a doctorate to Rudolf Smend in Basle. It is the highest possible praise of the volume to say that it is worthy of the dedicatee, surely the most eminent German Old Testament scholar of our day. Smend's own interests in the history of biblical scholarship are here celebrated in excellent pieces on W. M. L. de Wette (Hans-Mathys, John Rogerson, Ekkehard Stegemann – the last helpfully reproducing the whole of de Wette's two decisive pieces on the origin of Deuteronomy, both in the original Latin and in a German translation), and Julius Wellhausen (Uwe Becker and Tilman Seidensticker). But there is also the fascinating tale of how Smend came to win an industrially sponsored prize for his own dissertation (Martin Kessler), an investigation into the significance of Jan Hus for the early Reformation (Thomas Kaufmann), a description of the picture of Moses in early modern times (Christoph Bultmann), a study of Spinoza (Günther Arnold), several discussions of matters more directly theological (Martin Wallraff, Konrad Schmid, Michael Trowitzsch, Hans Maier), and thoughts on the place of the history of scholarship in the work of Adolf Jülicher (Otto Merk). A more programmatic note is provided near the beginning of the volume by Andreas Urs Sommer's analysis of the historicisation of philosophy and theology in the modern world. If any demonstration were needed of the importance of Forschungsgeschichte, this volume would provide it, as do the many writings of Rudolf Smend himself. German biblical scholarship is deeply aware of its own rootedness in the intellectual history of modern times, and Anglo-American study has many lessons to learn from this. These essays should stimulate many to take an interest in the detail of past scholarship. Smend's own dissertation in Basle in 1958 was a study of the work of de Wette, and it is fittingly honoured in these distinguished treatments of the history of biblical scholarship.