Carl Paul Caspari (1814–1892)

Monument to German-Norwegian theologian and orientalist Carl Paul Caspari (1814–1892), professor at the University of Christiania

Carl Paul Caspari was a German-Norwegian evangelical-Lutheran theologian and orientalist of the 19th century. Born in Dessau in 1814, he studied theology and oriental languages, converted from Judaism to Christianity, and in 1857 was appointed professor of Old Testament and oriental languages at the University of Christiania, today's Oslo, where he taught until his death in 1892. Caspari was regarded as one of the foremost Old Testament scholars of his era. The monument in Oslo commemorates a scholar who bridged German and Norwegian intellectual life across the 19th century.